Tales from the Sickbed

Hello dear chickens and roosters (a special nod to my dear uncle Loz right there... pity your team sucks), I am most pleased to inform you that my rate of posting will be increasing due to (I am less pleased to inform you) another bout of Caitlin's Mystery Illness Adventures.

Seriously, if life were a lucky dip I would be picking up all the packages filled with pathogens, and not even the interesting ones.

I know it's not that bad, I mean it's just a case of letting myself get run down - flu followed by meningitis followed by whooping cough followed by whatever I have now (nausea, dehydration and crazy low blood pressure) is not terminal cancer, and for that I am very grateful, but HONESTLY. I am bored of being sick.

Do you remember when you were a kid and taking a day off school for being sick somehow made you a bit special or something? You got to watch tv and read and the next day when you came back everyone would ask after you and make sure you were okay. That seems so far removed from what I've been repeatedly experiencing over the last couple of months, which is being exhausted, missing out on all sorts of work, social, and most importantly musical commitments, watching awful mind-numbingly boring television and trying to find a good book to read.

But it's a learning experience, isn't it? That which does not kill us makes us stronger... or whatever.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM BEING SICK:

• Orange Gatorade sucks. Full effing stop. I shall never drink it again as long as I live, I don't care how it replenishes my electrolytes.
• Electrolytes have less to do with the Large Hadron Collider and more to do with fluid retention than I thought. Disappointing.
• Trying to perform a week long run of a musical with Whooping Cough is pretty much the opposite of a good time.
• Don't watch the news right before going to sleep when you're not sleeping well. You'll wake up at 4am and not be able to get back to sleep for thinking about escaped double murderers (Sydneysiders know what I mean...)
• Having a boyfriend with the immune system of the Winged Victory is really very good. My Roman has never been immunised against anything, and has not got one of the diseases I've had despite being perfectly happy to sleep beside me whilst I'm coughing/feverish/vomiting. What a trooper.
• My family are wonderful. That includes Roman, but also extends to my Mum and Dad, and Andrew and Lilly. Special mention goes to Lil for getting me a sick-bowl. Champion.

I've been very seriously contemplating how things got this way - how I've managed to make myself sick five weeks out of the last six - and I realise that I need a serious lifestyle re-arrangement. Details of said lifestyle rearrangement will no doubt follow, as soon as I've figured them out...

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

I've just spent the last three months of my life rehearsing and performing a great little (big) show called The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

It won the Tony Award for Best Musical (the benchmark for achievement in musical theatre) in 1986, an award which in the next two years was awarded to Les Misérables, and Phantom of the Opera, although it has pretty much slipped from the canon of musical theatre repetoire since then.

This is, I believe, largely owing to how difficult it is to stage. The thing about Drood is that it has a different ending every night - there are over 600 endings!

The musical is based on the novel Charles Dickens never finished. When he died in 1870, he was twenty chapters in to a serialised murder mystery, leaving 20 chapters and the resolution of the mystery unwritten and, well, ... a mystery.

Many academics and writers have attempted to "solve" The Mystery of Edwin Drood, including a psychic who apparently just asked Dickens' ghost what happened, but I think Rupert Holmes was the cleverest about it.

Holmes' musical adaptation of Drood is a camp nod to amateur theatre and the vaudeville tradition of the late nineteenth century, a play-within-a-play in which every actor is playing an actor playing one of Dickens' characters. Half way through Act II, the Dickens plotline falls apart and the audience is called upon to vote for an ending.

Four "ballots" are held over the next half hour or so: Who is the Disguised Detective, Dick Datchery? (don't you love the aliteration?) Who Murdered Edwin Drood? and then, at the conclusion of the first two revelations, Which Two Characters Will Fall in Love?

There are five possible Datcherys, eight possible Murderers, and eleven possible lovers (three female, eight male) which add up to over six hundred combinations of endings. A pretty epic task for a young amateur cast.

I played Miss Janet Conover, an experienced Actress, who plays Helena Landless, a Ceylonese noblewoman who accompanies her twin brother Neville to England in order to escape a shady past.

During the run, I was Dick Datchery twice, and a lover once. In fact, the night I was a lover, my male lover was Alex, who played Neville. Mmm, incest. It was hilarious and disturbing.

