Twelfth Night and the National Gallery

Last night a few of us went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's Twelfth Night. It was awesome, but the best part was that I was in the fourth row. Oh and we had gotten free tickets. That's right. Since we are between the ages of 16 and 25, we qualify for this special offer that they call A Night Less Ordinary which is aimed at getting more young people to see theatre and Shakespeare. Well, they don't need to know that we all are theatre and Shakespeare nerds and that we really don't need any more encouragement, but if they are going to give us free tickets, heck, we'll take 'em. Anyway, we were super close and the set was amazing. They set the play in a Near East type setting, which was kind of combination of ancient Greece (because of the columns) and Turkey (because of the rugs and the style of dress and the music). And we were able to see all the expressions of the actors who were all wonderful. There was one kind of famous person in it; James Fleet, who played Tom in Four Weddings and a Funeral, was Sir Andrew Aguecheek and was the funniest in the show. Feste, the fool, was a brilliant combination of wittiness and seriousness which is exactly what the role calls for. Viola reminded me (and Maggie) of Julie Andrews and she was excellent. Really, everyone was excellent, although I wasn't sure about Malvolio. They had an older actor play him who looked to be about 70 years old which I thought was maybe too old for that part. He is tricked into thinking that Olivia (who was also played older, like 35-40, rather than 20-25) wants to marry him, but instead of it being funny, I found it more heartbreaking. I think there are elements of both in the written play, but they definitely chose to play up the sympathy for Malvolio whose plot line isn't really resolved. They had him standing next to Feste, who was singing a very sad song as the final visual of the play which really hit home the tragic undertones of this comedy. But to be so close to all these fabulous actors and the set was just fantastic. I know I've enjoyed a play, especially Shakespeare, when I don't notice how long it is while I'm watching it. This play was 3 hours and I definitely didn't care.

Since today is Wednesday, I didn't have class, so I decided to do some wandering. First I went to Fortnum and Mason where I got a sampler pack of their famous teas and a truffle, which the lady gave me for free since I was getting the tea and only wanted one truffle. Well, I wanted ALL the truffles, but I forced myself to only get one. Then I went to the National Gallery and I have to say that I agree with Maggie a little about this gallery. I was a little disappointed. Yes, they have big name artists (what gallery doesn't?) but most of them I wasn't thrilled about. Maggie talked about Van Gogh's Sunflowers and I agree that they weren't all that spectacular. They actually look very sparse, like they are dying, which perhaps is very relevant to Van Gogh's feelings about his future as a painter. A Wheatfield, with Cypresses was definitely my favorite as well. I did like most of the Monet, especially the one called Waterlillies, at Sunset which the gallery has just acquired. Not the typical blues and greens of Monet, but with a lot of pink thrown in. Finally, I was trying hard to like Velazquez's The Toilet of Venus because it reminds me of Titian's Venus of Urbino, which is one of my favorite paintings, but because of that comparison, I didn't think it had the same quality as Titian's work. However, the cafe at the National Gallery is superb with a table of delicious pastries and on Maggie's recommendation, I got this huge Apple Cinnamon muffin and had it when I returned to my flat with a cup of my new Fortnum and Mason tea.

I've booked my trip to Spain for spring break. There are five of us going and tonight we going to figure out where we are going besides Madrid so any suggestions would be welcome! We are thinking either Sevilla or Barcelona, possibly both, but since they are on opposite sides of the country, we are attempting to decide how much time on buses we want to spend.