I spent this weekend judging 10 through 12-year-olds on their performances in scenes from Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3. I know, normal, right? Even though it was definitely WEIRD, I like (what I know of) Henry VI, so the weekend was definitely not wasted.
   
If you are wondering, I don’t come from a town where middle schoolers are just SO bored that they perform their own interpretations of scenes from Shakespeare’s more obscure plays (but how cool would that be?). This odd exhibition of scenes was actually for the annual DTASC Shakespeare Competition (DTASC stands from Drama Teachers’ Association of Southern California). I’ve graduated from high school so I can no longer complete (sigh), but I am allowed to judge, so in exchange for a few hours I got paid forty-five bucks to eat breakfast, lunch, and to write comments about what I thought was lacking in the relationship between Joan of Arc to the English lords and about how that battle was really, cool, what with the way they used folded up folding chairs as (loud!) swords. It was nice to be able to judge and rank the scenes this time, after competing four times at the high school division (getting to watch the scenes and enjoy them calmly, rather than being so nervous about my group’s own performance that my stomach was too tangled up in knots to really enjoy the other scenes).   

      During other parts of the day I judged monologues and the As You Like It scenes (boring). DTASC is divided up into three divisions. One for middle schoolers, one for seventh-through ninth grades, and one for high schoolers (formerly me!). I have a bunch of friends who were competing, as well as my little brother, so even though  I was calm while judging, standing around with everyone waiting to find out which of their scenes had made it to the next level of competition was NERVE-RACKING. I wasn’t even involved this time and I still wanted to throw up! It’s because my high school’s drama department is tiny and constantly getting in trouble, in addition to being VASTLY overshadowed by our sequiny show choir, so really everything that we DON’T get hurts me a little bit.  

    My brother was in a scene from Richard II (the one where the Duke of York discovers that his son Aumerle was kind of plotting against Henry IV, and so he gets mad and goes to Henry IV to tell him about his traitorous son, except that his wife gets mad at the Duke because Aumerle is her only son and she doesn’t want him to get in trouble, so she sends Aumerle after his father on horseback to ask forgiveness from the King before the Duke tells the king what’s up, and then he does, but then the Duke gets there and tells Henry IV about the plot, and Henry IV gets mad, but before he can do anything, the Duchess of York shows up, and the whole thing is so ridiculous that Henry IV just pardons Aumerle. You know, that scene). They finaled (top 10 out of probably 30 0r so) and went home with an honorable mention. It was impresisve that they made it so far anyway, because theirs was practicly the only straight scene in a room full of scenes with singing, flying chairs, mimed intenstines falling out, et cetera, which is hard to compete with.
   
Our Henry VI scene was third place (!!!!) which was cool, because EVERYONE else spent their allowed eight minutes fitting scenes in from the entire play(s), which mostly consisted of Joan of Arc stuff, Queen Margaret, etc, and ours was the only scene that included Jack Cade and all that stuff. Actually, the scene revolved completely around Jack Cade, in addition to being the ONLY funny scene in a room full of stuff about the wars and fights and stuff.   
   
Okay, enough about the competition, let’s talk about Shakespeare. I’ve only read a version of Henry VI that combined the three plays into two (so that a theater company could easily perform in in two nights), so I can’t truly say that I’ve read it, but at least I can say I pretty much know what’s going on. I really like it, too. It’s an interesting experience reading about (poor) Henry VI, knowing  that his father Henry V accomplished all this cool stuff, while his son really doesn’t get much of a reputation (and then gets assassinated, which is kind of like pouring salt in a wound). I like it even more because I know Richard II almost like the back of my hand, and it’s REALLY cool to read about all of those political fights in Henry VI knowing that Richard II’s supporters in that play TOTALLY said this would happen! (All that divine-right-of-kings stuff). And I like knowing about this stuff in Henry VI when I think about Richard II, because by the time the Bishop of Carlisle (or whoever it is) warns Bolingbroke, Richard’s life already kind of sucks, and I feel kind of bad, so then I feel happy that he’ll sort of be avenged. Three (Henry VI) and four (Prince Edward) generations later, but hey, better late than never! PLUS, Henry VI is way cool, because the pre-Richard III Duke of Glouster makes an appearance, and again, it’s so cooool knowing that as much of a JERK he is in this play, he totally gets what’s coming to him in the next play! Sigh. I love the history plays.         

