The Sydney Theatre Company staged this with their Actors' Company, including Cate Blachett, and I chose to go in for the long haul and start at 1pm on Wednesday, with a break for dinner and a very late bedtime. As I couldn't persuade any of my friends to part with the cash or comfort, I went alone, but talked happily to those around me in the theatre between acts. Rather bizarrely the man sitting next to me was completely blind, and he and his wife had made a trip from Wellington, New Zealand to 'see' the play. She would occasionally lean over and explain significant visual things to him, but in the main he was relying on his hearing to interpret the movement. He cheerfully explained to me that he loves going to the theatre and reckons he has a better time than the rest of us, as he relies on his imagination to conjure up the images.
The play itself was of course great, with some of Shakespeare's best speeches, including Henry V's famous rousing Saint Crispen's Day speech at the battle of Agincourt, quoted in the title of this post, but I was disappointed with the staging. It was gimmicky and lacking in passion and interpretation in many sections. Act 3 dragged and had too many bloody deaths in it, and many of the speeches were delivered without movement or intonation, rendering them bland and meaningless. The acting was in the main pretty solid, with a fine turn from Ms Blanchett as Richard II (she does play a man very well) and a great performance from the dishy Ewen Leslie, but I was a little disappointed overall. Still, full marks for trying.
As the Sydney Festival drew to a close, I decided to take part in a symbolic gesture to herald in my own new year. I figured since I messed the first New Year's Eve up so resoundedly, I should get another go. On Saturday 31 January I dragged myself out of bed at 4.30am and went down to Bondi Beach to watch the sun rise over the ocean. But this wasn't a normal day, instead I was joined by a few thousand people to watch the Sydney Philharmonic Choir deliver a rousing dawn chorus. It was hair-raisingly beautiful and I felt emotional and happy that I'm on the mend after my accident, and living in such a beautiful part of the world.
There was also some humour in the proceedings as they rattled through a version of 'Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside' at the end of the set. As the first warm rays of sun peeked over the horizon everyone wandered away happy, and I went straight back to bed!
So things are slowly getting back to normal, I'm still seeing the physio, and doing my silly little exercises. Work is incredibly stressful and I'm trying to keep afloat of everything. I'm doing very long days but at least my new team have started to join me for the 2009 festival, so I've finally got people to delegate to! I also went to my doctor to get the results of some blood tests I had before Christmas. Turns out I'm anaemic and my platelet count is perilously low! More good news. So I've got a cocktail of supplements and immune boosters to take each day. She threw in some stuff to help my bones for good measure.
I've been watching the news of the snow in the UK with excitement! It's been great to see so many of your pics of the country looking so different. I find it so amusing that everything comes to a standstill at the slightest bit of snow -- you'd think the UK was a tropical country! Meanwhile it's really bloody hot here. Apparently tomorrow it's going to be 48 degrees, the papers said that NSW will be the hottest place in the world tomorrow and I can well believe it. I shall go and find myself a little patch of shade.
cx
No comments:
Post a Comment