"It ends as nothing."

That's the final line of the section I contributed to "Organism," the Festival of piece that I'm involved in. Foreboding, isn't it?

My apologies over the relative silence I've thrown your way past few days. Alongside writing the dissertation, there's been a lot of activity in my personal life (aka: the life I make a conscious effort to keep off this blog), and so while I haven't really had the time to write and reflect what I was doing and what was happening, the material at hand was largely inappropriate to this forum and I just didn't want to write about it--lots and lots of introspection, that would largely be interest and concern only to me. It has always been a strange struggle, attempting to balance a certain reserve here about how I'm doing personally, while still not being totally dishonest about exactly what it is I'm going through. When I don't know how to do that, I go quiet. This is just fact.

Other facts that currently make up my life:

1. I am job seeking. I'm trying to find something essentially full time, because now that I'm out of uni I have to take care of myself, pay my own rent, start paying of my student loan (eventually...I don't actually know when that has to start, but the day approaches like Malcolm's army to Dunsinane--minus the trees), all of this. I also just want to buckle down for the next few months, be a real person, and set up a financial base for myself in this country, which will be necessary for the visa process I've decided to go through. I've done the lot of it before, but as with all new beginnings, the whole thing seems daunting and overwhelming, and I don't like it. To put this reality off a bit longer, I am...
2. ...going to Paris next week. My mother will be there on business, so I'll stay with her and wander the city during the day, reading a copy of Down and Out in Paris and London in different cafes along the boulevard (remember: I am dramatic).
3. I will be staying in the apartment I'm in for one more month, but have no idea where I'll be for November, and this fact (though not quite as harsh as is being interpreted) is vomit inducing to me, in a nerves way. I think about the potential of couch hopping over Thanksgiving and am depressed. (Ah! I've shown you too much sentiment! Quickly, read something here* to distract from the potential of unbridled emotion!)
4. I'm 25 now. Nothing is really different, and I feel the way I have felt since I turned 23. I have continued in my tradition of creating a New Year's Resolution for myself on this day (something I've done since I turned 22, and really needed an active focus/change in my life). This year it's: "Come out of hiding." It's not entirely clear to me what that means, but it seems to make sense on a few levels and I respond to it, so I'll run with it. A few friends took me out to a great NY style martini bar on the day, and then last night a few more who had missed because they were writing their dissertations, met up with me at the Swan (the bar next to the Globe) for a few drinks. It was lovely seeing everyone, and sharing these couple days with people who've become important to me over the past year or so (or in Heidi's case, the past eight+ years). And Jason gave me my coffee for free on the day! Whoo hoo!
   

There must be more things going on that I'm not sharing with you, but they either fall into the category of "too personal for the Internet," or I've clean forgotten them. I'll try to update you in turn, as I remember them, or they become applicable to this arena.

In other news, pertinent to this blog, I've been debating closing it down. I started it so I could talk about going to grad school in England. Now that's over. So what is next? Why bother? Is a reflective blog a good thing to keep going after a certain age, or should one simply stick to creative writing or discussing one's career--subjects that provide release on the part of the blogger, with some veiled sense that that information is being received, that they are being heard. I started these entries as letters to my friends back home, but now I wonder why I don't just do those monthly update e-mails instead (oh, but those bore me to tears--to write, AND to read). I don't know. I'll give it a think, and let you know what happens. Would you bother to keep reading this blog, even after I get my final grade back? And just who are you anyway?

*PS: That blog is amazing. I've been reading it for the past few months and it never fails to make me laugh out loud. My favorite entry shows owls to be the disrespectful creatures that they really are, bastards.

Late night drive by--

Many things, all at once:

1) I am only about 28% done with my dissertation and have three days left to finish it.
2) I will not be back in the states until February 2010.
3) I have to move in twelve days, and I don't know where to, and I don't know how, being unemployed as I am.
4) I am turning twenty-five in this time zone in less than thirty minutes.

Oof.

And now: I am going to bed.

Welcome to my little corner of Hell

Thought I would just give you a taste of what I'm doing. Here's a shot of the brainstorming I've done for the third and final section of the portfolio (dissertation), wherein I lay out a 5 year plan for my career/future in 2,000 words. I open each section with a quote, but before I ever write anything useful, I just put down filler. Here's what exists in this space thus far (click on picture to enlarge):


Time to get back to it.

"We give our testimony to the end of summer..."

