Wales '05

Wales 2005 (A journal in email)

Dear Friends and Family,
Well, here I am in Britain. I arrived with no problem, except my by-now-customary upper respiratory difficulties. They were particularly nasty this time, and are only sorting themselves out now, six days after my arrival. I shall spare you the sodden details...
For those of you to whom this message is a surprise, I should mention that I have been invited over to be in a production of "Oliver!" at the Gateway Theatre in Chester, England. I finally met my director, Leslie Churchill Ward, on Monday night. She is just as irrepressibly bubbly in person as she is via email. I knew Simon Phillips, the music director, from previous visits. He has been wonderfully generous towards my efforts to sing, given my current vocal difficulties. With steady infusions of Sudafed and a Niagara of tea, however, my larynx should soon be liberated from its prison. So far I haven't had the opportunity to work on my scene since we've only done group music rehearsals. I have been put into the tenors. The top note expected of me is a wowser, but I should be able to reach it with no difficulties once my problems have been laid to rest.
As it turns out, I know a few people from my earlier adventure in British theatre, "The Sound of Music" (May 2002). The Mother Superior in that production, Maureen Tolefree, is the Mrs. Bedwin, and my scene as Dr. Grimwig is with her. Another of the nuns, a warm and utterly delightful woman named Pat Pearce, is in the production, as is her charming husband Dave. Chris Dukes, with whom I had most of my scenes in "S.O.M.", is in the production. So is John Lindop, who plays Fagin. Steve Davies, the director of "S.O.M.", is playing a short but highly decorative role in "Oliver!" and he has become one of my favorite friends over here. There are a couple of others, and many of the backstage personnel are the same here -- and all are friendly and seem to be glad to see me again. Chris, in particular, is going to be a great pleasure to work with, and she has volunteered to carry me away to various corners of Britain for adventuring on a couple of the weekends that we're not rehearsing. Oh, joy!
I'm staying with my friends Peter and David across the border from England in Wrexham, North Wales. Wrexham is a charming market town, rapidly growing into a small city. Peter and David's house is not far from the town center, and so I will be doing a good deal of brisk walking while here. Luckily the weather will allow me to do this painlessly. Yes, rain is frequent, but the sun always reliably returns. The temperatures have remained somewhere between 40 and 55 degrees. A short stroll down the street from here is the local pub, Acton Park. I stopped in for a pint of bitter the other day and was pleased to see on the bulletin board, the poster I'd designed for Peter's previous show. (The "Oliver!" poster is printed now, so I should take a copy down one of these days.) The Acton Park is a charmer, filled with light and with a lovely fireplace roaring away in the non-smoking section. Yes, this should be a MOST pleasant stay...
Next week Peter and I are going to London for a couple of days. Peter has already gotten us tickets for a spectacular show, the Christmas pantomime at the Old Vic, starring Ian McKellen as the Dame. Perhaps a word regarding the panto is called for here, as it's an indigenous British custom with no American equivalent. Pantomime as we Americans know it is not part of the show. It's just called that. The show comes from one of a series of typical stories, like Cinderella, Aladdin, Dick Whittington and his Cat, Babes in the Wood, etc., that are used as a template for a local writer (in Wrexham's case Peter) to write a show featuring jokes (some anciently traditional), pop and traditional songs with new, saucy lyrics making reference to current events, and wildly extravagant sets and costumes. There's a "principal girl", a "principal boy" or hero, traditionally played by a girl (though that tradition is changing), and the Dame. The Dame is ALWAYS played by a man, in escalatingly outrageous costumes, and with the most outrageous playing style manageable. Michael Quarrier, my first British guest when I got to know my Brits, was a wonderful, and popular, Dame. Drag, by the way, is an ancient and venerable tradition in Britain, a tradition that would send the American crazy-Christers into anguished prayer meetings. The panto is played around Christmas, a week or so before and often into early January. In the big cities, pantomimes are big business. The leading companies perform quite elaborate ones, usually with big stars playing the Dame. Over here, Ian McKellan is as big a star as one could possibly hope for, and he has even gotten a glowing write-up in the New York Times.
Well, I see out the window that the clouds have flown away once more, telling me I should take a stroll down to the town center for lunch.

