There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Everyone:

Write the passage from Shakespeare that you are memorizing in your own words.  Why do you think I chose it for us to learn?

*****

"How far that little candle throws its beams!   So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

What does Shakespeare mean by that quote?  How does it apply to you?

Welcome back to the excitement!

Your first journal of the year!

Grade 8's:  What should I know about you?  You might want to include where you went to school before, if you did drama there, if you have ever done drama before, what you expect to get out of this class.  It's important for you to let me know if you have stage fright, if you have ever performed in public (even if it is as an athlete or a musician or a dancer).  Please share anything that you think will help me teach you and understand you better!

Grade 9/10's:  Write about an adventure you had this summer.  Make it sound dramatic.  It should reflect the plot line we learned about in Grade 8.  At the beginning, introduce the characters and setting, have an inciting incident and rising action and then an exciting climax!  This might become a family story that you can share with your children and grandchildren.

Senior Drama:  This is a combined course with Directing/Script Development, Directed Studies, Theatre Production, and Theatre Performance.  What do you expect to get out of the course you have chosen?  Think of an artist or a theatre professional you admire who does the work that you hope to study.  What do you like about their work?

our last hurrah!

Well, we are down to a long weekend before we return to our duties at Steveston-London!  I enjoy school (evidenced by the fact that I have been in school most of my life!) but I always would like two more weeks of vacation.  It is the glory of "unstructured time" -- you rule yourself completely and don't have to be anywhere at a certain time or do anything by a certain date.  I read an article in the Guardian newspaper about this British person going to South America to work and how the attitude to time is very different in South America.  Punctuality is not such a big deal.  If they get busy with something and have to finish it or whatever, they might be late for the next appointment but it isn't a big deal.  I know we have been told that if you are chronically late, it shows contempt for the person you're meeting or the task in which you should be engaged, but I don't think that's necessarily true.  I think students who come late to class in the morning are sometimes dealing with sleep deprivation (sound like you?)  I know that science says that kids your age are dealing with that shift in their circadian rhythms (your natural sleep-awake cycle that revolves around a 24 hour period), and that you literally can't go to sleep at 10 and can't wake up at 7.  Of course, my circadian rhythm is that I wake up at about 5:30 a.m. (ruled by Daisy, of course) and then am completely bagged by 9 p.m.

Anyhow, I have had a busy month, with my sister and brother-in-law here for the last two weeks.  We were very busy and that was great, but it did make the time fly by.  We saw "Coriolanus" at Bard on the Beach and I thought it was very well done.  They had a woman play Coriolanus (called Gaius Marcius) (Moya O'Connell) and she was very powerful and other cast members stood out as well:  Praneet Akilla (Brutus), Craig Erickson (Sicinius), Colleen Wheeler (Volumnia) and Sara Vickruck (Lieutenant for the Volsces, who sang and played the guitar as well -- very well!)  It was very physical and the set (a series of projections on moveable panels) worked really well and I liked the music and the mob characters (who are not listed in the cast, so I can't tell you who they were, but they were all terrific, especially one woman, who completely inhabited her small but important role).  It is a pretty bleak story, but one that is relevant for the times.

Anyway, try to enjoy these last few days of freedom before Tuesday.  The weather is iffy, but don't let that stop you.  I went to the beach yesterday in the rain and it was really nice!  People were there anyway, barbecuing and paddle-boarding but it was quiet and the little birds were out and I took some deep breaths and told myself that I am a very lucky woman and I believed it, too!

This is the last day for the historical vignettes in Steveston.  If you haven't seen them, you have two shows left!  They run at 1 and 3 this afternoon.  I will be at the one at 3.  They depart from the museum on Moncton Street and the show takes an hour and the actors are great and the material is really interesting.

Of Mice and Men

I know I've been remiss in posting to my blog this month, but I've been super busy with my yearly trip to Penticton and now my sister and brother-in-law are visiting from Toronto!

Last night, I saw Promethean Theatre's production of "Of Mice and Men" starring one of our alumnus actors -- David Volpov -- as "Whit".  It was a terrific show and I recommend it enthusiastically.  The story and play, written by John Steinbeck, are rightfully classics and the cast and crew do justice to Lennie and George's friendship and the struggles they face, the hopes that sustain them, the world in which they find themselves and the shocking ending of the story.  The cast includes an actor with disabilities playing Lennie and having a diverse cast made the play really resonate.  It felt completely authentic and I was moved by the individual performances of the whole cast.  (I would really like to read the script -- the novel was adapted for the stage by John Steinbeck himself and he made certain important changes to the story after listening to the comments of his friends after they read the book.  I think that says a lot about John Steinbeck, who is an extraordinary writer.)  It had funny, tender and hopeful moments and I was really impressed with how the actors lived in their roles.