Anyway, I just had the greatest experience doing Drood, and I wanted to share some of the AMAZING show shots taken by the very talented Victoria Nelson. Stalk her on Facebook, tell her she should start a blog/website to showcase the photography she and her twin sister, Felicity (also very talented) do.

Mr. Harry Milas (the magician of my previous post) as the Chairman. He was a legend.

Me, with Alex (Neville) and Lizzie (Edwin), explaining the death of Dickens to the audience.
The Voting for the female Lover. Naomi (Rosa Bud), Marina (Princess Puffer) and myself, with Andy as Mr. James Throttle, the mentally handicapped Stage Manager.
My very talented twin - twin in the show, soul twin in real life, Alex.
Alex, confessing that it was HE who murdered young Edwin Drood.
The climactic scene just before Drood vanishes in Act I - with the incredible song "No Good Can Come From Bad" aka the crunchy crunchy close harmony death song. Heh.
Me having a little angst in "No Good Can Come From Bad". Alex on the left, Naomi on the right.
Roman (with RIDICULOUS hair), playing the Reverend Crisparkle, blesses the meal in "No Good Can Come From Bad".
I yell at Harry for a while, then he calls me a bitch and I glare for a bit.
The gorgeous female "Moonfall" quartet. Felicity, Naomi, myself and Minna.
And here's Roman as the murderer. He was truly truly scary.
What musical is complete without an epic kick-line?
... or side-stepping, top-hat miming?
Harry and Roman have a moment.

I am so proud of everyone in the cast, and so happy that I got to perform again... it might be the last time I get to for a very long time.

King of Diamonds

My dear friend Harry dropped over the most amazing book about magic tricks. I've been completely obsessed with magic and illusions since I started watching Jonathan Creek a few weeks ago.

I can't imagine why, can you? ...

Anyway, this book is awesome but I am SO TERRIBLE at the card-flipping thing...

I learned one trick, practiced it a couple of times, bamboozled my brother and then tried it on my dad. He was fairly unimpressed. And even the brother figured it out the second time.
Is this your card? No? Oh. (shit.) Hang on!
Is THIS your card? Still no?
I'm loving the book, but I might have to give up on the actual practice...

Cabin Fever

I'm being held captive.

... not really.

I have whooping cough and therefore am being literally quarantined in my house with no visitors for a whole week. I'm officially half way through that period of isolation and today I ventured outside for the first time.

It's funny, all I did was hobble around the back garden and I feel completely reborn. Look how lovely and sunny it's been today!

I had a nice sit in the sun and it was so lovely... Just before I took a (very) short stroll around the garden...


Oh, do you like my pyjama pants? They're so old and comfy, perfect for a week like this!
This week will be a good one for re-connecting with El Bloggo. I'm very much looking forward to it.

This is Patt.

Patt is my awesome friend. Look at his blog. It's funny and sweet and clever, just like him.

The B-Side of a Life Through-Composed

Consistency etc.

I'm going to blog more regularly. Yes I am. Except that right now the only thing I'm going to do is a "stuff about meeeee" quiz. Sorry about that.

Ahem, anyhow...

What is your current obsession/s?Currently/for several years: Stephen Sondheim and all his works. Oh my goodness. I adore him.

What is the most interesting thing that you will do today?
Write 1500 words on the appropriation of A Midsummer Night's Dream from play to modern opera. You wondered why I was posting, and now you know.

What's for dinner?
Lasagne and greek salad. Om nom nom.

What would you eat for your last meal?I'd start with my dad's pumpkin soup with sour cream, follow it with a main of cheese and spinach tortellini with peas and pesto cream (with nice white wine) and a desert of Roman's lemon pudding with lots of cream and fruit, and a big glass of the lemon, lime, and gin drink that my dear friend Naomi has perfected. The fact that I was about to die would make the massive amounts of cream and cheese in that meal less worrying to me.

What's the last thing you bought?

A yellow iced smiley-face cookie for my darling lovelorn Patrick.

What are you listening to right now?Sweeney Todd, Broadway Revival recording. The Johanna Quartet. Oh my goodness. Love.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
I'd have the Tardis, so I could go between elegant but homely terraces and apartments in Sydney (where I live... I'm very lucky), Melbourne, London, Vienna, Paris, and New York.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
New York, to catch a Broadway matinee of a new musical.