September is here, and your time is up summer! I wanted to quickly throw down something about my doings over the end of August, as quite a bit happened, and I was too, too busy to actually write anything. Also, I know I joke about it constantly, but in all seriousness I don't know when I'll be able to blog anything again, coherently anyway, what with entering dissertation crunch time and all (count down=T-minus 20 days...), so again I must beg your indulgence for what will probably be a long absence. Many apologies in advance.

August 22-23:
Traveled to Hove to participate in a research workshop led by Nia Lynn, and MA at Central on the Voice Studies course. The research was for her dissertation, and basically consisted of examining the application of the ujai breath in text work. It was lovely to get out of London almost immediately after returning to it from Edinburgh, and the second and final day of the workshop Nia, myself, and fellow MA-er and workshop participant Alex walked over to the beach after a lovely home cooked meal (provided by our host, Ms. Lynn) and went swimming. I haven't gone swimming in the longest time, and it's been several years since I was last in the sea. The water was lovely, the perfect temperature, and totally worth braving the painfully pebbly beach side to get to the water.

August 24th:
Back to Central to rehearse the piece I'm working on for the Festival of Emergent Arts. We had one of Lou's (our director) course tutors come watch our work to offer some feedback. It was the second time we had a guest in rehearsal, and the first time it was with a tutor. My work involves a lot of props, and I didn't feel wholly confident about how I had used everything, and the recording of my text I'd made wouldn't play. Basically, it didn't come off the way I'd like, and that frustrated me a lot. We have about a month left to really cement this, and it still feels like it has a long way to go. It will get there, hopefully right when it needs to, but I'm feeling uninspired about it. My ensemble members are great for this, though, and keep suggesting changes and providing feedback. It's helping to keep my head in the game, at the very least.

August 25th:
Fitting and rehearsal at the Royal Opera House for the short film that will play as part of dreamthinkspeak's site specific piece, Absent. The piece will be performed in the ROH on the 5th and 6th of September, as part of the Deloitte Ignite '09 Festival. It's set in the 1950s, and everyone was attired as such. This is me, in my dress--it was a lovely green, but they shot the film in sepia, so I've coloured it to give a sense of what I should look like on film. It was a four hour day, and it was super easy and chill, and everyone was really nice and fun to work with. It is always such a nice surprise when you get on well with the strangers you are sometimes thrown together with on acting jobs, and this was such an experience.

I also made a visit to Primark this day--my first since I got to this country. Primark is essentially an Incredibly Cheap clothing store that sells a lot of items that look stylish, but will probably fall apart after four wearings. But at their prices, four wearings is completely worth it. However, due to all of the incredible bargains (the women in my family would go CRAZY in there), walking through the store is very much like one of the following: 1) What it must have been like to push through a mob to receive rations during war time; 2) What it must be like during a time of mass looting. Not a terribly ideal shopping environment for me who hates both crowds *and* lines (I waited 15 minutes for a changing room--I know, it's a tragedy), but worth it to obtain a costume for the zombie film (sweater, t-shirt, pair of jeans) for LESS THAN FOURTEEN POUNDS (that's less than $22 American). Oh heck yes. I survived, and the McKenna blood in me, reared on outlet shopping and coupon flyers, danced through my veins this day.

(That being said, the jeans were an awful cut and the fly would not stay closed during the shoot. But they were only 5.87GBP!!!)

August 26th:
Did some filming today for a ballet that will premiere in Houston this fall, that is currently rehearsing in Paris. It's a re-imagining of The Firebird, and the designer wanted to include projections of women passing apples and taking bites out of them. The projections were being shot as Chinese shadows, so the designer was looking for women who looked like women: "i.e. breasts" was what the e-mail notice said, actually. So, there I was, in my bra and underwear and high heels with two other girls, standing behind a sheet, moving in place, passing apples and biting into them for about an hour. The projections themselves are only going to last around fifteen seconds. After this work, I was very set on finding a Pilates class.


Later in the day I picked up the zombie contacts from Baby's First Steps director Stephen, and when I got home called Max for help getting them in. The call had nothing to do with Max's intense knowledge of zombies, and everything to do with the fact he wears contacts and I do not. After a seemingly endless struggle, I finally got one in. And then I wanted to die. You have to understand, I've never worn contacts before, so the initial and instinctual rejection of having a foreign object in my eye filled me quite to the brim. Also, the contacts have white irises (hence the fright factor), and so not only was something on my eye, but something was on my eye that was obscuring my vision some how. It was strangely scary process (even more scary when I looked at myself with both of them in my eyes), but I don't think I would have been a terribly convincing zombie without them. Once I calmed myself down, they were fine, and I wore them for a couple hours and watched TV. Very easy. I'd do it again.