Dear Friends and Family,
The horrendous rains and flooding that have battered Scotland and the north of England have left North Wales unmolested. And Wednesday, as Peter and I boarded the train to London, the sun came out in full. During the two days there it was always shining. We arrived at Euston station and parted. Peter had a ticket to a panto near Victoria Station and I wanted to 'do' London. We agreed to meet at the TKTS booth in Leicester Square at 5:00.
I meandered down to the West End through Bloomsbury, and arrived at my destination: the National Portrait Gallery. I am familiar with the collection from former visits, but there's always worthy new work to be seen. My favorite portrait was of a theatrical producer named Thelma Holt, whom I'd never heard of. But her portrait, by Jennifer McRae, is a splendid piece of work, islands of bright colors working against quiet ones, with feathery brushwork and a wealth of rich detail. The Gallery has another of her works, the playwright Michael Frayn. Rather than plow through the bulk of the collection, I made a beeline for the Tudor era portraits, my great favorites. By the time I had savored them to the full, and seen a special exhibition of caricature, it was time to stroll about the theatre district till it was time to meet Peter. Back at the TKTS booth I bought a ticket to a new production of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd."
Peter was late in joining me, and could not join me for dinner; he left immediately to pick up his bag, which he'd left at his theatre. We agreed to meet later, and I set out to find a restaurant. Peter, alas, is the world's pickiest eater, strictly a meat and potatoes man, so I was pleased to scout for something a bit more exotic.
Exotic it turned out not to be, but it was immensely satisfying. Near Cambridge Circus I found a little Italian restaurant I'd never seen before. I hadn't had a scrap of seafood since my arrival in this nautical nation, so I ordered an all-seafood meal. Spectacular! A cold seafood salad came first, accompanied by a glass of pinot grigio. The main course was trotta ala Cleopatra, a delectable piece of trout broiled in butter and topped with capers and tiny shrimp. I managed to eat it without moaning in ecstasy, but it was a proper job, I can tell you. This had to be the finest seafood dish I've had in a decade.
In front of my theatre I found Peter, who had come to find out when my play got out. He had acquired a ticket to London's newest sellout, a stage mounting of "Mary Poppins," for which single tickets MAY be had. On Peter's advice, I got a ticket myself, for the next day's matinee, then returned to the New Ambassador to see my musical.
This mounting of "Sweeney Todd" is adventurous and has been well-received by the critics, and I was looking forward to it with great pleasure. My seatmate was an American, a copy editor at TIME, and she was friendly and, as it turns out, absolutely new to the play. The actors in this production, with the exception of the title character, all play musical instruments when not in a scene, a new and intriguing experiment that, alas, doesn't work especially well. The staging was minimalist to a fault, and unfortunately geared to an audience already familiar with the play; a stranger would have missed a good deal of the subtleties, not to mention several crucial plot elements. In the scene where Todd sings plangently of his daughter Joanna while slicing the throats of his clientele one by one, the actor stood on top of a black coffin while caressing a smaller red coffin. No indication that a procession of innocent victims was meeting their grisly fates! Mrs. Lovett, at the end, is not thrust into an oven, but instead has her throat slit. In short, a novel approach, but a failure. The actor who sang Sweeney was properly vicious and pathetic, but the acting honors went to Mrs. Lovett. Imagine, if you can, Bert Lahr in a miniskirt. (Yes, the costumes ran the gamut from 1880s London to the Swingin' Sixties.) She was a fine singer (when not on the trumpet!) and whenever in the thick of the action, a comic revelation.
I met Peter as his show was letting out. As we sprinted for the train, he raved about "Mary Poppins," good news to this future ticket-holder. We took the train from Charing Cross Station to Peter's friend Tony Younger's house in South London, in an agreeable neighborhood called Forest Hill.
Tony is a former Army man, now retired to the house in which he grew up, and a most charming and affable host. He made us tea and we caught up from our previous visit. (Peter and I had stayed with Tony on my visit in 2002.) We were joined by Min, a Korean student who is renting a room from him, and Tony's godson Jeremy. Jeremy is a handsome and burly man who enjoys hunting. During our conversation, rather disconcertingly, he gave us a demonstration of the process of cleaning a pheasant, luckily in mime rather than with an actual bird.
The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, Peter and I took the train back to London. Peter had errands to run and I wanted to explore the wealth of bookstores on Charing Cross Road, so we parted and agreed to meet later at dinner. Once more I had the option of more adventurous eating, so had a dish of curried chicken at an Indian restaurant. Not bad, but for an enthusiast of Indian food, something of a letdown.
A greater letdown was yet to come. I found "Mary Poppins" to be a grossly overblown production, the additional new songs woefully inferior to the original songs from the film. When an old song was performed, I felt a perceptible lift, though even these were drowned in snowdrifts of gooey overproduction. The sweet original had become an inflated dinosaur of a production, with unnecessary story elements added, light effects which drew attention from the performers, and a three-hour playing time that would surely exhaust small children, for whom the story was created! For instance, in the number "Step in Time," a real rouser with less extraneous detail, the character of Bert, aided by wires, walked up the side of the proscenium, across the top, and back down the side. It stopped the number in its tracks and meant absolutely nothing. In other words, they did it because they could, and for no other reason. A couple of the effects, like Mary's final exit, lifted aloft above the crowd, were suitably effective.
The actors, when not engulfed in distracting production values, were fine. The lead, Laura Michelle Kelly, was perfect. The Bert was charming and, I suspect, a star in the making. Rosemary Ashe, a particular favorite of mine, was wasted, however, in a small and utterly extraneous role. Of course it will run for years, and of course it will come to Broadway, where it will again be a hot ticket. But good it ain't -- pure junk food.
I met Peter afterward and we walked down to the Thames, across the Hungerford bridge to the Old Vic. This venerable theatre, where I'd been only once before, is one of the grandest venues in all London, a magnet to the cream of British acting. This year they are presenting a professional Pantomime, "Aladdin." This was Peter's treat to me, and so I took him to a nearby Italian restaurant where we had a delightful meal. We had the prettiest little waitress I have ever seen, and she was pleased that I ordered in Italian, and generally made our meal a fine experience.
"Aladdin" turned out to be the supreme highlight of the trip. The star of the show was the great Shakespearian actor Ian McKellan, playing the Dame part: The Widow Twankey. I have seldom seen a more sidesplitting performance. He played the role with a campiness that I may never see equalled, and with a rich and hearty comic sensibility that I hardly suspected was there. Each of his costumes, as tradition dictates, was more outrageous than the previous one, and he swanned about in them like the master of comedy that he so clearly is. The other actors were hardly less wonderful, and the comic villain, Richard Allam, was McKellan's equal.
Everything was highly professional, and the sets were spectacular. The designer, unbelievably, is a prodigious 12-year-old girl who will assuredly go on to even bigger successes. The costumes and lighting were also near to perfection, and I was practically levitating as we left the theatre. This was an experience I'll long remember.
We got back to Tony's earlier than the previous evening, but went to bed before midnight this time, as our train back to Chester was at 10:45 and we had to travel across London -- during rush hour -- to return to Euston Station. I saw less of London itself than on previous visits, but what I saw was choice. And it was a great pleasure to see Tony again. (The last time I stayed with him I'd given him a book, the Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh. It was just the right gift and he remembered it fondly, so last night I ordered a volume of Waugh's complete travel writings through Amazon and had it sent to him.)
The trip was a complete joy, and it's always a great treat to visit this "flowre of cities alle." Especially in the company of Peter Swingler.

