Exhaustion and Elation

I can't believe it's over.

Now what?!?

These pictures are gorgeous though...

I'll just gaze at them for a while...

My cast are so pretty!

Shiny shiny goodness :D

One month to go...

So everything has settled down. We've lost several cast members (some minions and also sadly some quite good people who I couldn't give good enough parts to) but have been left with a good number of lovely 'tekkors' whose job it is to wander round the set building things of which they do a pretty convincing job. We've rehearsed most of the first act and some of the second and have had our first production meeting!

Having two directors is proving invaluable in rehearsals, especially when I occasionally turn up having not been home the previous night. Ahem. I have learnt my lesson and will endavour to be on top form for all future rehearsals! Nigel is providing some great improv games and scenarios, helping the actors really work out what their characters are beyond just the written lines. I'm busy being picky about lines and blocking and the cast are busy being generally awesome. I'm looking forward to getting everyone off book though and so have set a deadline for line-learning of a week today!

Adam, the producer, organised the first production meeting and seems to have found almost all the actual minions and heads-of-department needed to actually run the show. Christine is doing costumes which is lovely, Simon got roped back in to do publicity as well as act and die horribly on stage, and apparently there are several freshers who we're keen to get involved as well. We need to draw as many new people as we can into our DramSoc web of doom! Come to the dark side, we've got cookies, etc.

On your right you will see a preliminary set design Henry has just sent me and which I hope he won't mind me posting here. Ah well, he'll probably never find out. ¬_¬ It's all very pretty anyway. Apart from it will also have set dressing. And stairs I hope, otherwise that could be tricky. And it won't be green and brick coloured. But apart from that - ooh look isn't it pretty! :) Am very excited. Not as excited as Henry though, he's going a bit crazy trying to work out how much crazy stuff he can fit into the set. Is quite alarming! I shall have to meet up with him soon and find out more of his crazy crazy plans...

The Story of a Play, Episode IV

Tuesday was Imperial College freshers' fair (or fayre). It was incredible to see the sudden burst of manic activity in college following a long summer of having the union to ourselves. I flitted down to the MTsoc table (half of which had been sneakily taken over by techies) on a couple of occassions but spent most of my time in the Union Concert Hall which had been taken over by Dramsoc. There I courted anyone who was foolish enough to poke their head round the corner, persuading all and sundry that they needed to join Dramsoc and audition for my play/be a techie.

To bring you up to speed then, I have written a play! And I thought that since this blog has been so neglected it needed a theme and a purpose. This purpose, I have decided, will be to keep you all informed of the progress of this year's Imperial Dramsoc Christmas Show - 'The Dark Side'.

Work has already begun - I've found most of my production team, had some very productive meetings with Set Designer Henry, got logo ideas from Adam, worked over the script several times (with thanks to Adam and Priyan among others for their helpful suggestions) and of course press-ganged everyone I know into auditioning.

May not be actual logo.

So basically this will be one giant plug. Hmm, that doesn't sound like it'll make for fascinating reading. I will have to find enough interesting occurences to give you all something exciting to read. Well we'll see how it goes, and I shall try not to bore you!

In the mean-time I have a job interview, work and extensive rehearsals to get to tomorrow so good-night until next time!

I am Virginia Galilei

I like science. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I love science. Yeah. I do love science. I believe in science! Science is basically awesome. But still, there are limits to my commitment. I mean I’m all for fighting for things I believe in, but…well it’s not the most important thing in the world. If I had to choose between the cause of science, and my family’s happiness say, or my sight, or my freedom… But no. I’m no hero, I’m just a person. An imperfect, selfish, short-sighted person, but hopefully my failings will never dramatically alter the course of science. In which case, in 400 years it’s unlikely that anyone will be proclaiming the international year of astronomy on the anniversary of anything I’ve done.

But there have been people in the history of this world who have changed the course of science. Galileo Galilei, who 400 hundred years ago first turned his telescope onto the heavens, was one of those people: a true hero of science. A hero not just for his discoveries, but because in the face of opposition from The Almighty Church and the holy inquisition he stuck stubbornly to the evidence. He was one of the great champions of the scientific method; Einstein called him the ‘father of science’.

So, to summarise: Science = Awesome, and Galileo = Awesome. Sounds simple enough. Except that over the past few weeks I’ve gotten to know Galileo. Not literally of course, he’s dead. The Galileo I’ve gotten to know is fictional, created by the playwright Berthold Brecht and performed by a second year physicist. So I can hardly claim to be an expert on the historical figure. But in fictionalising this character, Brecht has turned him from a hero into a person; a living, breathing human being with his own drives and passions and flaws. And suddenly I am relating to this man not as one of the greatest scientists in history but as my own father. It’s almost certain that I’m taking method acting to a peculiar extreme here, but in playing his daughter my entire perspective on Galileo Galilei has changed. Suddenly I find myself thinking ‘Wait a minute, I don’t care about the bloody human race, what about me? What am I supposed to do if my father gets arrested for heresy?’ I am selfish even in fiction it seems. But Brecht takes us back into history and makes us see this hero as a man. I see in his actions not his selfless dedication to a cause, but his need to boast, his pleasure in provoking authority and his inability to stop experimenting even when his own life was at risk. I have to remind myself that it is just a play, and his daughter is just a character, and his contribution towards science is more important than his failings as a father, but still I am bitter.

Next week the play will be performed and perhaps after that I can have my identity back. Hopefully I’ll be able to place Galileo once more on a pedestal at a comfortable distance and not have to stare through a telescope at his very human motivations and flaws. I still respect his achievements and his contributions to science. He still deserves our praise, but for me Galileo Galilei isn’t a hero anymore. He is a person, just like me. An imperfect, selfish, short-sighted person. Yet his short-comings altered the course of science.

'The Life of Galileo' by Bertolht Brecht is being performed at the Imperial College Union from the 18th to 21st March. Doors open at 7pm.