Which language would you like to learn?Welsh, I must learn Welsh before I die.

What's your favourite quote, for now?
Oh me oh my. Too many to think of. I'm a big libretto-quoter, rather than a person-quoter. This is my favourite piece of poetry, from Sondheim's (der) Sunday in the Park With George.

And when the woman that you wanted goes,You can say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give."
But the women who won't wait for you knowsThat, however you l

ive,
There's a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,Finishing a hat...
Starting on a hat..
Finishing a hat...
Look, I made a hat...Where there never was a hat...

What is you favourite colour?
It changes from hour to hour. Right now it's dark, burnished orange. Tomorrow it might be teal, or Sweeney-red, or forest green...

What is your favourite piece of clothing from your own wardrobe?I love my long, mint-green and white vintage dress I found at Rozelle markets right now. I do generally love long dresses. They hide my physical shortcomings and make me feel floaty and faerie-ish.

What is your dream job?

West-End producer.

What is your favourite fabric?
Naomi just gave me a beautiful grey silk scarf. So silk, today.

If you had $100 what would you spend it on?A nice dinner date with my darling boy.

Describe your personal style.
Heh. What a question. Anything that makes me look tall. Subtle vintage, lots of colour, but not a big mash of too many colours. I like to power-dress but rarely actually do it.

What are you going to do after this?
Aforementioned 1,500 words. And possibly go for a run.

What are your favourite films?Y Tu Mama Tambien, Akira, The Queen, Frost/Nixon, Up (so good, go see it), Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Favourite fruit?
Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries. Anything red.

What inspires you?
Very good music, and very good theatre. People. Traffic stopping for ambulances.

Your favourite books?Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Do you collect anything?
Owl things. Clothes that don't fit. Dust, according to my mother.

What are you currently reading?
The libretto of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Go to your book shelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line.
"... what I thought, I am sure it would move you. Forgive me, and believe that I cannot help telling you this, I live". - Love Letters, compiled by Antonia Fraser

What makes you follow a blog?
Shiny pictures or a good sense of humour.

What society would you most like to join?
Musical Theatre Society? I'm the president of one.
What is one thing you did as a child that you miss doing now?
Climbing trees!

If you could travel back in time and live in a certain period when would it be?
New York, 1957, to witness the birth of modern musical theatre with West Side Story.

Alexander and I in rehearsal.

My Dear Friend,

Words can not possibly express how joyful and hopeful you made me today.

For you -

Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

Because sometimes life is black and white... but sometimes it's bright bower-blue.

I Also Like Lists

So I'm kind of busy and stressed. Doing production design for a really wonderful play called Eurydice (by Sarah Ruhl) for the Verge Arts Festival at Sydney Uni. Unfortunately I'm kind of rubbish at set/props/costume construction and thus, here I am, 9 days out from opening night, with pretty much everything still left to do.

"Fucking fuck" is the most appropriate phrase, I find.

So, inspired by that colourful phrase and by my dear Rebecca over at the charming if inconsistent blog Feff's Flights of Fancy (look for it in my side bar, something strange is happening with linking at the moment), here is a brief run-down of what needs doing tomorrow:

• Buy fabric to make six cloaks, one skirt, six music-stand ornaments, 5m x 9m of "waterfall" set element.
• Scrounge around op-shops for and alter some ten items of clothing, including finding a grey morning jacket and tie-dying it.
• Learn to tie-dye.
• Read a couple of 20-page articles and write a 400 word analysis of a particular school of performance theory and how it relates to modern ceremonies.
• Cook dinner for five people.
• Prepare myself to be yelled at by a many and varied collection of people for not getting enough done.

Want to see the set plan? It's pretty cool, despite the fact that Roman and I haven't quite mastered textures on SketchUp, the program we've been using to make dimensionally sound set plans.

So there you have it. If you want to help me dye fabric of a Sunday, let me know, you're very welcome.

Happy weekend, my lovely friends.

Twenty Eight!

Oh my goodness, dolphins and porpoises, it's going to be twenty eight degrees on Sunday!

I know it's only August, but summer is really on its way, the breeze has been so wonderfully zephyric and balmy and I'm starting to turn into Summer Kenny (a fundamentally unsound oceanid with a desire to jump into water from dizzying heights) already.

