Chapter 7: English Theatre

Only a few weeks to finish the first quarter, eager to start the holidays and go home. It seems that the routine has been set although I am still doing different things. Nothing remarkable except maybe the theater. Two weeks ago I closed the classic Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus by Arrows&Traps to start working then on a modern classic as Tennessee Williams StepBySteps Productions. A show of three works from the same period represented in a building set in the United States in the years 30’s or 40’s.

We went out on a Saturday night since we ended early. We ended up at the pub around the corner talking about the different Christmas celebrations from different cultures. A friend of one of the actors asked me who I was, what I did and how I knew the company. I explained that he had only just arrived in London and looking for work had found its announcement. We talked for a while and somehow we started talking about me living in the United States and cultural differences etc. It he happened to be one of those Europeans who believe in the American dream, that's all very nice there and that what matters in life is money. It is very difficult for me to talk to these people about my work and theater. How do you explain to someone like them, the satisfaction that I feel every night once the lights go off on the stage and everyone goes home? How do you explain that I can be working for 12 hours or even 14 hours straight in a theater, rehearsing, fixing lights and programming, working with actors and directors etc ... How do you explain to these people that wages in the theater world are not the best but we would not change our careers for anything else in the world. Because what matters is not the money, what matters is that when you wake up in the morning you want to go to work. What matters is that when you finish a project you feel proud to put your name on it. It really is love for the art. And surely we will all end up living under a bridge starving but spend our days stuck inside the theater while it's raining outside anyway so it is not such a bad life.

And from my love for theater and the desire to work started a number of conflicts with Erasmus (Strasbourg from 25 Feb to 30 Apr). I wanted to talk to the tutor to see if there was something he could help with but his response was, as predicted, that we had to go. The first course was designed to study a lot and get the bases and tools necessary to be able to work in our projects and in the real world during our second year. So during Christmas and on the month and a half before moving to Strasbourg I should find something but it is not easy to when you have to leave so soon ... So we are back to the work seeking again.

Next week it is the last one of class and we are all concentrated in the presentations for the following week.

Eager to finish and go home a few days!