The first way I mean that is the freaking ridiculous heat and humidity combo Daejeon has going on currently. I remember saying I had much more specific requirements for places that insist on including "South" in their monikers, and Korea has accepted my challenge with vengeance. Every day is in the mid-nineties with humidity in the same range. It's brutal. I am planning to move to Antarctica.
The second way I mean that is in the scheduling. Summer intensive period brings with it two more hour-long classes per day. It is a lot of children. They are bored. There is nothing more dangerous, Internet, than bored children. They threaten my sanity daily. On the bright side, I now get out of work at 9:40 p.m. instead of 10:40, so the night is younger when I get out, more like a sprightly 35 than wheezy 49. Of course, on Wednesdays, when I teach 7 classes, six of them in a row, I feel closer to the 49... Let's call it a draw.
The third way I mean that (originally, I was only going to write two, but today has changed my mind) is in annoyance. Avalon just told us that it will be fiscally unable to pay us our full salaries on payday. We will receive half when we are supposed to (the 5th) and the rest of it 10 days later. Supposedly. The exact words were, when pressed, "it's not a guarantee." Ah well, another day, another... 50¢
All that being the case, it is not a terrible thing to be me. Choir has started back up, which makes me feel like my life has resumed from the dull sluggery of vacation. It's always nice to be returning to a company, where you feel like you know people and have a social place to come home to. My job sometimes does not feel as real to me as the time I spend schlepping to and from Seoul. You know when you take a shower, and there's one part of you that you have to wash in order to feel clean? For me, it's my hair. I can't feel clean, even if I've taken a CDC-approved decon shower everywhere else, if my hair's not washed. In that same - totally irrational, I know - way, I don't feel like I'm really back into the swing of my life without choir.
It's nice to be back (even if "back" means torrents of sweat and hours of cursing the concept of adolescence).
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Virtual Room of Requirement
Internet, I require a micro-pig. You know, whenever you have a minute. I will take this model in whatever color you have available.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
A moment of linguistic alchemy
From one of my students, whose English name is (no kidding) Obama, to his friend John:
"Put a sock in your pie hole!"
"Put a sock in your pie hole!"
 |
| John is the one on the upper left with the enormous hair, Obama has the glasses. |
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Vacation Cetera
Performance Weekend
I. Pirates, catch me please!
Great consternation and woe.
Gravity wins. Ow.
Food
I. Mom doesn't eat meat
Spicy is not her fav'rite.
"Why'd she come?" asks G.
II. Mom likes daikon lots
I think it's disgusting stuff.
Where's the lasagna?
III. No meat, no spice Mom
Finds Korean food she likes:
Dulsut bibimbap!
IV. You want the fish grilled?
(Many looks of confusion)
Result: delicious.
V. Special white, house white
Why, mysterious difference?
More cc's: "special"
The Hotel
I. Mom thinks whispering-
Conspiratorially-
Elevators, sly.
II. Seventh floor sauna
Naked ladies everywhere
Shame I'm no straight man.
IIa. Twenty-five won scrub
Many layers of skin, then -
Oh, look how we glow!
Busan Market
I. Swimming eels in tubs
Kitschy Buddhas wave smugly.
Busan Market: grand.
II. Mung bean pancakes, hot.
Flowered shoes for just ten bucks.
Good day for shopping.
III. Brown dirt becomes art:
Pots, tiles, vases, plates and bowls.
Gracious potter smiles.
Busan in General
I. Busan transfer tune
Cheerfully whistles to say,
"Disembark, dingbat!"
II. Mom's lost her ticket
Exasperated, I sigh.
Hello, role reversal.
III. TV everywhere,
Not Mom's very favorite.
She desires silence.
IV (The World Cup):
Shouting Korea
They don't kid about the name.
Red Devils have won!
Weather
I. Blue sky? Hard to tell.
Raining for so very long,
Harder to believe.
From Mom, about her own adventures (I will try to get her own account of this day and post it later, which may help explain some of the following. Know that we both found this place on a map and in Mom's guidebook, but the locals had no freaking idea this entire temple thing was there. It made finding the place pretty difficult, though after the trek she underwent in order to see it, it becomes kind of clear why the locals don't know it):
I. (섬버사):
Locals are in awe!
Mom finds mythical temple
Should have worn Nikes.
II. So hot, so weary
A foreigner made welcome
English? No, just grace.
III. Mom's in a temple
I am vacationing right:
On the beach, with book.
IV. New York to Tokyo,
Man's harrowing tale: two days
Thirty thousand miles!
Unpleasant Surprise
I. Vacation ho! What?
Avalon was just kidding.
Early meeting, Wed.
II. Snores drive me from bed
I have a revelation:
Don't sleep in the tub.
Addenda
I. I have so much loot
I will look so very posh!
... so nice to see Mom.
(She came up with that last line, there).
I. Pirates, catch me please!
Great consternation and woe.
Gravity wins. Ow.
Food
I. Mom doesn't eat meat
Spicy is not her fav'rite.
"Why'd she come?" asks G.
II. Mom likes daikon lots
I think it's disgusting stuff.
Where's the lasagna?
III. No meat, no spice Mom
Finds Korean food she likes:
Dulsut bibimbap!
IV. You want the fish grilled?
(Many looks of confusion)
Result: delicious.
V. Special white, house white
Why, mysterious difference?
More cc's: "special"
The Hotel
I. Mom thinks whispering-
Conspiratorially-
Elevators, sly.
II. Seventh floor sauna
Naked ladies everywhere
Shame I'm no straight man.
IIa. Twenty-five won scrub
Many layers of skin, then -
Oh, look how we glow!
Busan Market
I. Swimming eels in tubs
Kitschy Buddhas wave smugly.
Busan Market: grand.
II. Mung bean pancakes, hot.
Flowered shoes for just ten bucks.
Good day for shopping.
III. Brown dirt becomes art:
Pots, tiles, vases, plates and bowls.
Gracious potter smiles.
Busan in General
I. Busan transfer tune
Cheerfully whistles to say,
"Disembark, dingbat!"
II. Mom's lost her ticket
Exasperated, I sigh.
Hello, role reversal.
III. TV everywhere,
Not Mom's very favorite.
She desires silence.
