For the very first time in my life, I had to turn down a callback.
With two simultaneous rehearsals in different cities, I could manage my schedule. I could find a compromise between being in two places at once. But I can't do three places at once.
It is a shame, too, since the show I was called back for doesn't start rehearsals until after New Years, so after the auditions, I would not have any conflicts. Unfortunately, I had multiple conflicts with the night they were holding callbacks. It would have been fun. Heck, the initial audition was fun. The show is Measure for Measure. We were supposed to prepare one monologue and read one from the script. Given the choice out of the three monologues per gender, what female wouldn't pick Isabella or what male wouldn't pick Angelo? Given the chance to read one of the most duplicitous and oogy characters in Shakespeare's "comedies" was too good of a chance to pass up.
I found, while reading through the monologue, that Angelo wasn't as straightforwardly vile and hypocritical as I had always thought. Given the actual words in the monologue (the "O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint,/ With saints dost bait thy hook" speech) he is truly struggling with himself and, rather than seeking merely to justify his actions post-fact, he struggles with himself to reconcile the irreconcilable emotions he feels. Unfortunately, as we later see, the way in which he finally choses to work through this perceived religious/logical/emotional incongruity is not the most humane route. Leading to the villainous perception we all know and love to hate about Angelo. But before his sexual blackmail, there is a point where he is a pitiful creature arguing with his god and devil, confronting what he sees as irreligious temptation in himself. He even takes on the "sin" himself and excuses Isabella ("The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most?/ Ha! Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I"), before completely contradicting this thought with his actions of the rest of the play.
Anyway. That was the long way of saying that I had a really good audition this week, that I "wasted" when I had to turn down the callback.
Life doesn't wait when you go on vacation, does it? Sorry that my Paris recap has been so long in writing (and Chris and Amy, I haven't forgotten about a more detailed description of the Magic Lantern Theatre in Prague). But now that I have a few minutes of time before my work day starts, here we go:
Five (or was it four? -- jet lag does strange things to your sense of time) in Paris is not enough time. I knew this going into it, so between the conference and the city, I figured that I wouldn't get a chance to see even half of the things I wanted to, and if I was dead set on trying to see everything on "my list of things to see in Paris", then I would miss a perfectly wonderful something that comes from unplanned stumbling through a park, side street or what have you. In other words, I would miss the thing not in the guide book that a city throws at you and you only notice if you aren't blinded by your checklist of tourist destinations.
This worked for most of the time, but I eventually had to abandon the plan as I really wanted to see Montmartre. And then the Pompidou. But those were really the only locations that I intentionally planned to see, everything else would have to find a way to find me (and fit into my schedule with the conference)
First off, the conference went well. Or so at least said the professor from the University who was in the audience. I am in no position to judge since, besides being my first conference presentation, I panicked and went on "auto-pilot" during my presentation, so I wasn't really aware of what I was saying. I just spoke. I would remember long after a slide had past, that I wanted to make a further point on a certain subject, or I would lose the thread of my speech, but I guess none of that came across. Plus, I was speaking to a subject of an artistic nature to a group of economists and sociologists, so perhaps it really didn't matter how cogent my argument was, it was too foreign of a concept to be absorbed in a presentation and would have to wait for the paper. But the people from my University thought it went well, so I'm pleased.
The conference location was right in the center of Paris, bordering the Luxembourg Gardens and the Sorbonne district. Walking through the Luxembourg Gardens, I stumbled upon two of the non-planned things I mentioned above.
1. There is a fountain off to the side of the Palace that seems secluded from the rest of the gardens and the world. It is a little clearing in the middle of a copse. In the middle of this clearing, stretches a reflecting pool lined by greco-looking stone vases leading to a fountain of some greek mythological scene. I don't know which myth it is supposed to be representing, but it looks like a stone stage with the scene performed in such a way as to lead from the free-standing frame into the pool. I'll have to do a search for images of the fountain (since I did not take a camera on the trip!)
2. There was a display of five to six foot tall photographs commemorating the liberation of Paris. The 60th Anniversary of the Allies liberating Paris pretty exactly coincided with the conference. There was a parade down the Champ Elysees and commemorations all across the city. It was nice to see that three years of strained international relations with the US could not destroy the good will from what happened 60 years ago. These photographs in the Luxembourg Gardens were images of the Resistance, the welcoming the Allies, De Gaulle and Eisenhower, and other images of the last days of the War in Paris.
And I couldn't help but think, in that moment how much I wanted to be touring Paris with my grandfather and see the places in this city that mean something to him.