The Pitmen Debaters

Pitmen Painters at Tate Gallery
Originally uploaded by noollag

[I went to see this play with my program, + this is the review I had to write for my Modern Drama class]

The Pitmen Painters, now playing at the National Theatre, is the story of a few pitmen who accidentally take an art class and wind up with accidental success. An already interesting story known in the art world as that of the Ashington Group, the playwright Lee Hall pulls from it a number of debates on where money belongs in art. While not literally faithful to the original scale of the group, the play gives us a strong sense of the passionate dynamic of the artists.

Throughout the 2 hour and 40 minute production, the cast remains a solid company, even when the action lags, pushed to strong characterization by the director Max Roberts- unsurprising, as Roberts is a founding member of Live Theatre, Newcastle Upon Tyne. The group's tutor, Robert Lyon, is given an appropriately conflicted sensibility by the talents of Ian Kelley. Playing his foil Oliver, Christopher Connel is an occasionally over-loud bully, who none the less manages to reel it in during more sensitive scenes. The most commendable performance of all is that of Brian Lonsdale, who transforms himself from the unhappy unemployed miner into the acclaimed Ben Nicholson with such a marked transformation of posture and accent that the audience hardly knew he was the same actor.

In the National Theatre's hulking auditorium it would seem that it would be easy for the action to get lost, but Gary McCann's design gives us a succinctly communicative set which utilizes but does not strain the audience's imagination. Projections of the paintings appear over the actors heads when needed, and the sounds of the pit provided by Martin Hodgson which appear between scenes give us a constant reminder of where these men come from.

And where these men come from seems to be one of the central sticking points for their art throughout the play- Hall enters us into the debate about why art is made, and who it is for. For the pitmen, it is a personal expression of their world, and they feel that nobody but them could have created such works. For the art collectors, the pitmen are a quaint occurrence to be admired for their raw experiences, and possession of their paintings acts as a status symbol, a symbol of their 'with-it-ness'. But the pitmen don't really "get" the commodification of their art- to them it is something which would be absurd to put a price tag on. As Oliver says at one point in the play, "A funny thing, once you've painted a picture, you feel it’s part of your life.”

As the pitmen set to tearing each other to pieces over their ideals about their art, the audience is swept up and along, and one feels they would like to dive onto the stage and engage the actors as their characters. Though it tends to drag toward the end, The Pitmen Painters is a thought-provoking treatise on money’s place in art- just don’t spend too much of your own on it.

Weekend starting 3/21

Brighton- Blogged
Originally uploaded by chlorinebeach

On Saturday, Sarah Jason + I got on the train down to Brighton (£20 round trip!). We walked past the Brighton Pavilion but didn't go inside because we didn't feel like spending the money on it. Most of the rest of the day was spent walking up + down the beach- we went to the Marina + walked along the seawall, got some really tasty fish + chips for lunch, + walked along the entertainment boardwalk. More photos can be found in my photostream.

Overall, it was just a nice relaxing experience- I haven't just chilled + enjoyed my surroundings for an extended period of time for a while, + it made me really excited to spend more time on the beach this summer.

***



Yesterday was a really nice day, so I didn't really want to stay inside doing work. Sarah + I walked down to the South Bank Centre (one of our favorite haunts for free entertainement), but we saw the strangest thing on our way, on Charing Cross.

Heading south, three horse buggies popped out of the intersection and headed up the street in the opposite direction- everybody on the street stopped and stared. A few moments later, about seven more buggies popped out of the same road going in the opposite direction, closely followed by a number of police vehicles.

At first we thought it was some kind of official event, but then one of the horses got turned in the wrong direction into traffic and one of the police officers started yelling at the man driving the buggy, and the general attitude of the officers toward the buggy drivers was one of open hostility. Was it some kind of protest? I don't think I'll ever know- a quick Google search merely tells me that 'Charing Cross' is cockney rhyming slang for horse.

Wednesday + beyond

Week Ten- blogged
Originally uploaded by chlorinebeach

I got up earlyish on wednesday in order to get to the Garden Museum by the time it opened at 10:30. I have been getting up early and going to bed early quite a lot recently, and I must say I really like it- it makes me feel so much more productive.

The Garden Museum was kind of a bust. I had seen into what I thought was it on the bus yesterday on my way to the Tate, but when I got inside it appeared that what I had been seeing was actually somebody else's private garden. The museum had free entry for students, though, so Sarah + I sat in the (tiny) garden, she with her book and I with my inks.

We walked home along the Thames and up through Covent Garden, and I stopped into the Royal Opera House to see if I could get tickets for the Gerome Robbins show being done, and decided to do SRO day of, but bought tickets for the showing of Swan Lake that evening.

