Scanned artifacts from London, Summer of 1991. The so-called Gulf War was over, British troops paraded around the city, and I quietly checked out as many plays and shows as I could during my internship at English Heritage.
The Chieftains were playing everywhere. I saw them with The Pogues at Brixton Academy ("presented by the Bank of Ireland.") Though I missed Marianne Faithfull, in 1991 I stayed at the flat where her son Nick Dunbar was raised, where Mick Jagger stopped by on the way to Hyde Park back at the end of the 1960s. And yadda yadda yadda.
London playbills are cool, as are the actual ticket stubs, and they bring back a lot of partially submerged memories.
This was a beautiful and touching production: "T'Aint Nobody's Business if I Do:" a musical devised and directed by Nishita Sharma, Latchmere Theatre, 503 Battersea Park Road, London SW11.
A fascinating take on the lives and songs of torch singers Billie Holiday and Édith Piaf and really enjoyable. To quote from the playbill:
The two women were born within months of each other in 1915, Billie Holiday in Baltimore, USA and Édith Piaf in Paris, France. Although the cultures they grew up in were vastly different, there lives had many parallels. They were both born into abject poverty and hardship, and experienced personal traumas which variously included child abuse, prostitution and drug addiction . . . an exploration of how the private experiences inspired and influenced their songs and powers of expression.
Thoughts on plays? I much prefer smaller productions, little places. The last non-student play I saw, and I liked it a lot, was August Wilson's Jitney put on at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.
Today's Rune: Partnership.
7 comments:
Cool stuff, I love things like that.
I have to get out more.
but I am cheap
Ooh. Jars my memories too. I have been lucky enough to see 3 plays in London, years apart. One was with a young Judi Dench another with John Mills, Susan Hampton. The most recent was the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat. I have the disc and play the music and remember London and all those wonderful pubs. Museums too.
cool memorabilia to have.
That's funny, because it seems like the Chieftans have been playing somewhere here in the States somewhere every week for the last 20 years!
I love plays and enjoyed many of 'em in Alpena where they have a year round professional theatre, as well as local ones. Now that I have access to so many, I can't seem to get my butt to one. Went to the Shakespeare film fest a few years ago and saw 5 plays in 3 days!
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