IV (The World Cup):
Shouting Korea
They don't kid about the name.
Red Devils have won!
Weather
I. Blue sky? Hard to tell.
Raining for so very long,
Harder to believe.
From Mom, about her own adventures (I will try to get her own account of this day and post it later, which may help explain some of the following. Know that we both found this place on a map and in Mom's guidebook, but the locals had no freaking idea this entire temple thing was there. It made finding the place pretty difficult, though after the trek she underwent in order to see it, it becomes kind of clear why the locals don't know it):
I. (섬버사):
Locals are in awe!
Mom finds mythical temple
Should have worn Nikes.
II. So hot, so weary
A foreigner made welcome
English? No, just grace.
III. Mom's in a temple
I am vacationing right:
On the beach, with book.
IV. New York to Tokyo,
Man's harrowing tale: two days
Thirty thousand miles!
Unpleasant Surprise
I. Vacation ho! What?
Avalon was just kidding.
Early meeting, Wed.
II. Snores drive me from bed
I have a revelation:
Don't sleep in the tub.
Addenda
I. I have so much loot
I will look so very posh!
... so nice to see Mom.
(She came up with that last line, there).
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Japan
I. Children "singing" high
Stretching what we call "music"
Can we muzzle them?
Oh, Japanese PA systems! Is there nowhere a choir of piping prepubescents does not belong? This was Mom's and my first impression as we landed in Fukuoka (Hakata) and caught our train to Nagasaki.
II. Hospital wants cash
Endoscope "to see deep throat"
We do not charge him.
My mother had a bad case of laryngitis (it turned out) so we had to go to a hospital in Nagasaki, where a very nice otolaryngologist (ENT doctor) met with us and examined her. His English was great, especially in comparison to pretty much everyone else we saw there, but he did say quite clearly that the endoscope was to see her "deep throat." It was the chief moment wherein our diplomatic negotiations were most threatened by our need to giggle like my students. (The alternative last line, actually very accurate and demonstrative of great generosity on his part with regards to uninsured foreigners and expensive tests, but hilarious in light of the phrase previously uttered was: He does not charge us).
III. Japan likes hard cash
ATM: "Invalid card"
Three cheers for Starbucks!
This was the most miserable part of our adventure. While my mother sat in the hospital waiting room, I told her (with the foolish confidence of one who places great faith in the Visa and Mastercard logos) that I would pop over to the Post Office (which is apparently where you get your strange foreign money in Japan) and get the cash to pay the hospital. I'd be back in a few minutes, I said. It would be no problem, I said. Oh, how I lied. Hours and three stops with minimal English and seven receipts later, I still had no yen.
I tried to call the hospital (I figured asking for the only person with my mom's obviously Western name wouldn't be that hard, but it was). The lady at the bank I was currently in helped me as much as she could, finally saying, "Your mother? She go out." I walked back, intending to go to the hotel where I thought she'd go. When I passed the hospital, a twinge of doubt assailed me as to my assistant's accuracy in translation, so I popped in to see and sure enough, there was Mom, still waiting for me. The hospital - and this was a ray of sunshine I totally hadn't expected - said it was fine for us to go away and come back tomorrow to pay them. So we left, and continued the ill-fated mission to find money. Many maps were helpfully drawn to other places who helpfully drew us yet other maps and apologized in bewilderment for their machines not accepting our Visa card. At long, long last (it seemed) we came upon a Starbucks and Mom said to me, "surely corporate America will help us in our hour of need!" (I'm paraphrasing). We went in, ordered, and Internet, I was not emotionally prepared when our card went through. IT WORKED. We proceeded (not having eaten so far that day) to burn a swathe through their food stores not unlike Sherman on his way to the sea.
IV. Nuclear bullying
My grandfather's legacy
He thought, "I'm helping!"
So the next day, which ended with a revelation (at 10 p.m. after speaking to another American guest at our hotel) that money could be had from 7-11 (of all places) in quantities not exceeding 10000yen at a time for four times (it is possible I had to light black candles, dance around widdershins and recite the backwards names of Beelzebub. The world will never know), we went to Peace Park. It is a very beautiful, open space with fountains and statuary.
Peace Park exists because Nagasaki is the site of the second nuclear bomb dropped in World War II. My mother's father worked on the Manhattan Project. She is a total pacifist, and it is especially hard from that perspective to think about someone you love believing strongly enough in a war to participate in creating the bomb. She could not tell me exactly what my grandfather thought, as it seems they did not out-and-out discuss it, but she did say she truly believed he thought he was helping; he thought he was doing something good. That led our conversation around to just and unjust war, nationalism's unbridled power, and the classic: man's inhumanity to man.
When I was in poli-sci classes in college, it would sometimes hit me very hard how casually rooms of exceedingly young people talked about leveraging the power of the bomb to accomplish political goals. I imagine that to be effective in politics, you cannot afford to be constantly overwhelmed by what we have done, and by what we have the power to do. I hope, though, that there are still people making important decisions who are just as bowled over as I am.
In total: not as vacation-like an atmosphere as could be devoutly wished, but the kind of adventure that teaches you you can land on your feet, even if it is a long fall and you land in a latté you could have bought in Connecticut.
Stretching what we call "music"
Can we muzzle them?
Oh, Japanese PA systems! Is there nowhere a choir of piping prepubescents does not belong? This was Mom's and my first impression as we landed in Fukuoka (Hakata) and caught our train to Nagasaki.
II. Hospital wants cash
Endoscope "to see deep throat"
We do not charge him.
My mother had a bad case of laryngitis (it turned out) so we had to go to a hospital in Nagasaki, where a very nice otolaryngologist (ENT doctor) met with us and examined her. His English was great, especially in comparison to pretty much everyone else we saw there, but he did say quite clearly that the endoscope was to see her "deep throat." It was the chief moment wherein our diplomatic negotiations were most threatened by our need to giggle like my students. (The alternative last line, actually very accurate and demonstrative of great generosity on his part with regards to uninsured foreigners and expensive tests, but hilarious in light of the phrase previously uttered was: He does not charge us).
III. Japan likes hard cash
ATM: "Invalid card"
Three cheers for Starbucks!
