I may have been wrong about Gaudi

A few days of changes in one respect; of dreadful fear in another. Such is the way of life to throw these horrid cousins at you together, joined at the hip and seeking you to be their third. But good things can arise: until the last few days I have always been a complete failure in standing on my head, for example, and though I have dreamed of it, I have never successfully rolled across another person’s back. Our teacher is an excellent fellow, and he has given me the confidence to perform both these tricks and more, although a certain ease and virtue still eludes me. It’s something to do with being upside down; I can’t stand it. But he is of the sort that he will not take that for an answer, and stands waiting for you to try, and then supports you until you achieve. In that mark, he is one of finest the teachers I have ever had in these arts, and never afraid to demonstrate. On Friday, for example, I spent a good amount of time helping catch him as he threw himself into our arms in a manner reminiscent of Tony Jaa or those other masters. Although I am afraid of what is to follow in his classes, for once I am hopeful too, and I have found a trust in myself and my work (and me fellows) that I have never experienced in Britain.

Apart from the acrobatics we have been continuing to work on our Fitzmaurice tremoring exercises, which surprisingly enough have not turned out to be complete bullshit. We have also made headway towards starting The House of Bernarda Alba in discussion of it. However, voice and movement classes, for me, pale when compared to the vivid experiences in Production with Andreu. As I noted – never have I worked like that before, and am only too happy to think on it. In these more actor-training session, we have also worked on finding real responses to impulses delivered by others – limiting the theatricality that is, abhorrently, the first response that comes to mind, in order that a truthful response be revealed and worked on. Another exercise saw us drawing on deep memories of unfairness and gradually working up the same emotions, firing them upon a neutral partner. It was a remarkably cathartic and freeing experience to go to town on a rancid Trojan such as I made exist, and a useful technique to remember.

Visited the Sagrada Familia on Wednesday – Gaudi’s insanely delectable folly perched in the middle of Barcelona. It’s been a long time since I walked into a building and was genuinely taken aback. Or for that matter had a religious experience. Or had my preconceptions (how foolish now!) shattered like an antique grandfather clock plummeting down a lift shaft. The Sagrada may still be under construction but the twisted, skeletal structure already knocks the socks off – let’s say, St. Paul’s? – no, that place has the edge on history; Lincoln? – no, the edge there’s on scale. But in the casual dexterity of the architect, the images it conjures up and the overwhelming beauty of the space, the Sagrada beats the proverbial out of all of them and the halls of Moria combined. Everywhere I looked there lay a different fragments of a lost, mystical world; towers rising against the walls, robbed from a romantic fairytale, contrast with elliptical glass lighting structures, laced with seeming hairline fractures, staring omnipotently down on the congregation of the nave like the eyes of the Nephilim. Rows of marble teeth hang zig-zag from every available edge, curiously regular against the roving lines of the columns that protrude from the floor and climb immeasurably to split like bacteria, and split. One wonders what manner of god is represented here, in what looks for the world like a giant ribcage – and there it is. For all the lifts, the spiral staircase a hundred foot high, the choir bleachers hanging vertiginously overhead in a shower or rock, metal and glass – and the glowing, almost-flourescent stained glass, it seems I have encountered the vulture-picked body of a titan’s corpse. One hopes that in Gaudi’s posthumous exploration of the god-body, the heart is left to fossilise; it wouldn’t do to restart it.

Jesus, the days are flowing together. Our manic timetable (i.e. starting most days at 4.30pm) has just about eradicated my sense of time. I mean, I go to bed late as it is, but I’m not sure I can remember what midnight looks like anymore. And it occurred to me earlier that the flats we’ve chosen are a little too like halls for comfort; halls, however, where the neighbours above are Belgian and gorgeous and the neighbours below make threats when you puke on their stairs. Yep, it’s the ninth day in and we’ve had our first mega argument, making the downstairs neighbours think someone was getting e.g. axe murdered. All is settled now, and mostly people have gone out to eat. Ah, but that may be a blog too far...

I’m rambling, certainly. Lessons have started and they are, for the most part, informative. Fun too, with limited periods of boredom. Regrettably this comes with limited periods of work too; the lessons are two hours which is piss in the wind compared to Bruford. Our voice lessons are devoted to the work of the mysterious Fitzmaurice, who I believe is some sort of dark wizard. According to him (or her? Who knows?) getting tremors in your body improves your voice. There is the possibility of looking for such tremors in lessons on the beach, which suggests a gun may be required.