August 27th:
Shooting the party sequence for Absent. This day really showcased the importance of working with people you get on with, and again what a treat that is. I was stationed at a table with two guys, Charlie and Conor, and they were great the whole day. Because of the nature of the piece (and because it's film) the director had us doing basically the same few actions over and over again for about six hours. If I had ended up with people who were less relaxed, less fun, and less engaging in our constant random conversation (the film's only soundtrack is a big band swing song, so we talked about anything and everything else during the shoot), this day would have been really draining and long and awfully boring. Instead, I had a great time (up until the end when I was so full on the Ribena that had been standing in for the wine on our tables that I wanted to crash from the sugar while peeing), laughed a lot, and got to wear a pretty, pretty dress while doing it. If only my real life were more like these days--except there would be real wine, damn it!

August 29th:
Filmed the exterior crowd scene for Absent. Several of us turned up on both filming dates to essentially play different people and provide more filler for the beginning of the film. This is me in my second costume--I have on another, different green dress, but again I have sepia-ed myself. Despite several delays that broke up filming (people walking into shot, traffic, some police coming by to see if we were filming legally), we managed to wrap early, and I had no trouble making my second scheduled event of the day, which was seeing my friend Laurel (that's her there, looking all pretty) in an independent horror film she's a lead in that screened at the Film 4 FrightFest. The movie had some problems (I think they're going back into post to make some adjustments after the London screenings), but she was great and it was lovely to see someone I cared about do so well at something we both care about a great deal. And it made me miss her.

August 30th:
Back to Primark for more zombie clothing. Stephen texted me Saturday and said our make up artist Faye had requested more than one top as there would be bloodying and we may need a spare. It turned out we did, so despite escaping within barely an inch of my life (never go to Primark on a weekend), it was totally worth it. And again, it was incredibly cheap.

That night, Caitlin and my friend Jake came over and I cooked them dinner. Jake is a temporary transplant from the states, in the UK on what I gather is essentially a business exchange with his company, where a UK worker goes to NYC to get trained at his job, and Jake comes here and does his job until the Brit is tip top and ready to come back. It was nice seeing a familiar and friendly face, and I hope to see a bit of him while he's about the next couple of months.

August 31st:
Shooting Baby's First Steps. We were shooting in Stephen's flat, and my call was at 7AM. It was hard getting up early--especially after having awful nightmares about a zombie apocalypse the whole night--but I got there right on time and again lucked out that all of the people I worked with that day were fun, relaxed, and focused. Life is so much easier when people are awesome. I only hope I was the best zombie I could be for them! I'm excited to see the final cut of the film (though a little scared to see me as a zombie) and hopefully all will go well with it.

And that, my friends, is how everyone should end their summer.

Dissertation? I have no idea what you're talking about...

I've come to terms with the fact that I've basically taken July off. I have gone to a concert, thrown a dinner party, seen two plays, been to talks about the futures of documentary and animation, gone to the movies (A LOT), done a lot of jogging, gone to a talk about The Wire that featured David Simon and George Pelecanos, have started a rehearsal & generative process for a festival of work that will go up at the end of September, auditioned, and started reading a really good novel. What I have not done is an extensive amount of any work on my dissertation. I did manage to contact my interview subject over the Facebook (Yes: the Facebook) and have sent him off a list of questions. This man is actually important, and very busy, and I will not be in the same country as him for a time, so e-mail interview it is. Now I'm just awaiting his response. I have also gone to the V&A's Theatre Archives, located at Hammersmith in the magnificent Blythe House to watch recordings of Improbable shows, which I thought would help in my dissertation, but upon viewing I've found that they probably won't. The two performances I watched were great, but had little to do with what I'm actually writing my dissertation on. Still, any excuse and opportunity to see Improbable's work is a good one, and I enjoyed that morning.

However, aside from sending off the interview questions, and the occassional skimming of some critical or theoretical text, I have really done nothing. I acknowledge this and accept it (there's really nothing I can do about it now), and plan to change. Yes, I will alter this downward spiral I'm riding and turn around and go upupup to academic and theatrical glory. And this journey will start soon, almost immediately. In three days. But August 1st, that's the day, the flood waters will hit and everything will start to fall into place. This is the plan.

It's unfortunate that hardly anything I ever plan on ends up happening. Alas.

That being said, I plan to get my head in gear about my work shortly. I also plan to blog a bit more. I'm really going to try--truly, I am. I know I always say it, but this time I mean it. I've changed. Can't we give it one more chance? Please?

You ask, "Why have you forsaken me?" and I tell you, I have not.