This was the most miserable part of our adventure. While my mother sat in the hospital waiting room, I told her (with the foolish confidence of one who places great faith in the Visa and Mastercard logos) that I would pop over to the Post Office (which is apparently where you get your strange foreign money in Japan) and get the cash to pay the hospital. I'd be back in a few minutes, I said. It would be no problem, I said. Oh, how I lied. Hours and three stops with minimal English and seven receipts later, I still had no yen.
I tried to call the hospital (I figured asking for the only person with my mom's obviously Western name wouldn't be that hard, but it was). The lady at the bank I was currently in helped me as much as she could, finally saying, "Your mother? She go out." I walked back, intending to go to the hotel where I thought she'd go. When I passed the hospital, a twinge of doubt assailed me as to my assistant's accuracy in translation, so I popped in to see and sure enough, there was Mom, still waiting for me. The hospital - and this was a ray of sunshine I totally hadn't expected - said it was fine for us to go away and come back tomorrow to pay them. So we left, and continued the ill-fated mission to find money. Many maps were helpfully drawn to other places who helpfully drew us yet other maps and apologized in bewilderment for their machines not accepting our Visa card. At long, long last (it seemed) we came upon a Starbucks and Mom said to me, "surely corporate America will help us in our hour of need!" (I'm paraphrasing). We went in, ordered, and Internet, I was not emotionally prepared when our card went through. IT WORKED. We proceeded (not having eaten so far that day) to burn a swathe through their food stores not unlike Sherman on his way to the sea.
IV. Nuclear bullying
My grandfather's legacy
He thought, "I'm helping!"
So the next day, which ended with a revelation (at 10 p.m. after speaking to another American guest at our hotel) that money could be had from 7-11 (of all places) in quantities not exceeding 10000yen at a time for four times (it is possible I had to light black candles, dance around widdershins and recite the backwards names of Beelzebub. The world will never know), we went to Peace Park. It is a very beautiful, open space with fountains and statuary.
Peace Park exists because Nagasaki is the site of the second nuclear bomb dropped in World War II. My mother's father worked on the Manhattan Project. She is a total pacifist, and it is especially hard from that perspective to think about someone you love believing strongly enough in a war to participate in creating the bomb. She could not tell me exactly what my grandfather thought, as it seems they did not out-and-out discuss it, but she did say she truly believed he thought he was helping; he thought he was doing something good. That led our conversation around to just and unjust war, nationalism's unbridled power, and the classic: man's inhumanity to man.
When I was in poli-sci classes in college, it would sometimes hit me very hard how casually rooms of exceedingly young people talked about leveraging the power of the bomb to accomplish political goals. I imagine that to be effective in politics, you cannot afford to be constantly overwhelmed by what we have done, and by what we have the power to do. I hope, though, that there are still people making important decisions who are just as bowled over as I am.
In total: not as vacation-like an atmosphere as could be devoutly wished, but the kind of adventure that teaches you you can land on your feet, even if it is a long fall and you land in a latté you could have bought in Connecticut.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
A Vacation Haiku
Temples in the rain
We are getting very wet
Sunglasses useless
We are getting very wet
Sunglasses useless
 |
| Okay, so I don't actually have photos of the rainy temple. This was a different one. |
Friday, June 25, 2010
It was, it was a glorious thing to be the Pirate King! Part I (of III)
... I was, it must be said, somewhat surprised by this revelation. Most of my stage experience has been backstage or in a choir. I do not like to stand out, but Internet, this weekend, I stood. In an outward manner. And it was okay!
This past weekend, (June 19th and 20th), we performed The Pirates of Penzance at Seoul National University of Education. These performances were the ones we hoped to make money from, beyond the very first performance two weeks ago for which we were sponsored. Our director, due to a nasty infection scare, remained hospitalized, but in this day and age, no paltry physical distance can separate a dedicated and internet-ready director from his thespian flock.
Three cameras and two laptops later, through Skype and Ustream, our motley assemblage was rehearsing under Captain Gimpy's watchful digital eye. It would not be accurate to say that he "never, ever, ever said a big, big 'D.'"* (It wouldn't even be accurate to say that I never ever said one, even though my mother was present).
While there were actual doors off to the left and right side of the stage this time, they led to closets, rather than wings as I understand them, which made them less helpful than they could have been, but infinitely more so than the unbroken walls of our first performance space. (I... did not think so kindly of them when I discovered one of their unlit walls with my face during the performance. Hindsight, however, has the blessing of being bruiseless). They were serviceable, if intimate, offstage areas.
At any rate, this marked my fourth rehearsal as the Pirate King (third, if we're counting ones where I played only the Pirate King... last weekend was an adventure in identity). It was not so raring a success as I'd hoped. We did not have time to run the entire show before we performed at 2:00, so we focused on Pirate-King-heavy numbers, which was very nice and accommodating of everyone.
This meant, of course, a special focus on "Oh better far to live and die," which is the actual name of the Pirate King song. The choreography for this song involved a sort of leaping trust fall on my part into the waiting arms of my pirate crew. Now, internet, my pirate crew includes a number of perfectly attractive gentleman pirates, and even those at whom I do not look appreciatively, I enjoy personally. It is not a problem for me to leap into their arms. It is a problem when, in the unending struggle against gravity, they lose a battle. I got dropped, internet. Twice. This was in rehearsal, so I started our 2:00 show with serious Old Lady Syndrome (my hips! My back! Get off my lawn!).
On the bright side, I warmed up my projecting muscles with loud shouts of "SON OF A-!" and "MOTHER-!" (They really did sound just like that, as I stifled the other bits so my actual mother - present at the time - would not make the Face of Deep Disapproval. You may not know it yet, dear reader, but you fear the Face of Deep Disapproval, as all wise people do). So, swears and bruises and all, we deployed for round one.
We hadn't sold more than half our tickets for this show, so our maimed-but-fearless leader had taken the opportunity to invite the residents of the place where we'd been rehearsing. They are, by and large, lovely people who are just a bit touched in the head, and there are many of them, so the auditorium was pretty full. A few needed to leave during the performance, but all in all, I think it was fine. It was well that we filled this show with them, as I think they were a more forgiving than discerning audience, and our first run was... suboptimal. It proceeded apace, but lacked the cohesion and energy, the groove, that we got into by the second show.
