It was called When The Rain Stops Falling. You can link to the website here. Its a very interesting/powerful drama about...well, I'm not going to tell you exactly, but it deals a lot with fathers and sons. Fathers who abandon their sons for whatever reason, and the son who are left behind wondering who they are and why did their fathers leave them.
Being both a father myself, and having had a father die when I was relatively young, this play hit hard for me (at least until a dramatic moment when the reason for the first paternal abandonment, the one that spawns four generations of abandonment, is revealed...then I felt better because I thankfully couldn't relate). Having a conversation about it with my fellow childless classmates was frustrating because they couldn't see the play from the same direction I was. I don't deny that they had valid points, but not experiencing the father/son relationship from both ends hinders (in my humble opinion) a deeper understanding of this script. So, I eventually gave up trying to get my point across and drank my beer. Can't explain snow to the Jamaicans, can't explain fatherhood/childhood abandonment compounded by anxiety of influence fears to people who don't have children. The real bummer of this whole thing is that there is going to be a class discussion about this play. I'm sure I'm going to have the same problem with the rest of the group, and the professor, who is childless (and for some reason, seems to live in a world where his life experiences and those that are similar are the only ones with validity, thus making is difficult for those who have different life experiences to impart their emotional response to artistic expressions to him). I'm afraid I'll wind up keeping my mouth shut because frankly, I don't need the aggravation.
Hence this posting!
We're seeing Romeo and Juliet tomorrow at the Globe. I have not read friendly reviews of the production. I'm not looking forward to standing for 3 hours in a tourist trap theatre watching youngsters regurgitate iambic pentameter and emote like they're 11 years old (review's take on it, not mine). And really, not being a huge fan of the Shakespeare plays to begin with, standing for one doesn't really thrill me.
Unless I get to throw tomatoes, then game on.
Anyway, here's some more pictures....
St. Martin in the Fields.
Christschurch...bombed by the Germans in WWII. The trees are where the congregation used to sit and are now part of a garden in the what used to be the nave.
An abandoned warehouse that was about 150 years old.
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