Anyway, if you want to see an amazing show, you still have a small window of opportunity.  It is running at the Stage Door Theatre at 3102 Main Street at 8 p.m. each night until August 24.

(How do I get rid of this bump off to the left?  I tried to post Promethean Theatre's poster for the play, but this is what I got!)

T

Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood Redux

I read a column by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times yesterday that tried to equate this movie to the idea of nostalgia for the days of white male privilege.  Although I agree that white privilege was and is a thing, I do not think this movie explores that idea.  She makes reference to an article in the Los Angeles Times by Mary McNamera that asks this question -- "Who doesn’t miss the good old days when cars had fins and white men were the heroes of everything?"  But is that what the movie is doing?

Obviously, I don't see it that way.  Cliff Booth, Brad Pitt's character, seems to me to exemplify not the white male power structure, but rather a nice guy who has finished last.  He doesn't really have any talent, like his friend, Rick, and has gotten into trouble in the past (we don't really find out a lot about this, but we know that he has problems getting work), lives in a filthy trailer and eats Kraft dinner, and basically survives by driving Rick around and fixing the antenna on his house and stuff like that.  She says that his performance invokes iconic "male" performances from the past like Rick in "Casablanca" or Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry -- well, firstly, how one could connect those two characters is beyond me, and how you could say that Cliff is like either of them, is also beyond me. 

Rick is not the iconic man of the sixties either.  He isn't the tough cowboy he plays on tv -- he is full of angst and eagerness to please and cries at the drop of a hat -- is he a hero?  Not in the way Mary McNamera describes.     I get that Quentin Tarantino is nostalgic for old Hollywood -- apparently, he expended a lot of effort in getting the scenes to look authentic but to try to connect it to Donald Trump or the Trumpian idea of "white men as heroes" is a real stretch.

She says we need to leave the world of the past behind, and certainly I agree with her, but I don't think this movie is urging us to return to those 1960 Hollywood days.  I think it is a personal story of Quentin Tarantino's love of Hollywood through the lens of actors who are never what they seem (and the struggle and joy of being an actor).  I'm not a huge fan of QT but I don't think this description of the movie catches its charm, which it has in abundance.

Last night, I watched the movie "Red River" with John Wayne (now there's a Hollywood hero/cowboy without a doubt) and Montgomery Clift (another iconic Hollywood actor, but the complete and utter opposite of John Wayne).  It is a classic western in every sense of the word, in the sense of the good and the bad that that genre entails but what puts it over into greatness is Montgomery Clift himself.  He is really extraordinary.  If you've never seen him in a movie, you should seek him out.  He was always good but besides "Red River", "From Here to Eternity" is terrific (and has the eternally magnificent Burt Lancaster in it as well as an amazing performance by Frank Sinatra and great supporting performances by Donna Reed and Ernest Borgnine) and "A Place in the Sun" (with Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters {who is always terrific}) and a beautiful, tragic supporting performance in "Judgement at Nuremberg" (again with the extraordinary Burt Lancaster).  I'll write about Burt Lancaster another time -- he's one of my favourites.

Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood

I saw this movie this afternoon.  It is Quentin Tartantino's homage to the Hollywood dream machine (well, he often bows his head to movies, but this is a complete homage, I think.)  The performances were terrific, especially Leonardo DiCaprio  (who I don't always think of as a great actor, but who really is one).  He was funny and fragile and hopeful and tough and vulnerable and did I say FUNNY (which is the hardest thing of all) and I really think he hit the ball out of the park.  The script was quite good and hit all these great marks with Hollywood and acting and friendship and loyalty and fear and getting older.  I think it caught the time period really well and built up the suspense.  Of course, it being a Quentin Tarantino movie means that it was very violent and I was dreading that, and it was very very violent, but most of the movie focused on other things that I find much more interesting.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie play two different ends of the Hollywood world.  He is an aging tv star who doubts himself and needs reassurance and even when he gets it, wonders if he has what it takes.  She is just at the beginning of her career and it is fun to watch her go into a movie theatre to see herself on screen and how she reacts to the audience members' reactions to her performance.  She's excited to just be there and is kind of amazed and in love with herself as an actor and as a character in the movies.  Leonardo DiCaprio has so many great scenes -- when he forgets his lines and then castigates himself for it when he's by himself and then later when he does well in a scene, you see the relief and the pride and the fear -- what if it never happens again?  How hard it is to put yourself out there and what if you fail?  You are rooting for him, but at the same time, he's very silly and egotistical and FUNNY.  I am so impressed with him.

