i had tickets to
south pacific in the barbican and found a family of sisters to watch my mother so i was off to london...i left on a morning flight on september 27 and got upgraded for the hnl-sfo leg...the breakfast was ono for an airline meal even though the scrambled eggs don't look it...the two advantages of a morning flight are the less waiting time in sfo and the arrival time in london, getting to the hotel in the mid-afternoon for check-in...
my first job in london was to upgrade my mobile so i can call home...then a quick dinner at garfunkel's...and then off to wyndham's for
driving miss daisy...it was announced that ms. redgrave was indisposed for the evening's performance...i wasn't too upset as i had seen ms. redgrave give a very wooden performance in the tempest...her replacement, jenny lee, was wonderful..and the play itself brought out the strength of james earl jones and his bravura basso...another fun element of the production was my seatmate, a family from nebraska that run carnivals during the summer...in london for some recuperating time...maybe even looking up some carnival acts for 2012...ended up having an ale and the barista was a polish gal who had set up the fan (did i mention there was a heat wave in london) so it made her hair flow...very photo shoot...
i was staying at the ashley which is in dire need of some refurbishing and i think they've started...after breakfast i went in search of the american embassy and ronald reagan's statue...i FINALLY found grosvenor square with the help of a bus driver...i enjoyed grosvernor square with statues to eisenhower, fdr, and the american pilots who flew for the raf...found reagan's statude which was still being set up so i got a partial of the statue...i then found my friend in paddington and headed for soho and eventually for fortnum and mason's for lunch...i had a good duck confit for lunch...
i then headed for the old vic for the production of synge's
playboy of the western world...it was a fun production and i can imagine how the irish got their dander up over this play...synge presents the irish as a nation of drunks with women who fancy a roll in the hay with the bad boy...so long as it had a folkloric element to it...the kid playing the playboy was a bit young...the innkeeper's daughter good...
i then headed to harrod's for some shopping of jams (i love the ginger jam) and some refreshments...then on to vaudeville theatre for a production of arthur miller's broken glass...very albee-esque...about a marriage that suffered from a lack of communication between a husband and wife...leading to her paralysis and his heart attack...his death frees her from the paralysis...sir anthony sher was great although his accent took time to get used to...and tara fitzgerald looked so fragile as the wife...on the way back to the hotel ran across a police scene, arresting some homeless attacking a chinese kid...
today is friday and i'm headed for kua aina, a franchisee of our own sandwich shop...i had the classic burger and thoroughly enjoyed it although the cole slaw left lots to be desired...i think this kind of store would do well in europe...it offers a great sandwich..a juicy burger, such an ono sandwich from the yanks...from here we headed for bill curly's and an indulgence of chocolate...this trip i enjoyed a caramel with sea salt, sesame, yuzu, and chuao truffles...such a great treat...
i then headed for trafalgar square...and what a series of photo ops...the square has a countdown clock to the 2012 olympics, a ship-in-the-bottle (nelson's hms victory) on the fourth plinth, and some dude adding to his portfolio by posing shirtless in front of the grass wall exhibit...did some shopping at waterstone's purchasing jon richardson's
it's not me, it's you and some recyclable bags...got to use that classic put-down line when a customer asked where she could find
the prophet...i asked the clerk if she were looking for the profits...the clerk caught on after a double take and said, brilliant...had to add the disclaimer that i stole it from some wag...
i finally got to trafalgar studios, one of my favorite venues in london...always can count of it for some edgy productions...so
top girls turned out to be such a disappointment...it was very dated...and the plot line very predicatable...well, i guess not all the time...
my last day in london included a double bill of a play and an opera...i got a late start to the day as i was headed for barbican and the lincoln center's production of
south pacific...
i began with lunch at searcy's...i enjoyed the beetroot salad with its radish confit...it was sweet and sour...and then the main dish of cod with a bed of mashed potatoes...the cod was excellent but the mashed a bit too mashed...this last comment is from a rice lover...i ended the meal with some time to kill with a cup of espresso and a glass of cointreau over ice...it is quite a lovely way to end a meal, sweet, light, and cold...
i walked to the edge, the art gallery in the centre...the gallery was the exhibit space of junya ishigami's
architecture as air...the structure comprises a single curved line of delicate a 4-meter row of columns that are only 0.9mm thick, seemingly floating unsupported in space...closer inspection reveals a fine network of near-invisible wires...i had to look very closely to see the filament...but, more importantly, to see the structure that ishigami created...
finally it was time to see
south pacific and local gal loretta ables sayre as bloody mary...and she was so good she made me forget juanita hall who was the film bloody mary...loretta added a dark dimension to this war survivor who was willing to "sell" her daughter to an american sailor...and paulo szot, the basso playing the plantation owner, emile de becque, was superb...great voice and good acting...the production, now brit supported, was up to the task of keeping rogers and hammerstein very current...
i then headed for charing cross and eno's
elixir of love...i walked past st. martin's-in-the-field parking area and it was cordoned off by crime tape...again, london seemed to be under police surveillance...in reaction to the earlier riots and in preparation for the 2012 olympics..i guess so...donizetti was at his best in writing this very frivolous opera buffo...but to place it in a midwestern diner (probably in the 1950's) added to the fancy...the tenor aria, una furtiva lagrima, sung in english by nemorino as played by ben johnson was a show stopper...such an italian sound with english phrasing...BRAVO...
i was headed back to the ashley...tomorrow i head to paris for two days and then back to london for a night and one more play...
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