We are Thursday morning here in London, and the tour is going wonderfully. Our first show was at the Old Vic. We saw Playboy of the Western World and it was great. A very traditional interpretation of the script and a lovely production.
On Monday night we saw Comedy of Errors at the National Theatre. This was truly fantastic. They did a modern interpretation of the script and I think it really helped to bring the story alive. Shakespeare's texts are timeless and seeing this story set in a contemporary London setting really underlined that. Personally, this has been my favorite so far.
On Tuesday we saw a matinee performance of the horror ghost story, The Woman in Black. Another excellent production. Very suspenseful and, at times, terrifying. What made this really exciting for me, though, was that there was also a field trip of about seventy high school students in the audience who were very vocal about screaming in terror at all the right moments. We were basically watching a horror film with a bunch of kids and it made it even better because they were so into it.
Tuesday evening we saw Reasons to be Pretty out at the Almeida. A very gritty and brilliantly acted American play. This one incited the liveliest post-show discussion so far as the play really questions modern relationships and marriage as well as the obsession with beauty. The tube ride back home was a barrage of differing opinions and points of view on the topics that the play raised. Theatre is supposed to provoke discussion and this production certainly did just that.
The improv show was on Wednesday night. I performed with an all-Canadian team against two local London teams. Needless to say, we won in a landslide.
Tonight we're off to see Jerusalem. All the talk in London right now is about how brilliant this show is. It's the hottest ticket in town. Can't wait!
