Your Love Will Live In Me

Do you hear that? That is the silence that has descended now that the gears in my head have finally wound down--I've finished my application for Madison. It is printed, bound, shiny and ready to be posted. I just want to sleep with it under my pillow for a few days. For Luck. Madison sent me a link to a website so I can track the progress of my application...yeah. Maybe wait a few weeks before I start compulsively checking.

But more on that anon. I decided to reward myself by going to see Chicago Shakespeare's production of "Passion," another Sondheim/Lapine musical. "Passion" is a hard play to put on--it's not particularly happy, and the music is very...weird. The singers in the show were solidly good, but not spectacular, except for Ana Gasteyer, who positively inhabited her character. Everyone else leaned a little to the "musical theatre" end of the spectrum--she totally ruled as Fosca. Overall, a solid interpretation of a weird little play that is also not without it's faults.

I like "Passion" because I can relate to the story. Basically Giorgio, a solider, is totally enraptured with Clara until he is shipped out to a dreary outpost in 1860s Italy, and becomes the object of Fosca's burning affection. Fosca is ugly, ill and slightly anti-social, the opposite of the angelic Clara. He resists for most of the play, but her love for him is so passionate, so all-consuming that in the end his resistance is burned away. One of my favourite lines from the play last night was "I don't know how to love. No one's ever shown me how to love. All I have are these emotions, and I don't know what to do with them." I thought that "Passion" would teach me a lesson about temperance in love, but instead it teaches the opposite: revel in your feelings, because that is the most honest thing of all. The ending reminded me vaguely of "Pride & Predjudice," where the lovers' one kiss conveys more passion than anything Lydia might have done--so too Giorgio's cautious handholding with Fosca is somehow more satisfying than the beginning of the play which is lights up on him and Clara en flagrante.

I'm not a huge fan of "Shakespeare" companies, I worry that you limit yourself too much, so I'm always glad to see them branching out. If I had to pair this show with another one, I would actually do "Sweet Charity" since both deal with women who are not afraid to love or constrained by the role that society has for them.

I wanted to put up a picture from the show I saw last night, even though I didn't think the Giorgio was anything spectacular. But then I found this one of Audra MacDonald and Michael Cerveris, with no pants on. Enjoy!

Madison (or, There and Back Again)

Madison is just as the awesome as I remembered it. I woke up early on Thursday, took the L out to O'Hare and picked up my rental car, then drove up to Wisconsin. I bloody love Wisconsin--truly, the most beautiful place on earth. And Madison is an amazing city, with an amazing campus. Despite the fact I discovered that my driving skills have deteriorated so much I probably wouldn't pass the test, I made it there in one piece.

The "interview" started off by me attending a class on international children's theatre, and then meeting with three professors in rapid succession. After that, I went out to lunch on State Street with another grad student who's in her fourth year there. Talking to her, I really got a sense of what I was in for as far as a graduate program. It's quite intimidating--the classes are intense, and there's teaching as well as the constant encouragement to publish and be involved in symposia and conferences. Far from being overwhelmed, however, I started to feel like "yeah! bring it on! I love to learn--I want to be challenged! yea!" Then after lunch I met briefly with the dean of the program and another grad student. Everyone was extremely friendly and--while not downplaying the difficulty of the program--very encouraging. So now I'm even more psyched to apply. My only worry is that I don't have enough credentials. I don't have a master's thesis, only a play, and while I've done research and academic writing, certainly not to the extent that some of these people have. So that's my paranoia. But I'm going to apply, because I know I would be a good candidate, and we'll see what happens. One of the profs suggested applying to the MA program and then matriculating into the PhD program, but I can't afford to pay for two years of another degree. Everyone who asked seemed surprised that I was only applying to Madison, but, to quote a far better playwright than myself, "why would I want to apply somewhere I don't really want to go?" Half the reason I want to attend Madison is because it's MADISON.

These are the thoughts currently swirling around in my head. If I don't get in...who knows what will happen. Possibly I'll become even more powerful than anyone ever thought. When I returned home, I had an email from Teach for America, politely informing me that I had not made it to the interview round. After the long drive, I was pretty tired, and this upset me a great deal. My poor journal got it all over--whinge, whinge, whinge--but I went to bed, slept for about eleven hours and then woke up and put out some more applications for jobs. Christmas is coming up, after all, and everyone needs playwrights-come-shopgirls.

The thing I enjoyed most about the trip was the freedom of the car, actually. I forgot how nice it is to go tooling off the highway every now and then. Before I crossed back into Illinois I had to find a bank to get some cash for the tolls, so I turned off the highway in Beloit. I stopped at a gas station, stocked up on petrol, also cookies and a pumpkin-spice cappucino and was politely informed that I couldn't get cash back on my my purchases, but I was free to use the ATM. The ATM cheerfully told me that to get my money out of my bank it was going to cost me $3.50. Being so close to the interstate, I figured this was the new form of highway robbery, so I decided to head into Beloit and see if I could find a bank. (briefly considered buying a bottle of water at Wal-Mart--Sam Walton would let me get cash back, but the thought of having to explain to my children how I once supported a huge money-sucking corporation deterred me.)Beloit is nice. A fairly smallish town, well-hid amongst trees and curvy roads. Not real big on banks. I drove for about fifteen minutes, enjoying the scenery before I found an ATM ($2.00 fee--aargh). Briefly considered winging it back to Chicago off the interstate. Remembered that Illinois also had a deer problem and my driving skills were not up to evasive manouevering. Noted for future reference that Beloit has a road named Nelson Ave., decided it was probably named after some Norwegian immigrant who was unaware of the great sacrifices the admiral had made. And got on I-90 again. The drive home was uneventful, even getting into O'Hare. If I had more money, I'd rent a car again and drive back and spend an afternoon at the local eatery.

But, for now, more of the same. Work, study, read, applications, sleep. Ah, well.