Voila, preamble accomplished! Next: The Good Show, Chaps.
*This is a Gilbert & Sullivan reference to HMS Pinafore, talking about how the captain never swears. ("What never?" "Well... hardly ever!")
This past weekend, (June 19th and 20th), we performed The Pirates of Penzance at Seoul National University of Education. These performances were the ones we hoped to make money from, beyond the very first performance two weeks ago for which we were sponsored. Our director, due to a nasty infection scare, remained hospitalized, but in this day and age, no paltry physical distance can separate a dedicated and internet-ready director from his thespian flock.
Three cameras and two laptops later, through Skype and Ustream, our motley assemblage was rehearsing under Captain Gimpy's watchful digital eye. It would not be accurate to say that he "never, ever, ever said a big, big 'D.'"* (It wouldn't even be accurate to say that I never ever said one, even though my mother was present).
While there were actual doors off to the left and right side of the stage this time, they led to closets, rather than wings as I understand them, which made them less helpful than they could have been, but infinitely more so than the unbroken walls of our first performance space. (I... did not think so kindly of them when I discovered one of their unlit walls with my face during the performance. Hindsight, however, has the blessing of being bruiseless). They were serviceable, if intimate, offstage areas.
At any rate, this marked my fourth rehearsal as the Pirate King (third, if we're counting ones where I played only the Pirate King... last weekend was an adventure in identity). It was not so raring a success as I'd hoped. We did not have time to run the entire show before we performed at 2:00, so we focused on Pirate-King-heavy numbers, which was very nice and accommodating of everyone.
This meant, of course, a special focus on "Oh better far to live and die," which is the actual name of the Pirate King song. The choreography for this song involved a sort of leaping trust fall on my part into the waiting arms of my pirate crew. Now, internet, my pirate crew includes a number of perfectly attractive gentleman pirates, and even those at whom I do not look appreciatively, I enjoy personally. It is not a problem for me to leap into their arms. It is a problem when, in the unending struggle against gravity, they lose a battle. I got dropped, internet. Twice. This was in rehearsal, so I started our 2:00 show with serious Old Lady Syndrome (my hips! My back! Get off my lawn!).
On the bright side, I warmed up my projecting muscles with loud shouts of "SON OF A-!" and "MOTHER-!" (They really did sound just like that, as I stifled the other bits so my actual mother - present at the time - would not make the Face of Deep Disapproval. You may not know it yet, dear reader, but you fear the Face of Deep Disapproval, as all wise people do). So, swears and bruises and all, we deployed for round one.
We hadn't sold more than half our tickets for this show, so our maimed-but-fearless leader had taken the opportunity to invite the residents of the place where we'd been rehearsing. They are, by and large, lovely people who are just a bit touched in the head, and there are many of them, so the auditorium was pretty full. A few needed to leave during the performance, but all in all, I think it was fine. It was well that we filled this show with them, as I think they were a more forgiving than discerning audience, and our first run was... suboptimal. It proceeded apace, but lacked the cohesion and energy, the groove, that we got into by the second show.
 |
Voila, preamble accomplished! Next: The Good Show, Chaps.
*This is a Gilbert & Sullivan reference to HMS Pinafore, talking about how the captain never swears. ("What never?" "Well... hardly ever!")
All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Put on an Archaic But Nonetheless Delightful Show*
Our first performance of Pirates, the only one people promised to give us money to do in advance, was to be given in Wonjoo, a charmingly rural area (it is a town only to people with a very special definition of "town"). Specifically, we were to deliver our great masterpiece of theatrical fireworks to a camp for 'multicultural children' which is Korean for 'not Korean enough.' They were all very nice kid-type people, but it must be said they did not have the grasp of English necessary to enjoy Gilbert & Sullivan to the fullest extent possible. Anyway, our day of performance started far earlier than the moment we first saw the actual kids.
I stayed from the previous night with a cast member who had access to an apartment just down the road from our rehearsal and storage space, and then, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (that is, before 6) I woke up and set in motion some of the things that needed to happen that day. We needed to get all the things necessary to our performance to a bus, get that bus to the second place we'd be picking up people, and then get all those people and things out to Wonjoo. This does not seem like it would be, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the science of the rocket.
A number of helpful actor-type people assembled, ready to load themselves and their gear onto the bus, but the bus was not nearby, and we needed to move all our physical set-pieces onto it, too. This involved the noble sacrifice of at least twenty minutes in the lives of several strapping young men, but soon enough we were all assembled outside the bus we had had to track down, ready to load and leave.
It was at this point that we discovered that a major part of our set, the stairs, would not fit into the bus. As I think I mentioned, the stairs were made from quite... frugal materials, and though they were quite sturdy when left alone, the screws especially resented any kind of reorganization. By that, I mean they were cheap little buggers that stripped if you looked at them. We needed to remove something like 12 of them to get the top panel off the stairs so it would fit in the bus. Many were lost in this action. I also had the joyful experience of being a woman in South Korea, by which I mean that I pointed out that the kick plate to the top step came up to be flush with the platform, so that removing the platform would not actually lower the clearance of the whole set of stairs, the kick plate would need to be removed also. "Pshaw," said the driver of the bus, who, we were told by translation, had A Plan. When his Plan collided with the laws of physics, I do not need to tell you who won. Conservation of Mass: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Our altercation with fundamental laws cost us about half an hour, but eventually we had all the keen actor-types who were getting on at that bus stop and all their baggage and all our set-bits. Huzzah! We then went to collect the other people, which, after we determined that, of the two possible gates to the University on whose campus we were meeting, they had chosen the other one, we succeeded in doing. Off to Wonjoo!
On the bus, we chatted and sang and ran lines and sewed buttons on last-minute costumes. There was rollicking. It was good.