So, just to get me more excited, twenty eight glorious things Sydney summer is bringing to me: -

1. Icy Poles

2. Clovelly

3. Twilight Picnics (mosquitos and all)

4. Strawberries

5. Raspberries

6. Blackberries

7. Eurydice

8. Making a Dent in My Reading List

9. Getting Oil Paints all over my Hands and Clothes

10. Sleeping with the Windows Open

11. The Clovelly Groper and his Lady Gropers

12. Late Nights at the Duck & Swan

13. White Sandals

14. Sun dresses

15. Home-Made Lemonade

16. Summer Projects

17. Sewing Bags and Dresses

18. Early Sunrises

19. Late Sunsets

20. Late Nights with Good Friends

21. The Mystery of Edwin Drood

22. Colourful Flowers Everywhere

23. Straw Hats

24. Sleeping Nude

25. Swimming in the Ocean Every Day

26. Wandering Through Markets

27. Living in Bare Feet

28. Spending a Third Summer Kissing That Man of Mine

Boleslawiec Ceramics

Further to my previous post on sentimental muggery, I must express my undying love for Boleslawiec crockery, awesome blue hand-painted Polish ceramics.

I own none of it myself, but have an unhealthy obsession for the large collection of mugs, plates, bowls, jugs and spoon-resters belonging to Roman's family, collected feverishly by his dear mother.

What I really love about these pretty pieces is how obviously hand-crafted they are. They're almost perfectly even and symmetrical but never quite, and the layers of blue ink betray each individual brush stroke used to create them. It makes them all the more delicious to eat from, drink out of and rest upon because they are so obviouslymade with looooooooove.

That and I love the patterns, they're all beautiful. One day I hope to have a collection of my very own.

Things That Are Warm

Clockwise from Top Left: "Day Off" T-Shirt at Threadless.com, Dadaya Mittens and Hat at Etsy.com, Katwise Arm Warmers at Etsy.com, Sparrownestknits Scarf at Etsy.com, DewberryVintage Boots at Etsy.com, and Sonia Rykiel Coat at ASOS.com.

Tea for Two

Hello Strangers,

I was just recalling an anecdote my darling boy once told me.

In the 1920's, the conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Nikolai Malko, bet the composer Dmitri Shostakovich one hundred roubles that he couldn't completely arrange and re-orchestrate the Vincent Youmans standard Tea For Two in an hour.

Shostakovich, of course, did it. From memory. In forty five minutes.

If you're interested, the arrangement is called the Tahiti Trot, and after first being performed in Moscow in 1928, has been performed ever since.

Anyway, that's a fun little story that actually has nothing to do with what I want to talk about. Well, very little.

In the winter months (fuck you, Northern Hemisphere readers, your balmy weather reports are not welcome here) I am a tea fiend, especially when I'm staying up ridiculously late for no good reason.

So, today I bring you a post-hibernation reflection on tea. Mmm, deep.

Five Amazing Cups of Tea:

1. Russian Caravan, home-brewed by Dad, with a big splash of milk and a heaped teaspoon of sugar in a purple flower mug.

2. Chai tea with steamed soy milk from the Frisky Goat at Wynyard Station, drunk half-asleep on the bus to uni.

3. English Breakfast with a dash of milk in a Boleslawiec blue mug at Roman's house on a Sunday morning with a good British fry-up.

4. Jasmine tea in a latte glass at Toby's Estate, served with good conversation with a dear friend.

5. Hot lemon and manuka honey tea with a drop of liquid echinacea, the perfect healing potion when one is ailing.

Finally, I'd just like to share an image I have, an image of what I want my life to look like in the indeterminable future - it involves mugs!

Just to have a little house with some mis-matched furniture and a cat or two, a big bed with a nice quilt, and perhaps a blue-eyed man napping in it... and mugs. I can't wait to have a mug that's mine in my own cupboard in my own home.

It'll be special because of the hundreds of times I'll raise it to my lips. Whilst reading a good book. Whilst skritching a cat behind the ears. Over a fierce debate, over comfortable silence, over a murmured "I love you".

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

This little birdy is grateful to weheartit for the beautiful photos whilst I am devoid of camera.