newbie:
He goes into the florist shop to buy some flowers. The shopgirl faints.
Oldie:
She stayed up all night reading all about his part of the country and then, at breakfast, accused his ancestors of stealing it from the natives. He was outraged. And enchanted.
Wiiiiild guess. Stagecoach?
Sorry to interrupt the game, but I did promise a report on my trip to London. Also, I have no idea what movie eoe's scene is from, so I'm vamping for time.
Of the three plays I saw in London, I loved one, found the second interesting (but with a problematic ending), and was disappointed in the third. The play I loved was Journey's End, a revival of a 1929 play about British soldiers in the first World War. It was so well acted, I found it enthralling despite the grim subject matter. There was one scene that sent a chill down my spine: all the characters are offstage (on a raid to try to capture a German prisoner, to get information about an impending battle), and while the audience looks at the empty stage, the sound of the guns gets louder and louder, and then smoke slowly billows down the stairs (the set is a below-ground dugout) and fills the entire stage. That scene proved that you don't need fancy special effects, like a helicopter landing onstage, to achieve magic in the theater.
The play with the problematic ending was All's Well That Ends Well, in an RSC production with Judi Dench as the Countess. I don't think I had ever seen a staged performance of All's Well before, so I don't have anything to compare this production to, but I thought it was a good one, which brought out a lot of the humor in the play, in an un-gimmicky way. My problem with the ending is that the character of Bertram is such a jerk, it's hard to see how all will be "well" between him and Helena after the play is over. The way the last scene was staged seemed to suggest that the director had his doubts about this, too: the play ends with Bertram and Helena standing at opposite ends of the stage, staring at each other across a distance, while the King and the Countess stand upstage, looking at the young couple with expressions of concern on their faces.
The disappointing play was Michael Frayn's new play, Democracy, which was disappointing mainly by comparison to Frayn's last play, Copenhagen. I think the reason why I liked Copenhagen better was that it was much more focused (it concentrated on one incident: the meeting between Nils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and what information passed between them at that meeting), while Democracy (which is about Willy Brandt and an aide who turned out to be an East German spy) encompassed several years of European history, with the result that much of the dialogue consisted of lines like, "There are wildcat strikes in the metal-working industry."
I also saw a fascinating exhibit on the Redgraves at the Theatre Museum, and an exhibit of Cecil Beaton's portrait photographs (from the 1920's to the 1970's, including pictures of just about everyone from Garbo to Twiggy) at the National Portrait Gallery.
I hope that wasn't too long-winded (if you think it was, you should try reading my travel journal!). Now, on with the game!
Welcome back!
Dare to take a guess?
Well, my first reaction was to wonder whether this is a trick question, designed to make us Amurricans think that the reference to "his part of the country" means somewhere in the U.S., but that actually refers to somewhere altogether different. So let me ponder this a moment or two longer...
Thanks for the report, bree. It sounds like it was a great trip.
Good Morning to all.
Many thanks Bree for such an interesting report on your trip. I'd love to read your journal.
I'm not familiar with All's Well That Ends Well. Were you impressed by Judi Dench's performance? And I agree with you about special effects. Before I saw Les Miserables and Phantom, I asked some friends who had seen those shows in Canada what they thought of the music and performers. I got a report on the special effects. (lol) Journey's End sounds so familiar.
EOE:
I believe your scene is from Giant when Elizabeth Taylor studies the map of Texas.
You are correct, raggedy.
You are correct, raggedy.
You are correct, raggedy.
Inbetweener:
A schoolteacher's Irish wife has a passionate love affair with a handsome British officer stationed in town.
I think I know this one, but I'm going out this evening, and I don't want to guess and run. I'll check back tomorrow to see whether anyone has come up with the answer by then.
Judi Dench was very good in All's Well (no surprise there). The rapport between her character and the character of Helena was especially nice. By the way, when I was at the Theatre Museum, I noticed a new handprint on the museum's wall of handprints. (The main galleries of the museum are below ground, and the ramp that leads down to them is lined on both sides with white walls, on which hundreds of English actors have left painted handprints and signatures -- kind of the English equivalent of the footprints in front of Grauman's Chinese). Since my last visit to the museum, Judi Dench's daughter, Finty Williams, has squeezed her handprint into a small space beneath her mother's handprint.
Yes to Ryan's Daughter, Fealola.
(This is a reminder to ask Bree what some of the names are on the museum's wall. )
Let's see: I remember seeing John Gielgud's handprint, and Peggy Ashcroft, and Joan Plowright, and Ian McKellen, and Maggie Smith, and Eileen Atkins. Those are the names that come to mind immediately, but I'm sure I'll think of others later. In addition, there were several names I didn't recognize, but which are probably well-known to English theatre-goers.