Some hours later, we arrived in the beautiful mountain retreat that was the camp, and unloaded our junk into the space we'd been given. Internet, it could not be called a theater. It was a gym with a stage in the wall. Now, in high school, we put on many a show in our gym-theater, and we were pretty amazing at it, actually (SLS, what up!). It cannot be denied, however, that our gym-theater was considerably more accommodating of performers than this particular establishment. There were no wings at all. Offstage was steps down from the stage to the ground floor. We created backstage-ish areas with curtained panels not unlike those at a blood drive, and were totally screwed when some of us (I say "some" to make myself feel better... I can only remember it being me, but I live in the perpetual hope that I was not alone in my idiocy) exited the wrong side of the stage, as the only way across to enter on the other meant going through the audience. There was also no really feasible way to hang our backdrops, as they had been produced in great haste, looked lovely, and were entirely without eyelets or grommets or really anything useful for hanging. Some enterprising people on a rickety ladder, the stage-manager-who-wasn't-me and the production manager, used an inordinate quantity of tape. It saved us from doing theater in an altogether Shakespearean way, but sagged a bit in the middle, making our jolly island appear weary of this mortal coil.
Oddly for an establishment that had invited us to perform a musical, the camp had not seen fit to provide us a piano. Or a keyboard. Or anything that made noise. (This is not totally true... there were a number of traditional Korean drums, and of course many children. They make noise). So we warmed up and began entirely without anything useful of that kind, relying instead on our pianist's perfect pitch, and other members'... slightly less perfect pitch.
The run-throughs were fun, especially before we got on the stage itself. We performed for one another in a big circle on the floor where we'd warmed up, and gross exaggeration was the order and joy of the day. Frederic and Ruth were especially delightful as they tangoed their way through their scenes, dipping dramatically on "circumspect" and flinging legs with wild abandon on "I have deceived you?" (well, Ruth flung, Frederic caught). Fun though it was, it was accompanied by a continual string of misadventure. Policemen's helmets were still drying, was the Sergeant's hat okay, what did these switches do, should the stage be making that loud thumping noise, where are the Wards' fans, can H sew some more buttons for us, what if we don't get a piano, do you fit properly into the PK costume, what's the choreography for this number... I was not, dear reader, only the Pirate King this day. I was still the stage manager in most minds (my own, too), so when I was not riffling the air with my very kingly sword, I was consulting on a number of these items. I have had more restful days, I think. Finally, finally, we had a piano, the backdrops defied gravity just enough, my costume was pinned together enough to avoid citations for indecency, and we were as ready as we could be to begin.
It was far more a dress rehearsal than a performance, but we were lucky, and the kids were forgiving. We dropped lines, picked them up, entered on interesting sides of the stage, had our wonderful pianist-and-Jane-of-all-trades translate a bit of the show for the kids when their boredom threatened to bring the whole affair to a grinding halt, did something really weird for the curtain call, and stood in front of awkwardly placed lights. It was an adventure. I had a beard.
After we'd mingled and given autographs and packed up our wayward equipment, we headed back to Seoul on the Norebus. Norebang is the Korean word for what we think of as karaoke, and the bus was equipped to be one in motion. I learned things about the cast and crew I had not known before, and it was delightful knowledge to receive. In due time, we staggered home, laden with the trappings of the show.
And oh, dear reader, though it cannot be said I did any more than hold my finger in the dam of the show, and it cannot be said that this show diverged at all from the "natural course of the theater" according to Mr. Henslowe,** (indeed, I dare say this show really reveled in living up to that description to the fullest extent) it was fun.
*Strangely, dear reader, this is not a common English expression. I think it high time we give it a permanent place in the idiom database.
**"The natural course is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"What do we do?!"
"Nothing. Strangely enough it all comes out right in the end."
"How will it?!"
"I don't know, it's a myst'ry."
I stayed from the previous night with a cast member who had access to an apartment just down the road from our rehearsal and storage space, and then, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (that is, before 6) I woke up and set in motion some of the things that needed to happen that day. We needed to get all the things necessary to our performance to a bus, get that bus to the second place we'd be picking up people, and then get all those people and things out to Wonjoo. This does not seem like it would be, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the science of the rocket.
A number of helpful actor-type people assembled, ready to load themselves and their gear onto the bus, but the bus was not nearby, and we needed to move all our physical set-pieces onto it, too. This involved the noble sacrifice of at least twenty minutes in the lives of several strapping young men, but soon enough we were all assembled outside the bus we had had to track down, ready to load and leave.
It was at this point that we discovered that a major part of our set, the stairs, would not fit into the bus. As I think I mentioned, the stairs were made from quite... frugal materials, and though they were quite sturdy when left alone, the screws especially resented any kind of reorganization. By that, I mean they were cheap little buggers that stripped if you looked at them. We needed to remove something like 12 of them to get the top panel off the stairs so it would fit in the bus. Many were lost in this action. I also had the joyful experience of being a woman in South Korea, by which I mean that I pointed out that the kick plate to the top step came up to be flush with the platform, so that removing the platform would not actually lower the clearance of the whole set of stairs, the kick plate would need to be removed also. "Pshaw," said the driver of the bus, who, we were told by translation, had A Plan. When his Plan collided with the laws of physics, I do not need to tell you who won. Conservation of Mass: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Our altercation with fundamental laws cost us about half an hour, but eventually we had all the keen actor-types who were getting on at that bus stop and all their baggage and all our set-bits. Huzzah! We then went to collect the other people, which, after we determined that, of the two possible gates to the University on whose campus we were meeting, they had chosen the other one, we succeeded in doing. Off to Wonjoo!
On the bus, we chatted and sang and ran lines and sewed buttons on last-minute costumes. There was rollicking. It was good.
Some hours later, we arrived in the beautiful mountain retreat that was the camp, and unloaded our junk into the space we'd been given. Internet, it could not be called a theater. It was a gym with a stage in the wall. Now, in high school, we put on many a show in our gym-theater, and we were pretty amazing at it, actually (SLS, what up!). It cannot be denied, however, that our gym-theater was considerably more accommodating of performers than this particular establishment. There were no wings at all. Offstage was steps down from the stage to the ground floor. We created backstage-ish areas with curtained panels not unlike those at a blood drive, and were totally screwed when some of us (I say "some" to make myself feel better... I can only remember it being me, but I live in the perpetual hope that I was not alone in my idiocy) exited the wrong side of the stage, as the only way across to enter on the other meant going through the audience. There was also no really feasible way to hang our backdrops, as they had been produced in great haste, looked lovely, and were entirely without eyelets or grommets or really anything useful for hanging. Some enterprising people on a rickety ladder, the stage-manager-who-wasn't-me and the production manager, used an inordinate quantity of tape. It saved us from doing theater in an altogether Shakespearean way, but sagged a bit in the middle, making our jolly island appear weary of this mortal coil.