For the third year in a row, my mother, my tenth grade English teacher and my friends and I attended the Jane Austen Evening, hosted by LAHACAL and the Society for Manners & Merriment in Pasadena, CA, on January 19, 2008.  It was amazingly fun (as usual) and I think it’s probably fair to say that everyone who attended had a good time (and probably heard a lot of giggling…my friends an I ARE teenage girls, after all).

Starting at 4:30ish we enjoyed high tea, complete with lots of scones, tea sandwiches, and tea, among other things (I learned that the presence of meat in the food is what constitutes high tea). Basically, they stuffed us, and it was a good thing that there wasn’t a long enough break between tea and dancing in order for us to leave and get dinner, because none of our dresses would have fit afterwards had we eaten any more.  The dancing began sometime between 6 or 7, and lasted until the night was over four hours later. English County Dancing is the best thing EVER. Whoever invented it should get something special. During tea we were entertained by an interesting lecture about why we dance the English Country Dancing that we do. It involved James II being deposed (or running away) during the Glorious Revolution, running away to France and LouisXIV, and bringing country dancing (which became “contra” dancing) with him.

  This is the dress my mom made me for last year’s Ball (that’s me above on the left).  The lady in the picture next to me made her dress, which a lot of the hardcore people do, which is something I would eventually like to learn how to do.      My best friend EB and I being accomplished young ladies in the lobby.  From bottom to top: Jenna (current president of the John Burroughs High School Jane Austen Appreciation Society, or JAAS for short), moi, EB, Julie, Nicole (who looked fabulous, and who found every single part of her costume at thrift stores. More pictures below) and Connor.   Nicole and Julie having a civilized conversation.  This is my sophomore year English teacher Mrs. Sullivan (in purple) and my mother (in black). I’m not sure which dance this is.       I especially LOVE the black lacy dress the woman on the left is wearing.     

And here are some videos I took during the night:

 Overall, the night was FANTASTIC, and I was thoroughly exhausted by the time the evening was over (my feet, especially). Jenna and I vowed to be able to dance Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot for real this time. We were sort of bitter, because last year we were SUPER excited to dance the complicated part, and we started as we wished as the “One” couple (in many of the dances, the couples designated “Ones” have more to do), and quickly became “Twos” because of the way the dance progressed. This time we made sure that we were positioned convienently, and MAGIC! We got to dance the majority of the dance like we wanted to :)LAHACAL holds dance lessons one and two weeks before the annual ball, and this year I actually attended the “advanced” dancing lessons, which paid off. Not like I’m perfect at them, or anything, but there is NO WAY that I would be able to do the “double figure eights” that one (or two?) of the dances includes. The figure eights in Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot were hard enough when I learned them the first time, but trying to do a figure eight around someone who is ALSO doing a figure eight around someone else, who is ALSO doing one? Hard, to say the least. But I’ve got the hays down at least! (This would all make much more sense if you’d ever been English Country Dancing). However, my FAVVVVORRRITE dance in the history of my dancing experience is the Sir Roger De Coverley, which is apparently an early version of the Virgina Reel (except that I’ve seen videos of the VA Reel on YouTube, and Sir Roger just seems SO much more awesome).  Here’s a video that someone else took of the dance this year:

Okay, even though this is a really good video, just trust me, you can’t completely understand the energy of the Sir Roger de Coverley unless you’re actually dancing it. The best explaination for it that I can think of is Walter Nelson’s (one of the heads of LAHACAL) definition: anarchy. It’s the highest-energy dance of the evening, and everyone is already EXHAUSTED even before the music starts, and then after we’ve been dancing it for a few progressions alreay it SPEEDS UP, and then OhMyGod. Everyone should have to dance this dance just once in their lives to experience its how AMAZINGLY choatic it is.

For more information on historic dances, check out  LAHACAL. Even if you don’t live in Southern California (like me!) there are actually LOADS of historical dancing societies around the world, and you will most likely be able to find one near you (or, in your state, at least). Go check one out!