The rehearsal schedule has stepped up now and for the rest of my time here, or at least until the 19th of February, I should be working harder. My gig as the dancing lead cop in "Consider Yourself" is getting better. Nightstick held perpendicularly, I lead sort of a flying wedge of six other cops down to the center of the stage, doing a sort of a knees-up-Mother-Brown, where we do a sort of crossover step for eight counts. Thereupon, I let a blast on my whistle and we prance off to the side to arrest some unseen malefactor. In "Oom-Pah-Pah" I'm just another drunken, lower-class reveler, grabbing wenches and knocking down pints of ale, no special steps. In "Who Will Buy?" I sing offstage since my scene as Dr. Grimwig is inserted into the middle of the song.
Saturday night I had an unusual and pleasant experience. My friend David and I were invited to a private concert in a private home. This was in a small town called Bollington. We dropped Peter off in Manchester, after having picked up a friend of David's named Michael Jessup. Michael sat in front reading directions to David as we took the most circuitous of routes to get there, by highway, country road and many a twisting byway. Finally we arrived. Bollington is set in some rather steep hills, and we had to park at the foot of one and walk up -- up a seeming 50-degree angle.
Val Makin was our hostess. I'd met her before, when I was over to perform in "The Sound of Music," and I had signed a copy of one of my books for her, for the artist who was appearing that evening, Andrew Wilde. Her house, at the crest of the mountain -- I mean hill -- is cozy and friendly, clearly the house of someone who has traveled widely. We settled into comfortable chairs and soon Wilde appeared.
Andrew Wilde is a plump, almost-young man with the look of a huge, bespectacled baby. He is rumored to be temperamental, and we saw a flash of it when he shot a sharp glance at a couple who began to applaud between the movements of one piece. He settled down and began the program with an adagio by Mozart, played with slow deliberation. The next item was Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, followed by two nocturnes, then two scherzi by Chopin. His playing is expert, though the scherzi were a bit bombastic. The program was well-received so he gave us two encores, more Chopin. It was a good, safe program, but I wished he had gone a bit further outside the Romantics than Mozart.
Afterward, sandwiches and wine were passed about and we even spoke briefly with Wilde. He was quite pleasant, if a bit standoffish. A propos the Chopin nocturnes I mentioned a favorite modern piece of mine, likewise a nocturne, by Samuel Barber. He has performed the piece, it turned out, so I rather wished he had included this or something similar. Still, a good evening and a slightly unusual one.
I understand that a good deal of my native land is under snow, particularly New England. I promised myself I wouldn't brag, but I must confess that the TWO snows we've had here have lasted on the ground for hardly more than a couple of hours.
I must leave and have lunch at the Bumble Tea Room with Peter's delightful sister Maureen. More later.