Oddly for an establishment that had invited us to perform a musical, the camp had not seen fit to provide us a piano. Or a keyboard. Or anything that made noise. (This is not totally true... there were a number of traditional Korean drums, and of course many children. They make noise). So we warmed up and began entirely without anything useful of that kind, relying instead on our pianist's perfect pitch, and other members'... slightly less perfect pitch.
The run-throughs were fun, especially before we got on the stage itself. We performed for one another in a big circle on the floor where we'd warmed up, and gross exaggeration was the order and joy of the day. Frederic and Ruth were especially delightful as they tangoed their way through their scenes, dipping dramatically on "circumspect" and flinging legs with wild abandon on "I have deceived you?" (well, Ruth flung, Frederic caught). Fun though it was, it was accompanied by a continual string of misadventure. Policemen's helmets were still drying, was the Sergeant's hat okay, what did these switches do, should the stage be making that loud thumping noise, where are the Wards' fans, can H sew some more buttons for us, what if we don't get a piano, do you fit properly into the PK costume, what's the choreography for this number... I was not, dear reader, only the Pirate King this day. I was still the stage manager in most minds (my own, too), so when I was not riffling the air with my very kingly sword, I was consulting on a number of these items. I have had more restful days, I think. Finally, finally, we had a piano, the backdrops defied gravity just enough, my costume was pinned together enough to avoid citations for indecency, and we were as ready as we could be to begin.
 |
| They gave me swords! Two of them! |
It was far more a dress rehearsal than a performance, but we were lucky, and the kids were forgiving. We dropped lines, picked them up, entered on interesting sides of the stage, had our wonderful pianist-and-Jane-of-all-trades translate a bit of the show for the kids when their boredom threatened to bring the whole affair to a grinding halt, did something really weird for the curtain call, and stood in front of awkwardly placed lights. It was an adventure. I had a beard.
After we'd mingled and given autographs and packed up our wayward equipment, we headed back to Seoul on the Norebus. Norebang is the Korean word for what we think of as karaoke, and the bus was equipped to be one in motion. I learned things about the cast and crew I had not known before, and it was delightful knowledge to receive. In due time, we staggered home, laden with the trappings of the show.
And oh, dear reader, though it cannot be said I did any more than hold my finger in the dam of the show, and it cannot be said that this show diverged at all from the "natural course of the theater" according to Mr. Henslowe,** (indeed, I dare say this show really reveled in living up to that description to the fullest extent) it was fun.
*Strangely, dear reader, this is not a common English expression. I think it high time we give it a permanent place in the idiom database.
**"The natural course is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"What do we do?!"
"Nothing. Strangely enough it all comes out right in the end."
"How will it?!"
"I don't know, it's a myst'ry."
The Hobo and the Cheese-stick
As an interlude, here is an anecdote about one weekend when I came up to Seoul for rehearsal. Frederic, the Props Mistress, and I were all convening and staying with our pre-Gimpy Director, but I was the only one coming in at Seoul Station. The PGD was coming to pick me up, because I arrived after midnight, at which time the Seoul metro does not run. I had some time and was pretty hungry, as catching the KTX after work precludes dinner, so I picked up a lemonade and two cheese-sticks from the 24-hour fast food place.
Sitting on a bench (the others mostly being occupied by sleeping homeless dudes) while on the phone to Frederic, trying to coordinate meeting,* I became aware of someone shuffle-wobbling toward me. He was clearly not all there, speaking and gesticulating at people who were all not there, and shambling ever closer. I mentioned to Frederic that I was being approached and was not sure what to do, speaking as I do substandard Korean and distinctly accented Crazy. He reassured me that this was Korea, and Koreans are all very polite, even the mad ones. The hobo crept ever closer.
Cheese-stick One was in the air between the box and my mouth when he burst into motion, zipping the remaining 8 feet and snatching the cheese stick out of my airborne hand. He quickly shuffle-ran away while stuffing the cheese-stick into his mouth. Dear reader, I do not know about you, but my education did not prepare me for this moment. (Frederic's suggestion was that I should go and demand it back, but he quickly became aware of the inadvisability of this plan). I was, in a word, flummoxed.
In my startlement, I had jolted in such a way that my remaining cheese-stick had fallen to the floor, so I was left only my lemonade to sip as I waited, nonplused, for my ride. He arrived, I mentioned the cheese-stick incident, and he offered to go and get it back from me, or wreak bloody vengeance on my behalf. I did not want it back, thank you, and bloody vengeance seems a stiff price for deep-fried cheese (though I understand Wisconsin people take a different view where cheese is concerned). Respecting my wishes, the PGD went instead to buy sandwiches to disperse among the needy, and I was alone again on my bench, Cheese-Stick Man hovering again on the edges of my perception.
I sipped my lemonade nervously: a mouse in a clearing as the hawk circles in for the kill. I make that metaphor because THE DUDE CAME BACK AND STOLE MY LEMONADE. Again, out of my hand, in the air on its way to my mouth. (Do you get extra points for that? This dude is the champ).
I haven't had a cheese-stick since, out of the primal terror that a hobo will swoop out of nowhere and seize it.
*It turned out this was all in vain, because Frederic was arriving at a totally different train station. He did not figure this out until considerably later.
Sitting on a bench (the others mostly being occupied by sleeping homeless dudes) while on the phone to Frederic, trying to coordinate meeting,* I became aware of someone shuffle-wobbling toward me. He was clearly not all there, speaking and gesticulating at people who were all not there, and shambling ever closer. I mentioned to Frederic that I was being approached and was not sure what to do, speaking as I do substandard Korean and distinctly accented Crazy. He reassured me that this was Korea, and Koreans are all very polite, even the mad ones. The hobo crept ever closer.
Cheese-stick One was in the air between the box and my mouth when he burst into motion, zipping the remaining 8 feet and snatching the cheese stick out of my airborne hand. He quickly shuffle-ran away while stuffing the cheese-stick into his mouth. Dear reader, I do not know about you, but my education did not prepare me for this moment. (Frederic's suggestion was that I should go and demand it back, but he quickly became aware of the inadvisability of this plan). I was, in a word, flummoxed.