I had an appointment for a free facial at Lush, so I went, and it was really quite nice. The store was relatively empty, so the employees were dancing around and kept coming over to chat with me in a very sincere way, which added to the whole experience. The girl who gave me my massage was from Barbados, so it was interesting to hear a different kind of outsider's perspective on the whole culture.

Tom decided that he wanted to go with me to Swan Lake, so at the appointed time we made the 10 minute jaunt to the Royal Opera house and took our positions in the SRO boxes, people watching the wealthier classes below us.

I haven't been to a full-on, old-school ballet in quite a long time, so it was fun to watch all of the spectacle of costumes and scenery and crazy dancing whizzing around. Part of the fun was watching the drunk woman try not to fall out of the chair in front of me, and Tom had a really great time, this being his first ballet.

Other highlights this week include:

-Violin/Accordion concert at SBC
-the Garden Museum
-Climbing out onto the roof
-Waiting For Godot with Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Simon Callow + Ronald Pickup
-Getting my Computer back + running

Tate Britain: Altermodern

Tate Britain: Altermodern
Originally uploaded by Tim Bradshaw

Today I got on a bus and went down to the Tate to see their "Altermodern" exhibition. After wandering around past parliament due to a diversion suffered by my bus, I bought my ticket (£4.50 for students, not too bad), got my free brochure, + proceeded to wander around.

I found that many of the artists had their base, or a lot of their work, in performance- which solidified the feeling of wanting to spend my life on some kind of a Gesamtkunstwerk. Some of the work I felt relatively neutral about, and some of the work I didn't really get, and I was interested to find that I hardly hated anything at all [I have the tendency to get very angry at art].

I won't bother describing any of the art, but I'll send you a link to an article on Charles Avery (and a link to a photo of the room where his work was displayed), because I enjoyed his work in particular.

But the whole, whole point of this post is that I feel like going to this exhibit has, in some way, helped me with my 'journey.' I still don't know what I want to do with my life (who does?), but I know a few things-

-Sculpture is more interesting than drawing
-Making clothing IS sculpting
-My life will somehow be connected with the theater.

Will I build avante-garde costumes for the hat circus? Will I be a good personal assistant to a lawyer/celebrity/accountant? Will I spend my days in a coffee shop and my nights building a tiny replica of Binghamton in my basement? Only time will tell, but it seems that these people have managed to do it (and some of them not that well, or interestingly), so there's no reason I can't.

If I had known all of this when I started undergrad, I could have created my own program of study and given myself an education in sculpture/costume design. But I didn't, and that's okay too.

Sorry, Kids

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in so long- I got back from Break on Saturday, and I've been spending most of the time that I've been around the computer trying to upload pictures to Flickr, + I'm not even really done yet, but here are some links to what I do have:

Glasgow
Edinburgh
Train Between Edinburgh + York
York
Fountains Abbey

York and Fountains Abbey are still in the process of being updated (should be done by tonight, so check back then), and after that I just have the Liverpool pictures to put up. The Fountain's Abbey is the one that is probably the most dense with pictures, so don't feel like you have to look at all of them (or any of them, really)

Another reason I haven't updated recently is that my computer has been seriously having a seizure, and I honestly thought it was completely gone at the beginning of this week. Fortunately I have been able to fix some of it, but I have an appointment at the Apple store to get it fixed on Saturday. My worst fear is that they have to wipe my entire hard drive to save the computer from whatever it has, and while that wouldn't be too horrifying as I backed up my computer before I left for London back in January, it's still not great- I'll lose any pictures I haven't posted to the internet, all of the music that I've bought since January, and (worst of all) the journal that I've been keeping since then. I did put my journal on my little 1 GB jump drive, but I can't really save the rest of it- the drive is too small. So keep your fingers crossed for me, okay?

Notes from the Road: Glasgow edition

Hello all! Thought you wouldn't hear from me, did you? Wrong!

The bus ride up to Glagow was good. Long, tedious, and a smelley guy, but I guess that's how the bus is- I read half of a book Sarah lent me (the one I meant to bring, 'A Room With A View', I accidentally left in my backpack, which was below the bus). I messed up our hostel booking, but they were really nice about it and gave us some better rooms that were avaliable for the same price as we would have paid for the ones I made the reservation for.

Glasgow itself was very beautiful. Many of the buildings are from the Victorain era (which is when it was a boom town), so it's interesting to think that that is what London would have been more like if it hadn't been bombed all apart during the war. All of the people who live there are very friendly too! I didn't feel any ill will toward me as a tourist at any point, and everybody was very friendly and polite.

We went on a self-guided walking tour, saw a few museums, looked at the school, and walked up the side of the necropolis near the cathedral, which had GREAT views. I took about 100 pictures, and don't worry- they'll be up on Flickr as soon as I get home.