Beaches and Papers

Things have been pretty up and down for me lately. I’ve been struggling with some homesickness, and then trying not to be too hard on myself for being down. The general life struggles of moving far away, but today I’m doing pretty well.

A role I know well....

I’ve signed on to an Assistant Stage Manager for the department’s production of The Man Who by Peter Brooks and Marie-Helene Estienne. It’s directed by Andrew Buckland, who’s a fairly well-known South African performer and director. I actually saw him in a production of Fuse several years ago at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was a fantastic show, just three men who played all the characters and all the props.

This show is pretty chill from my position. I basically just set up the props and tell the stage hands when to go on stage. Not nearly as exciting as Flip Side with all the flies and wheeling around of staircases, but I think it’ll be a good show none the less.

It’s a series of vignettes of people with different mental challenges, ranging from the well-known amnesia and Tourettes to stranger phenomenon like visual agnosia where the patients can see, but the visual information they receive doesn’t connect to meaning in their brains.

I’m having a good time working backstage. It’s a place a feel pretty comfortable and confident, which is really great to have here. I also feel like I’m getting to know the other drama students, but especially the department faculty and staff well by working on the show. If we have a good run tonight we get the weekend off, so cross your fingers, I am.

Turistas

Last weekend Interstudy organized a trip for all the Rhodes and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Interstudy students to go to a backpacker hostel in Cinsta. Buccaneer Backpackers. It was right near the beach! I was very excited, since I hadn’t been to the yet. The trip there took a lot longer than we’d planned because there was a mix-up with the directions, but eventually we made it and crashed out early.

The next day we headed out to the beach pretty early, but it was so windy that we didn’t last long. I think I’m still shaking sand out of random pockets. But, the weather was gorgeous and that afternoon we went on a Game Drive. We had a lovely lunch outside where we were entertained by the lurking ostrich that roam the grounds. Then we went into the park, there weren’t that many animals out that day; it may have been the heat. We saw a bunch of zebra, wildebeest, giraffes, various kinds of antelope and LIONS! There are three female lions, one male and some cubs in the game reserve. We saw two females and the male, but the other female must have been off with her cubs.

They keep the lions in an area surrounded by an electric fence, and we received clear instructions not to put any of our limbs out of the vehicle or to stand up, ever.

Apparently one of the females has charged some of the vehicles and we might need to head out pronto, but this time they were pretty chill, laying around in the shade.

All in all it was a really fun and informative drive. Our driver knew a ton about all the vegetation and told us some of the medicinal values of some things, and about the different invasive species of plants in the area and how they are being destroyed. I really enjoyed it, even if we never found the rhino.

Back to School

Getting back to school after such a fun weekend was a little daunting.

Before I left I turned in my thesis proposal for Smith (which they have approved! And now I just need to FedEX the college the official paperwork ASAP).

Then on Monday my initial proposal for the big drama research project was due.

Then 2 more papers, but luckily I got an extension for one paper, and the other one was fortuitously moved to this coming Tuesday, so that relieved some of my stress.

And we started auditions for our Drama Practical options on Friday! Here the whole of Drama 3 (about 25 students in total) goes to drama literature/history lectures together, and then we chose 2 different practical options (performance, directing, applied theater, design, stage management, dance/choreography, or playwriting) to study in-depth in smaller, workshop style courses. In Drama 1 and Drama 2 you get introduced to most of these options through more general “pracs” (kind of like the tutorial system that I described before).

I’ve decided to audition for dance/choreography, applied theater, and playwriting.

You get to take 2, but you have to audition for 3 so that they can have options in placing you. For dance/choreography we had to come up with a 2 minute movement piece, and music to go with it. We were supposed to do it once silently and then again with the music, but luckily he thought we were running out of time so we only had to do it one. This really lucky for me for two reasons, one I was exhausted from practicing for my piece and the movement study that he made us do, over and over, for the audition. Don’t get me wrong. It was really cool; it was also just really long and challenging.

Long story short, he said we’re all in! So that was really exciting. I don’t think my piece was that great, but it showed that I do have some sense of movement and know how to use my body.

Next I have to prepare my applied theater piece. Applied theater is sort of educational theater, but with a leaning towards social awareness. So, think interactive pieces designed to bring about dialogue within the community about a social justice issue that affects them. I’m excited about figuring that one out.

I’m going to turn in some of the playwriting work that I did last semester, but I really want to start making new work while I’m here. Playwriting is my third choice, because I can’t do either of the other choices at home, but if I do wind up doing it I’m sure I’ll have a really good time.

Me

The beginning of this week was really rough. I was stressed out and terribly homesick. I kept trying to remember why is was that I came here; why did I go so far away from everyone I know and love, and honestly I was so down that I couldn’t come up with a good answer. Just at I was stuck so I should stop moping.

Now it’s the weekend and I feel a lot better. I did a lot of work this week, and accomplishing things always makes me feel better. I’ve been in touch with people at home and new friends here. I’m starting to feel like less of an island out in the middle of nowhere.