My first impression of London was that I was delighted by how calm and clean it is for such a big city. I’m so used to big cities being filthy, covered in litter, and reeking of piss, so when I arrived in London I was delighted to find that is not the case! Everything is very clean and I even saw city workers power spraying concrete fixtures to clean the filth off them. So far I have been underwhelmed by the lack of culture shock that I have experienced. Behaviorally I have noticed a few things about the people of London. One of these things is they are always saying sorry even when nothing needs to be apologized for, yesterday when trying to shuffle pass these 4 guys in a crowded bathroom, all four of them said “sorry”
We all explored the tube together, which I’m sure was very fun for Shawn, Courtney, and Casey, the whole time they stayed at the front and back of the group in order to heard us like sheep. The station resembles the NYC subway a lot but is quieter. I would describe the people here as similar to New Yorkers in that they all seem to have their own agenda and don’t want to be bothered but are less aggressive and intimidating about it. I observed that the locals pass each other on the escalators on the left side which is something I don’t recall ever seeing in America. Most of the time we just stand and enjoy the ride.
We ended our first whole day with Strait Line Crazy. The play was a beautiful portrayal of Robert Moses’s incredible and tragic story, leading to his eventual downfall after a lifetime of being stubbornly blinded by his own ambition. It was interesting watching British actors tackle American dialects and seeing how they all compared to each other on stage. Surprisingly I was least impressed with Ralph Fiennes attempt at an American dialect, but this did not distract from his incredible performance. Fiennes acting displayed a gradual and controlled decent of a character who’s obsession with power and control lead him to his lowest point as an over worked man, hated by the public, and left all alone without his friends and the eventual loss of his wife. I enjoyed the minimalistic use of the stage and set and enjoyed watching the play in a thrust style theatre. Having just performed in a thrust production myself it was cool to watch actors of such stature approach the same challenges that I had when dealing with a thrust, challenges such as strategically using the whole space and always having an actor face a side of the theatre at any given time.
Theatre in London U of A 