In my startlement, I had jolted in such a way that my remaining cheese-stick had fallen to the floor, so I was left only my lemonade to sip as I waited, nonplused, for my ride. He arrived, I mentioned the cheese-stick incident, and he offered to go and get it back from me, or wreak bloody vengeance on my behalf. I did not want it back, thank you, and bloody vengeance seems a stiff price for deep-fried cheese (though I understand Wisconsin people take a different view where cheese is concerned). Respecting my wishes, the PGD went instead to buy sandwiches to disperse among the needy, and I was alone again on my bench, Cheese-Stick Man hovering again on the edges of my perception.
I sipped my lemonade nervously: a mouse in a clearing as the hawk circles in for the kill. I make that metaphor because THE DUDE CAME BACK AND STOLE MY LEMONADE. Again, out of my hand, in the air on its way to my mouth. (Do you get extra points for that? This dude is the champ).
I haven't had a cheese-stick since, out of the primal terror that a hobo will swoop out of nowhere and seize it.
*It turned out this was all in vain, because Frederic was arriving at a totally different train station. He did not figure this out until considerably later.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
How the British Play, put on by American, Colombian, Korean and South African players in Korea became The Scottish Play
(The title is in reference to the bad luck that follows that play, and how it seems to have found us, though we are totally innocent of speaking the name of that show during the entirety of our misadventure. We have put a moratorium on all Scottish accents involved in the production, just to be safe).
So, Internet, I have been doing this show, this Gilbert & Sullivan show, The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty. It is a delightful show, full of the tongue-in-cheek Britishness for which G&S are so well-known. We started off, as I believe I have noted here, with only one month to get ready for our first performance, for a camp of multicultural children (which, in Korea, means a kid who is not Korean enough to be with the others, and must be sent to a special place far away from the real Koreans to get to know its place in the world with its own kind). I was the stage manager, a role rife with the liaising with actors I had assiduously avoided for so long by being a pure techie...
... Sorry, I lost my train of thought. There is an adorable baby next to me. I find its smile and giggly bits distracting. I don't want one, but this is the first public transportation baby I have ever seen so well behaved. Anyway, back to our story!
We probably should have known that this was too good an opportunity for Murphy to pass up. A month to take total G&S newbies and make them performance ready? Our casting alone miscarried when the dude we wanted for Frederic turned out to be leaving the country right after our first performance, so we couldn't use him for the others (off of which we laughably hoped to make money). So we had to get a different guy, one who, we later found out, couldn't read music. He also lived hours away and was a miserable memorizer. Not an auspicious beginning.
Our rehearsals were held in the basement of a home for the mentally infirm. By and large, the residents were very nice, and the pastor who ran the place was an exemplar of generosity. There was, however, a woman who worked there who took (what I consider) an unreasoning dislike to me from the very start. She would yell in Korean at me and slam doors in my general direction. She was unpleasant. The residents also sometimes got very much in the way, and occasionally upset about the disruption to their routine. Still, most after a while smiled when they saw us and said hello. (Annyeong!)
We couldn't seem to get suitable building materials. We weren't building a full-scale model of Manhattan or anything, but we did want two 3-step stairs. Alas, the materials we had bought (at great expense - building stuff in Korea ain't cheap) were too flimsy to distribute over two cases, and we could only build one. Props acquisition was slow and difficult (Korea is not overrun with Victorian English props and costumes, imagine that!) and costumes was complicated by the presence of personalities with notions counterproductive to our aims. Things got done eventually, rather than efficiently.
Then, the cast. The Wards were spot on practically from the beginning, though one of them promptly got sick and lost her voice. The gentlemen were plagued by absences and a lot more complicated choreography. So we worried. Oh, and our production manager went on vacation, so half of our preparation time, I was both stage manager and production manager. During most of these weekends, I stayed at R's apartment, often with Frederic and the props mistress. Frederic snores and the props mistress talks in her sleep. Also, R has a baby and two dogs. They were not restful times, and they were all the respite we had from 15-hour days. (The actors didn't go for 15 hours, but the behind-the-scenes people did).
And then the medical problems. Our older, more portly, Major General had a heatstroke. I spent one rehearsal day mostly with him in the ER, which I don't at all regret as he is a charming and wonderful man and I felt very bad for him, but it did throw a bit of a wrench in. He lost quite a bit of what he'd memorized, and was very understandably weak on his pins after it. Our sick Ward still had no voice, but her role had been sort of farmed out to other wards and she still came to rehearsal faithfully. It appeared we would have a rough, but ready, first performance. Luckily, it would be for children, who are a forgiving audience as these things go.
Three days before the show was due to go on, I was woken by a phone call from the props mistress. "[the director and Pirate King] has been in some sort of accident," she said, "I'm a little vague on the details, but I thought you should know."
"Thanks." I said. At the time, I meant it, in the sense that yes, I did like to be kept apprised of things like that. (She also reports that I said, "That might be the worst news I've had all week. Or month. Maybe year." which was not inaccurate). Afterwards, I would have given anything not to be the person people call. Call they did, all day long, and the following picture took shape: R had been hit by a car while riding his motorcycle, sustaining an open fracture of the leg. We were down a Pirate King with three days until the first performance. (For those unfamiliar with the show, the Pirate King is a distinctly non-trivial role).
As we took stock of our options, it transpired that none of us had really ever considered something happening to R. We'd never had understudies for anyone, but we had especially never worried about R, up to and including not always writing down his blocking. He was the director (we thought), he had good instincts (we thought), he'd be fine even if he invented the whole thing on the spot! He would not, it seemed, be fine if he had to invent it from the hospital, which is where doctors confined him for a week at the very least. So our options were: M, the production manager, who had just returned from what had been intended as vacation but had turned out to be a miserable trip to Chicago and who had never been asked to look at the PK, only Samuel and Major General; K, a policeman and pirate baritone who would be vocally very well suited but whose absence it would prove difficult to work around, and me.
