25-5-11
Hotel Royal, Belgrade
This morning we went to the Ethnographic Museum that is located right near Students Park. The Ethnographic Museum is dedicated to the history of the Balkan people. As such it was filled with examples of national dress, housing, furniture, tools, and a manner of other interesting objects. What was most fascinating to me was how each Balkan culture was very distinct, yet still similar to each other culture. Also, there was a carnival exhibit in the museum that looked at how various cultures, including the Balkans but also ones beyond, costumed themselves for carnivalesque celebrations.
After the Ethnographic museum Dennis, Lynnette, and I went to the University to meet up with Zorica. At 11, Professor Stanley Gontarski from Florida State University was giving a lecture on Samuel Beckett. Professor Gontarski is a member of the English department at FSU. As such, he took a literary approach to analyzing Beckett, as opposed to the typical performative approach. He attempted to place Beckett amongst the contemporary philosophers of his time who used performance as his medium. All in all it was a very interesting position, though it went about double the estimated forty-five minutes and we had to duck out when he asked for questions rather than stay the entire time.
We ducked out just in time actually. When we got back to the hotel, our taxis were just pulling up. That afternoon we were going to a dig about thirty minutes outside of Belgrade. We arrived at the Dig to find it closed and graveled over (to protect from vegetation), but the archeologists were more than happy to still talk to us about the history they had discovered in the area over the past one hundred years of excavating this site.
The dig was the site of a Neolithic town – maybe the first in the Mediterranean. The town prospered for many years during a two-thousand year period of peace – something that has never happened since. The main reason for the peace surrounding the town was for the fact it was better to make trade than war with them. The town exported cinnabar (which was ground up and used for dye) and obsidian (used for tools, weapons, mirrors, etc). Unfortunately, funding ran out for the project and so they wait and steward what they have accomplished so far in order to gift it to the next generation of archeologists.
When we had first arrived at the Dig, our drivers had offered to call a nearby restaurant they claim was “lots of great food, very cheap” and make reservations for us for lunch. We took them up on it…not expecting the price again. It’s partly our fault – again – as we didn’t specify that some people had already eaten, others weren’t very hungry, and that overall our appetites were smaller than any group meal had thus-far assumed. I swear – marathon eating. Any “family-style” restaurant promotes marathon eating. It might be a different story if we had more guys on the trip, but we didn’t. There were four men on this trip compared to eleven women – most of whom ate smaller portions too (Lynnette may be the only exception to this…Liz and Britt sometimes). Good meal – as always. Too much food – as always. However, we finally had a refrigerator in a room because Britt and Liz had been moved from their bed-bug infested room (Britt was covered in bites from a day or two ago, Liz was not).
After we returned to the hotel, we had some time off before we were going to go tour the theatre Atelje 212 (pronounced ah-tal-yay two-twelve) before attending a performance of Hair that evening. After a shower and a nice nap – I was ready to go out again!
We arrived at Atelje 212 at the scheduled time to find no one there…After about thirty minutes, in which we took pictures of Liz and Dennis falling asleep, our “guide” arrived to inform us that he actually had double scheduled and couldn’t give us a tour but that his friend could. We got a brief tour of their spaces – stage, rehearsal, technical, and the cantina – before we had to duck out to allow them to prepare for the show.
Let me start with saying the show was damn fantastic. Damn fantastic. They updated the script so that Claude was being sent off to Afghanistan and the hippies were actually protestors outside the World Peace Summit – specifically protesting war-mongering companies that promote pro-war stances in order to increase profits while simultaneously pushing the American way of life on other cultures, slowly suffocating and destroying their cultural heritage. Despite the updates, the script was relatively the same as the original having only altered bits to allow for the update to modern day.
The set was three stories high and designed to look like a large office building with a grand stair case coming down the front – A single staircase descended from about fifteen feet to around eight before stopping at a platform and splitting into a traditional grand staircase. Across the building was a rolling LED screen upon which messages often floated across in English. There was no onstage masking of the wings at all and on the stage left side a live band was playing the accompaniment. Downstage center there was a slightly lower platform to allow for another level onstage while the entire set was framed in a large industrial false proscenium.
The light for the show was absolutely wonderful. Interestingly, it utilized a mostly amber palette – similar to what you would find State-side. Additionally, there were two large sets of high-side ambers from stage left and right – and when I say large sets I mean a grid about five lights wide by six lights tall all arranged about five feet apart from each other. On the tower, there were seven window areas which were lit with large LED/LCD panels that would change color frequently throughout the show. The most interesting choice for me was the fact that there was barely any front light for the stage, which at times made it very hard to see actor’s faces.
Overall, the lighting design was pretty good. However, there were two sets of fantastic cues during the show. The first was during Aquarius. The stage was flooded with a very deep sea-blue/green lighting. The entire stage was very dark and you couldn’t see anyone’s faces. Suddenly you hear the first strains of the bass line to Aquarius and then you see the pregnant girl focused on by flashlights. She’s standing onstage, playing bass guitar and rocking the licks. Soon afterwards, the vocals come in and more flashlights are turned to the singer. Throughout the piece, the only lights illuminating people onstage were flashlights held by other cast members. It was a really great effect.
The second point was during Let the Sun Shine. The entire cast was on stage, down on the lower platform, and was raising their arms to the sky when the roof actually opened up to reveal more lights – this time in the 6000K range of light (very white) – shining through and slowly opening more and more to bathe the entire cast in a brilliant white light.
There was one really scary moment for me in the production as an aspiring technical director. One of the actors climbed up the proscenium and began to swing across the horizontal like it was a large set of monkey bars! When he got to the middle, he began doing leg lifts and holds and other gymnastics for a couple minutes before finishing his cross across the stage, climbing down and walking away. Not releasing a safety as he walked away. Just walking away. No safety. Thirty feet in the air. I shudder to think of the fines they would have been assessed State-side for that stunt, what with the whole Spiderman fiasco currently on Broadway!
After the show, we all parted our own ways. Lucas, Keegan, Brianna, Lynnette and I all headed towards the Hotel, though by a different route – I was feeling adventurous and wanted to explore roads we hadn’t been on. Nothing exciting happened and we made our way back to the hotel with no issues.
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