In the other lessons, the gentleman who replaced Jean Baixas has turned out to be a crazy Spaniard. So far we have made puppets using our hands and not much else. Unusual spaces have also been involved, alongside lists of personal likes, dislikes, and would like to dos. Trying to come up with funniest ideas possible (“Sleep in the queen’s bed, or hide in her closet whilst she is sleeping”, or indeed “Choke and eat a swan” – and why not? I suspect it would be a challenge) may have made our teacher view me as some sort of terrifying pervert, although such an exercise rather suggests the same quality in him. And he slaps you heartily. And he laughs.

In other news, shopping at the market is less terrifying now, although at least one of the wizened mad-as-a-bat fruit ladies was giving me proper evils and I still haven’t figured out why. Oh, and people don’t say thanks here when you stand out of the way for them. That’s really annoying me. We need to start using our days better, too, beyond sightseeing and being tourists. Learning about Spain for use in the theatre: that’s the way, and not just how to order beer in pints.

Institut to Naked Man

Apart from smelling like used shit this city has its good points. The Institut del Teatre, for one. A grandiose, modern extravagance of steel, glass and marble, woven together to proclaim wealth and intelligence of the first order. A rough U of building overlooks a large courtyard, with wooden benches where students sit and warm themselves in the sun. In our case anyway. Those native to Barcelona believe, somehow, that it is cold and go out in their coats and scarves. They look at us strangely when we walk by, and most likely comment on us to each other just as we would do to them. So it goes.

Away to one side of the courtyard sits the restaurant with its hideously overpriced food; to the right the library building and directly in front the glass front of a six-floored building, with four basements. Behind is a rather more ornate theatre building, painted in orange and red and covered with all manner of knobs and ornaments. A carpark, too, rather spoiling the view. Also an Italian-styled theatre, one of the outside walls painted dark red and ornamented with pots, crushed in their making and burnt in the kiln. They stick out, making the place look like a climbing wall crossed with a crustacean’s back. The scenics would enjoy it, I’m sure.

Inside there’s wood panelling aplenty and splendid views. Too many rooms and theatre spaces to believe. A library, the largest of its kind in Europe, or so I’m told. On Monday we had the introduction to the school, met the Erasmus coordinator, a lovely, petite woman with near-perfect English, who is looking, on request, into organising Spanish lessons for us. We met the head of the school as well and were informed, unfortunately, that Joan Baixas would not be teaching us due to illness. This was confirmed by her at the start of our Tuesday session with the voice lady, whose name escapes me at present. We will instead be studying with a protégé of his – or so I believe. One who has worked with him before at any rate.

This was something of a let-down. Or, in layman’s terms. A complete fuck up the arse of a thing to happen. We will have our first session with this new fellow on Thursday, and had the Wednesday off because he was busy. Getting back to Tuesday, we met the voice lady and had an introductory session (1 hour approximately) in which we introduced ourselves, talked about our interests, aims and experiences in theatre, a task at which I failed like a drug addict, and then she left and we entertained ourselves with theatre games. How nice to move after so many weeks still! After all, we had the space to ourselves – and few decided to leave, thinking there was nothing to be done. But in theatre, even if there is no show to produce, there is always something to be done. Always training to occur. On these grounds I truly feel we have developed as a group.

But there is always more to come. Getting away from the school, I have started reading plays for the directing project when we come back to the UK. Getting further away, a few noticeable events:

Tuesday night, one of our number got robbed in an alley. He went out alone to meet more of our group at a nearby pub and got lost – although ironically he was on the right track, and quite close. It’s a devil of a place to find, though, is Stokes. A tiny place, serving cheap beer by the crate in a gloriously retarded ‘Power Hour’. I mean... seriously? Anyway. He left the apartment, and soon the call came in that he was lost – and we heard the robbing down the phone. The mugger tried to steal the phone by its top half, an old trick – and one that shows how much you need to keep your wits and eyes about you in the back-alleys around here. I and another went out looking for him, found more of us and turned up nothing. Apparently he walked for ages and returned to the flat before us. Shaken, but unharmed.