Brad Pitt is very good looking, of course, and he was good in the thankless role of the regular guy, the sidekick to the famous actor.  Of course, he isn't just a regular guy because he has a mysterious past and is kind and resourceful and strong, in a complete contrast to Leonardo DiCaprio.  Julia Butters is good in the small role of a child actor in a tv show in which Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) plays a villain and Mike Moh is great as Bruce Lee.  Apparently, Bruce Lee's family doesn't like the part, but I think it's funny and I don't think you're supposed to think "Oh, Bruce Lee was actually like this".  I just thought it was an interesting and funny take on his image -- it shows him in a dispute with Cliff Booth (Pitt) and then shows him teaching Sharon Tate (Robbie) some moves.

Anyway, I recommend the movie highly.  I'm not a big fan of violence, but most of the movie is about actors and how you make a movie and Hollywood and so the violence isn't a deal breaker.  Leonardo DiCaprio's performance is worth the price of admission and there's other great stuff as well.

The great unknown

This is Odin, a young dog from California.  He is a great hero.  This is his story.  His job on the farm was to look after a herd of eight goats.  Last year, during the horrible wild fires, the fire took a sudden turn and threatened Odin's farm.  The farmer didn't have time to get the goats in his trailer, but he hoped he'd be able to save his dogs, cats and daughter in the car.  He tried to get Odin into the car, but Odin wouldn't leave the goats behind.  The farmer said the dog just sat down with the goats and he could see that Odin wouldn't budge, so he had to leave.  As he drove away, he said the cars behind him had flames shooting out of their windows.  That's how close the fire was.

Days later, the farmer returned to the farm.  Every building had been destroyed, but Odin was still there and had saved all the goats!  There was even a small herd of deer with him -- perhaps they trusted that Odin would take care of them as well.  Poor Odin was limping and exhausted, his paw pads had been burned and his fur was orange from the heat of the flames, but he had done his duty and saved the lives he had been entrusted with.  Look at his sweet, dear face.  He doesn't expect glory, he just wants love.

I read about Odin when reading a story on the CBC about a dog, Chaser, who knew over 1,000 words.  He just recently died after a long and happy life.  His owner, John Pilley, was interested in animal intelligence and decided to see how many words a dog could learn.  Chaser was taught by using toys.  Pilley would ask him to find a certain toy and if Chaser brought that toy,  then Pilley knew that Chaser had learned the name of the toy.  It took a long time and the people had to write down the names, because they couldn't remember them all, but Chaser learned them!  As I have learned over and over -- we know nothing about what goes on in an animal's mind.  Any animal, even a bee, is a mystery to us.

As for dogs, what have we done as humans that makes us deserve the love and loyalty of such wonderful creatures?  My own girl, Daisy, is very timid and nervous and would probably have been the first to jump in the car and abandon the goats and she's deaf, so we don't know if she understands any words any more, but when you look into her eyes, you know that she is a sweet, deep mystery and I am so glad we found her and gave her a home.  Her life before she came to us was very difficult.  (I've told her story before in this blog.)  When she first arrived, she was very frightened and hid in the basement and tried to run away whenever it was 5 o'clock in the evening and ripped her dog crate to pieces on Hallowe'en (we thought it would help her feel safe -- we didn't keep her in it at any other time) and wedged herself between the washing machine and the wall once when there was a storm and was just generally terrified.  She had been returned to the SPCA twice and when we said we would take her, the SPCA lady said we had to be sure because she couldn't be returned again (I don't know what that meant, but obviously, if a dog is returned three times, she's probably not adoptable).  We said we were dog people and had had lots of dogs and would not bring her back.  And we didn't.  We learned that Daisy needed lots of walking to work through her anxiety and we accepted that she is not a touchy-feely kind of dog -- she will submit to patting, but never seeks it out.  She learned that she can trust us and that she doesn't ever need to be afraid that we won't love her and treat her kindly. And in our darkest days, she has been there to watch over us and comfort us.  We have done a good job looking out for each other.

Thanks to Odin and Chaser and Daisy and all the other dear dogs out there who do their best every day!