Up way too late (early) doing some work on the "script"* for the play, and realized it'd been a while since I threw something up here. My apologies for my silence, it has been so busy I'm surprised I've been able to get through the week at all. Many, many things have happened.

The day following my blog entry from the 4th, we finally did our first showing with a test audience. The experience was very surprising, and we basically got the complete opposite reaction from them than what we had expected. We had been working with a really crazy, HUGE narrative (that I will someday regale you with, but not here, not today) that held the back story as to why this dinner had come about, why the audience were guests at it, etc, and we had been convinced that it was going to be like pulling teeth (that's actually a hint at said narrative) to get a reaction from them. The audience ended up being very vocal and participatory, and we found that because of this we couldn't actually get nearly any of the narrative across in the moments we had planned during the part that we showed. The focus was too split, and suddenly what we were trying to do seemed largely inappropriate. After our feedback from this group, we started talking about this, and gradually came to the conclusion that we needed to be economical with what we were sharing with the audience, make sure it was really important, and that only those moments would be the ones that were kept. But then nothing we had done seemed useful. I made a comment saying, "Well, I've always been the kind of person who, if it's not working at the eleventh hour, would go in and say, 'Let's throw everything out!'" Lisa suddenly spoke up: "I was thinking the same thing!"

And so it came to pass that we literally threw out all of the story and character development that we had been doing for about three weeks previous (in what is essentially a six week process, that is a crapload of time). I was kind of so blown away by the prospect I went home and fell asleep at 8PM. It's all well and good to talk about cutting everything, but when you decide to do it two weeks before you open, an understandable amount of apprehension plagues you, no doubt. I don't know if this sort of thing happens in traditional theatre. I'm sure it must in some form, but I've never encountered it. I think part of what makes devised theatre the beast it is is that apparent fluidity--that it can and does change every day you are in the rehearsal room. But sometimes that is hard to accept, especially when those changes are so drastic and monumental in size. Recently, I have been constantly comparing the devising process to bipolar disorder: the highs are amazing, but the lows make you want to kill yourself. Everyone I've said this to on the course seems to consider it an accurate statement, so I express it here in full confidence of its validity.

Anyway, we decided on Thursday to cut everything, I went home and slept for about fourteen hours, got up the next day, met Amy Lee for one last coffee before she headed back to the states, and then had an amazing rehearsal with my company wherein we re-wrote the entire performance. It was pretty awesome, though at the end of it, again, I was completely drained. We ended up going back to an idea we had initially, trying to align that with the audience's action during our showing, and also choosing what we already had in place in the performance that was worth keeping and would serve this new direction. In the end, it is a simpler idea, and hopefully more meaningful.

So yes, things were headed in the right direction after that rehearsal and they continue to be. I look forward to the run, and while I'm nervous, I think it will be alright. It must be. Where is Geoffrey Rush to tell me so?!

Seriously, though: we can pull this off. I know it.

In other news:

• The great hunt for housing has begun. Went to look at a room in a private residence today up in Willesden Green. The proprietor was a very sweet, older woman, and the price was good, but I've lived above another older woman before and had a pretty unpleasant experience with that. There's also the thing about living in a private residence: you always feel like you're a guest in some one's home, and that you don't have you're own space. I don't know if I could relax (or come home drunk) in a situation like that. I'm seeing another place Sunday afternoon, so I may have a better idea then if this is the direction I'm headed in. Yeep. I hate moving. So much.
• The project I was meant to work on that was slated to travel to Germany is not happening. This is not so much a surprise, but it is disappointing, and raises the question: what am I going to do with myself during the summer? I asked myself this question in my head, and responded aloud with, "Get a job, you lazy immigrant!" I can be so unnecessarily abusive sometimes. A job is an option. But whatever I do, the dissertation is going to have to be the first priority, and as the work I was going to do on proposed project was meant to be part of my research (damn it) I have to figure out how to make up for that. I think I can manage it somehow with something, but it's got to be really good.

I'm sure there must be more I should/could tell you, but it's now 2AM, and I have to get to sleep. I'll try to drop by next week and let you guys know what goes on, but if I don't please know: it's not you, it's me. I mean, I just need some time off, you know? To think things through. I mean, things have just been going so fast and well, maybe we just need to take a step back. And also: you could be a little less clingy.

Until then, enjoy this.

*Since there is very little scripted dialogue in the performance, it feels wrong using the word "script" to its full value in terms of normal understanding. Perhaps what we have been piecing together is closer to a "running document," reflecting what goes on in the show more objectively?<--Can you tell I go to grad school? What a piece of theoretical bs. And yet: there is sense to it.