The reason I (sopraniest soprano you ever did see) was on this list is that I had memorized the show. The whole show. I could do all of it by myself with puppets. I'm not particularly proud of this, it was mostly a byproduct of running lines with Frederic who was such a miserable memorizer that I spent about an hour and a half every weeknight being every part except Frederic, and feeding him his own lines about half of that time. I was the last resort, for obvious reasons. I spent all that day fielding calls, making calls, doing emails, working (I was at work), and telling myself it would not come to that. M and K had all day to figure out if it was even possible for them to memorize the whole role in two days.
M called that night, saying he could walk it, but couldn't talk it. K called the next morning to say that regretfully, he couldn't memorize it in the time allotted. R called from the hospital the next afternoon to say that I was it. So, the Thursday before our Saturday performance, I became the Pirate King.
Here ends chapter 1 of our saga. To follow: opening night.
 |
| (This was in my classroom. The Korean on the bottom says, "Rebecca I love you") |
So, Internet, I have been doing this show, this Gilbert & Sullivan show, The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty. It is a delightful show, full of the tongue-in-cheek Britishness for which G&S are so well-known. We started off, as I believe I have noted here, with only one month to get ready for our first performance, for a camp of multicultural children (which, in Korea, means a kid who is not Korean enough to be with the others, and must be sent to a special place far away from the real Koreans to get to know its place in the world with its own kind). I was the stage manager, a role rife with the liaising with actors I had assiduously avoided for so long by being a pure techie...
... Sorry, I lost my train of thought. There is an adorable baby next to me. I find its smile and giggly bits distracting. I don't want one, but this is the first public transportation baby I have ever seen so well behaved. Anyway, back to our story!
We probably should have known that this was too good an opportunity for Murphy to pass up. A month to take total G&S newbies and make them performance ready? Our casting alone miscarried when the dude we wanted for Frederic turned out to be leaving the country right after our first performance, so we couldn't use him for the others (off of which we laughably hoped to make money). So we had to get a different guy, one who, we later found out, couldn't read music. He also lived hours away and was a miserable memorizer. Not an auspicious beginning.
Our rehearsals were held in the basement of a home for the mentally infirm. By and large, the residents were very nice, and the pastor who ran the place was an exemplar of generosity. There was, however, a woman who worked there who took (what I consider) an unreasoning dislike to me from the very start. She would yell in Korean at me and slam doors in my general direction. She was unpleasant. The residents also sometimes got very much in the way, and occasionally upset about the disruption to their routine. Still, most after a while smiled when they saw us and said hello. (Annyeong!)
We couldn't seem to get suitable building materials. We weren't building a full-scale model of Manhattan or anything, but we did want two 3-step stairs. Alas, the materials we had bought (at great expense - building stuff in Korea ain't cheap) were too flimsy to distribute over two cases, and we could only build one. Props acquisition was slow and difficult (Korea is not overrun with Victorian English props and costumes, imagine that!) and costumes was complicated by the presence of personalities with notions counterproductive to our aims. Things got done eventually, rather than efficiently.
Then, the cast. The Wards were spot on practically from the beginning, though one of them promptly got sick and lost her voice. The gentlemen were plagued by absences and a lot more complicated choreography. So we worried. Oh, and our production manager went on vacation, so half of our preparation time, I was both stage manager and production manager. During most of these weekends, I stayed at R's apartment, often with Frederic and the props mistress. Frederic snores and the props mistress talks in her sleep. Also, R has a baby and two dogs. They were not restful times, and they were all the respite we had from 15-hour days. (The actors didn't go for 15 hours, but the behind-the-scenes people did).
And then the medical problems. Our older, more portly, Major General had a heatstroke. I spent one rehearsal day mostly with him in the ER, which I don't at all regret as he is a charming and wonderful man and I felt very bad for him, but it did throw a bit of a wrench in. He lost quite a bit of what he'd memorized, and was very understandably weak on his pins after it. Our sick Ward still had no voice, but her role had been sort of farmed out to other wards and she still came to rehearsal faithfully. It appeared we would have a rough, but ready, first performance. Luckily, it would be for children, who are a forgiving audience as these things go.
Three days before the show was due to go on, I was woken by a phone call from the props mistress. "[the director and Pirate King] has been in some sort of accident," she said, "I'm a little vague on the details, but I thought you should know."
"Thanks." I said. At the time, I meant it, in the sense that yes, I did like to be kept apprised of things like that. (She also reports that I said, "That might be the worst news I've had all week. Or month. Maybe year." which was not inaccurate). Afterwards, I would have given anything not to be the person people call. Call they did, all day long, and the following picture took shape: R had been hit by a car while riding his motorcycle, sustaining an open fracture of the leg. We were down a Pirate King with three days until the first performance. (For those unfamiliar with the show, the Pirate King is a distinctly non-trivial role).
As we took stock of our options, it transpired that none of us had really ever considered something happening to R. We'd never had understudies for anyone, but we had especially never worried about R, up to and including not always writing down his blocking. He was the director (we thought), he had good instincts (we thought), he'd be fine even if he invented the whole thing on the spot! He would not, it seemed, be fine if he had to invent it from the hospital, which is where doctors confined him for a week at the very least. So our options were: M, the production manager, who had just returned from what had been intended as vacation but had turned out to be a miserable trip to Chicago and who had never been asked to look at the PK, only Samuel and Major General; K, a policeman and pirate baritone who would be vocally very well suited but whose absence it would prove difficult to work around, and me.
The reason I (sopraniest soprano you ever did see) was on this list is that I had memorized the show. The whole show. I could do all of it by myself with puppets. I'm not particularly proud of this, it was mostly a byproduct of running lines with Frederic who was such a miserable memorizer that I spent about an hour and a half every weeknight being every part except Frederic, and feeding him his own lines about half of that time. I was the last resort, for obvious reasons. I spent all that day fielding calls, making calls, doing emails, working (I was at work), and telling myself it would not come to that. M and K had all day to figure out if it was even possible for them to memorize the whole role in two days.
M called that night, saying he could walk it, but couldn't talk it. K called the next morning to say that regretfully, he couldn't memorize it in the time allotted. R called from the hospital the next afternoon to say that I was it. So, the Thursday before our Saturday performance, I became the Pirate King.
 |
| This is the face I made. |
Here ends chapter 1 of our saga. To follow: opening night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)