Could have been worse. Ate at three places over the last few days. A nice little Buddhism-themed restaurant selling Spanish food. A street restaurant called Pita house, on La Rambla, and another place – again, forgotten, where they didn’t speak a word of English. Also tried my hand at shopping in the market, which went quite well, except for telling an old woman I didn’t speak English before asking if she did, and realising that whilst I can very well ask how much something is in Spanish, it helps to know the numbers so you can understand the answer. God, I felt like a tool.

On a lighter note, spent a very good Wednesday day on the beach with the lads. Started out by being scammed by a coconut seller, who came along the beach with a bucket of coconut pieces and a pair of tongs and handed out coconut to us. I refused to take it, which made him very angry and forceful – which was a clear suggestion that I was right not to take the coconut. God, how I wanted to tell him to fuck off! In short order he started demanding money and wouldn’t accept no for an answer, even attempting to take a phone in place. This was a clear lesson to all involved – there’s always money involved. You NEVER take the coconut.

Found a rope climbing frame and played tag on it for half an hour. Observed a totally naked man with a big knob and an all-over tan walking up and down the beach and seafront the entire time we were there. Amused by my fellows’ humour at him; I, for one, was quite happy. It is a testament to the freedom of this culture that a short man can let his bits hang out for all to see and noone gives a toss.

Largely Similar

How to describe Barcelona?

A city, then, of beauty and charm. Where the maps lie to you and pretend a twenty minute walk for a tall man on his own is five for a party of nine. The strenuous distances are reminiscent somewhat of Paris; the architecture of a Romantic-era New York. Buildings rise to seven floors easily, often more. All of them painted, floral architecture, a certain theatricality in their design which is taken to extremes in those that Gaudi had his fingers on, where the straight line is abhorred and one wonders how they do the plumbing.

London is a world away from this. Walking down La Rambla one is confronted by a sea of people. Mostly tourists, in all probability, with pickpockets and whores thrown in. The markets bustle and are unremittingly Foreign, although I do not have enough Spanish as yet to barter. That said, the prices for fruit and veg etc. are far less expensive than in the nearest supermarket to us, and far better quality. And you can get decent cheese there too. And all manner of fish, meats, olives, breads, sweets etc. – as would be expected.

Roads here go from the extremely small to the ridiculously large, and cars and motorbikes appear to battle it out for space on a free-for-all basis. Barcelona further differs from London in that it appears the same wherever you go. Walk down an average street in London and the place can change entirely. It’s a relatively short walk from the heady and operatic Covent Garden to the cool and pleasant Lincoln’s Inn Fields, then the same distance again north to the British Museum, and again to the British Library. The architecture may remain similar, but the makeup of the areas in organic, like the roots of a tree threading their way into your heart. Here there’s a lattice, a grid, where everything looks peculiar, beautiful, yet resoundingly the same. One could envisage everything I saw today from one street.

I miss London when I’m away from it, and its offbeat ways. It’s far more laid back here, less stress (if more hassle to get through the crowds). The marina is pretty beyond words, with rows of tall ships in the harbour, a large shopping centre that can only be reached by bridge – and best of all, no health and safety railings to stop people falling into the water. A cable car moving between three rusty-looking iron towers, taking the brave up a wooded hill in the distance. Murky water, however. A statue comparable to ours in Trafalgar Square near the marina too – theirs of the discovery of America, a hulking brute of a column, finery to its maximum potential, with lions flanking it on every side – but apart from this, the local architecture remained much the same. Beautiful, coloured as though the city has suffered a year of firestorms, but still oddly the same.

It’s warm enough here to walk without a jacket, although I prefer to for security. There’s a breeze on occasion, but mostly the wind is still, closeted by the buildings where one would expect it to be funnelled and focussed on where we live. Our apartment is colder than one would like; it’s cramped too, but enough I think for four people to live together in for three months. Thanks Christ for that, too. Any more and I’d have had to pull my own hair out and used it to garrotte myself. I don’t think I can stand being in Barcelona for longer. I can barely stand London that long without a break to the country. The stairs wind up and rustic, but are easy enough to climb, and the beds are soft, which is the main thing.

I celebrated being here today by buying an universal plug adaptor and a copy of Potter 1 in Spanish which I hope to translate back. Long shot, maybe. Tomorrow we start at the Institut del Teatr, but now sleep is required.