This past weekend, my parents and my brother and I went to San Diego for a night, and we just happened to run into this big floating object docked in San Diego harbor, which I like to call the HMS SURPRISE!!!! (the boat from Master & Commander, DUHH!) To be honest, I’m pretty sure that the only scenes from the movie that they used this ship were the ones where the camera needed to capture it out at sea, but still, it was pretty AWESOME. Especially because I LOVE M&C. The HMS Surprise is actually the HMS Rose, a reproduction of a ship from that time period, which was purchased for the movie, painted to look like the Surprise, and then purchased by the Maritime Museum, which is why you are now able to see it in San Diego Harbor. And now for some evidence of its AWESOMENESS: 

Tall ships are TALL .

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 Mon frere et moi sur le bateau.

One of the displays about nautical stuff that now occupies the Rose. 

! !

I THINK these are costumes from the movies. There wasn’t a plaque, or anything, but they look suspiciously like the costumes in the images from the movie being displayed.

See? Sort of, anyway.

They probably the filmed all the scenes that take place in the captain’s quarters on the, ick, <em>other</em> set, but <em>if</em> they happened to be filmed on the Rose after all, then tis is were they would have been. I tried to get the clearest shot I could, but there was a display about historical pirates in the way, so I got as close as I could. 

My favorite picture ever.  

A few weekends ago, my friend Kim and I, because we are in college and have nothing to do, went to go see The Jane Austen Book Club because it happened to be playing at the only movie theater within walking distance from our dorms (and because I really wanted to see it). Everything about the movie is kind of hazy for me, but since Jane Austen is one of my Favorite Authors Ever, I figured I must write some sort of a review.

Overall I liked it. Especially Hugh Dancy.

Even with an American accent, he is still amazingly goodlooking and charming. I probably would have seen the movie even if it had been called The F. Scott Fitzgerald Book Club, just to catch a glimpse of my new favorite actor (whom I AM going to marry one day). The clothes were nice, especially Prudie’s (Emily Blunt), and I thought some of the character’s thoughts on Austen were awesome (like how Prudie didn’t exactly appreciate the most recent theatrical adaptation of Mansfield Park, which I certainly didn’t).

The one thing that bothered me, however, was something that one of the characters said during a book club meeting, which was that “You can’t read these novels with wondering if she doesn’t have a little thing for the naughty boys.”

Ummmm. No. Okay, so I haven’t read Persuasion or Northanger Abbey yet, but I’m pretty willing to bet that this idea is WRONG, and was probably just a soundbite that they (foolishly) inserted into the movie so that the trailer would attract a wider variety of people. But sill. Ummm, NO. And now I’m going to tell you why (be warned if you haven’t read the rest of her novels. They will be spoilers galore).

Pride & Prejudice: When Elizabeth Bennet likes Wickham, she doesn’t consider him a bad guy. And when she (and we) discover what a jerk he actually is, we aren’t supposed to have any sort of sympathy left. Trying to run away with Georgianna Darcy is completely horrible, as is his plan to run away with Lydia without any intention of marrying her. Plus, it isn’t as though Wickham or his dialogue is charming enough to make us forget about his disgracefullness. How many people have you ever met who’ve said, “Well, Darcy is nice, but Wickham was so dashing!” And while Mr. Darcy is the one whom we are all supposed to fall in love with, let me remind you of something. If you were reading the novel for the first time and you had no idea how things were going to turn out, Mr. Darcy would (in my mind, anyway), be considered the villian. Before he starts being nice, he’s a complete jerk, with no admirable qualities. And when he does become the good guy, then he’s he’s no longer the jerk, and that’s the end to his “naughtiness”.

Sense & Sensibility: Willoughby is charming, obviously, but the story is told more from Elinor’s point of view than Marianne’s. Elinor doesn’t like him, and we aren’t really supposed to either. And yeah, he does love Marianne, but don’t forget that just like Wickham, he too runs away with someone with no attention of marrying her (which he doesn’t end up doing). I just doubt that in the end, Jane Austen wanted us to like Willoughby more than Colonel Brandon (who, um, doesn’t get some random girl pregnant and than leave his girlfriend back home for someone more wealthy).

Mansfield Par: Even as Henry Crawford is trying to win over Fanny, she resists because she has a bad feeling about him. Plus, she’s in love with Edmund, so why would we (as the audience) be supposed to be rooting for the other guy when Fanny is obviously right? Obviously, in S&S we are rooting for the other guy, but that’s because we know that Marianne is less sensible than Fanny is.

Emma: Frank Churchill is definitely the lesser of all of the “cads” in the Jane Austen I’ve read, and while he is undeniably charming, Mr. Knightly is just So Much Cooler. Again, I find it hard to believe that even after Emma and Knightly end up together at the end, Jane Austen would want us to wish Emma had married Frank instead.

That’s the end of this rant. I might sound like a snob for saying this, but this is my blog, and I’m going to say it anyway: If you think that an Austen heroine ended up with the wrong guy, or you prefer the “naughty” ones to the nice ones, than you probably don’t understand the novel.

Long time no post.

In my (eight-units-for-each-of-my-three-quarters!) Humanities Class (which is HARRRD, by the way. Like, way harder than any class I’ve ever taken), we’re talking about enthymems, paradigms, Aristotle, and all of that silly stuff. Stuff that’s REALLY hard to wrap my mind around, if you couldn’t already tell. Anyway, I was sitting in one of the lecture halls recently, seriously considering slitting my writs and/or dropping the class, when a picture of Euegene Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People showed up on the screen.

Which was super cool, because we had talked about that very same painting in my AP European History class two years ago. Anyway, what our lecturer was saying started to make sense (except I don’t remember if he was talking about it in the context of an enthymeme or a paradigm, something I should figure out before I write the essay due this Wednesday, which is only worth THIRTY PERCENT of my grade). Anyway, we talked about how the painting shows a revolution led by a half-naked woman holding a flag. Since many people would consider a half-naked woman to be a good thing, then the painting is supposed to convince them that the revolution she is associated with must be a good thing too. Pretty cool stuff, now that’s making (relatively) more sense.

The painting is pretty cool, if you like revolutions and stuff. Delacroix painted it in 1830, and depicts the July Revolution of that same year in France, NOT the French Revolution of 1789. Grrrr. Pardon me…the mixing up of certain revolutions in France is a particular pet peeve of mine. I’m sorry, but people living during the big French Revolution did NOT wear what people wore when Les Miz took place. Oy.

At the end of the school year, I started reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, her new book about Lincoln and how he chose his political rivals as members of his cabinet. It’s good so far, if a tad long, but so far there’s one part that was particularly memorable. Apparently Lincoln is credited with a marriage proposal that almost rivals Mr. Darcy’s in first one Pride and Prejudice for most unappealing:

“This thing of living in Sprinfield is rather a dull business after all…I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There is a great deal of flourishing about in carraiges here, which it would be your doom to see without sharing in it. You would have to be poor withut the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently?…What I have said I will most positively abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is that you had better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be more severe than you now imagine. Yours, &c. –Lincoln.”

Last night Marisa, Jenna, Lauren and Andrea and I went to see staged reading of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore in Hollywood (I drove!). The play was put on by the Independent Shakespeare Company (for which I am interning), and the show was amazing. Written by John Ford and published in 1633, it’s about this bother and sister who fall in love and have an affair, which of course leads to problems, the least of which is that the sister gets pregnant and has three other (scheming) guys trying to marry her.‘Tis Pity is definitely one of the bloodiest things I have ever seen, and the company didn’t even use sets or costumes and had hardly any props. During the last bit my friends and I (mostly Marisa) were gasping uncontrollably because it was Just That Gross. I totally reccomend it if you ever get the chance to see a production. And considering everything I had heard about it, the show really wasn’t too innapropriate. I’m especially glad I liked it, because for the last three years my seat in Drama class has been right next to a poster for ‘Tis Pity, and I would have been disappointed had it disappointed.

This summer has been particularly full of history-related theater and just theater in general. ISC did two other staged readings of shows by Shakespeare’s contemporaries this summer (The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont and Arden of Fashersham, possibly written by Shakespeare himself). Both of of those shows were great as well and it’s too bad they aren’t often performed.

ISC also put on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth and Richard II in repatory this summer (the title of my blog comes from one of Richard’s monologues). Interning for this company has been great because I got to know these three shows really well, especially Richard II, which I’ve seen at least five times, not to mention the countless rehearsals that they let me watch.

And my aunt and uncle took me to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon as well (thannnnk you again!) where I saw six plays in four days (!). Tartuffe, The Taming of the Shrew, Distracted, Romeo & Juliet, Gem of the Ocean and The Tempest were all amazing (R&J was my favorite).

So pretty much I’ve seen more shows than ever this summer with a wide range range of historical settings and historical-ness in general!