Friday, January 28
Today I took the bus down to Oswestry, Shropshire. This was the childhood home of one of my friends back in Maryland. Dorothy Davies directed me in three plays, all by Noel Coward, "Blithe Spirit," "Hay Fever," and "Shadow Play." She and her husband Cyril were in their late 70s back then, so I imagine that both are likely dead by now. Nonetheless, I wanted to see the town that produced her.
The one hour bus trip was through glorious scenery, twisting roads through quirky villages. One sight was completely unexpected: a huge monkey puzzle tree as tall as a two story building. Oswestry is a typical market town, quite pleasant for a few hours. I enjoyed walking the narrow, labyrinthine streets, always thinking, "ah, yes, these are the streets that my old friend knew so well." Oswestry castle, at the top of steep winding steps, proved to be little more than a few outcroppings of rock and foundation stones, the rest of the building having been razed centuries before by some marauding army or another. The parish church of St. Oswald, almost a thousand years old, was fragrant with the ghostly incense of a millenium. The day had started sunny in Wrexham, but by the time I got back to the Oswestry bus station to wait for the return home, the sky was swollen with cold, black clouds. I huddled into my coat and longed for the fireside back at Peter and David's.

Saturday, January 29
This evening Peter and David were invited to Lee's for dinner; I was invited out to a small birthday party for another friend. (My social life may be slightly better here than in Boston!) Chris Dukes and I took Eric Jones and his partner Keith to dinner, to celebrate Eric's 60th birthday. The scene was a spectacular restaurant in Llangollen, the Cornmill. It's in an actual 18th century mill beside the river Dee. The river rushes by it -- and through it, as the wheel is still a working mill. This was the best meal I've had here yet and it was made all the better by the company. We downed champagne and a good red Italian wine and laughed like loons; these Welsh are born to party. My meal was a camembert and black grape tart, then roast chicken with a mushroom and red wine sauce, followed by a bread pudding with an apricot brandy sauce that I expect to be dreaming about for years. These delightful people plan to come to Boston next year...and if so, they will be welcome.

Sunday, January 30
Today was an all-day rehearsal. We began at 10:00 a.m. and ended at 5:00. Luckily I'd brought a book, Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd," but I finished it long before we ended. The play is coming together very well now, except for a couple of shaky spots and, regretfully, one of the performances. It's becoming obvious that Jonathan, the boy playing Oliver, is woefully inadequate. Leslie, our director, has been trying to cajole more of a real performance out of him, but to little avail. He is said to have auditioned brilliantly. But he has been giving less and less, and seems listless to the point of indifference. He is NOT a resourceful actor but must be told everything to do. At this point he can't be replaced, though one particular boy in the chorus could possibly do it. This kid, who comes in to deliver some books in my scene, is also one of the boys in the workhouse. When given a bowl of gruel, he looks mortally offended and when the real food is paraded past him to the workhouse sponsors, he projects a ferocious hunger. But it's too late to engage him. Jonathan could improve, though it seems less and less likely. At best, this might prove an interesting experiment, a play without a central character...
"Oliver!" is a pretty hoary old piece by now, overexposed over the years, and it’s only mounted because it brings in huge crowds. That said, I must say that it has a splendid score and the opening number, "Food, Glorious Food" is a rousing piece, a perfect song to set the tone. The show is blessed with some delicious character parts, and in this production they have been given to masters. Chris, my friend from the Saturday revels, is playing Mrs. Sowerberry, and her undertaker husband is played by Steve Davies, the former director of "Sound of Music." Theirs is a short scene with song, "That's Your Funeral," and they play it with the scintillating brilliance of true stars. They are not only screamingly funny, they are truly Dickensian. The other couple, the Widow Corney and Mr. Bumble, are played by Pat Pearce and Ken Williams, a new guy I didn't know before. Their scenes are so good that they almost throw the play off balance.

Monday, January 31
This has been one of the best days yet. I took the bus to Chester and met Leslie (our director) and Amy, one of the women in the chorus with whose husband Robin I have several bits with in two numbers. We started off with coffee at Cafe Nero and were joined by another lady, Wendy, whom I also knew from the earlier play. Wonderful. Lunch (without Wendy, however) was at a restaurant called Aquavit, nominally Scandinavian, but more acurately continental. Splendid food and company. This day was planned as my opportunity to get to know Leslie better, and it worked out even better, as Amy is pure gold, as warm and friendly as anyone could want. We were together for about five hours -- that passed like mere minutes. Then I came home to catch up on my email.
Peter has just brought me up a bowl of salad and a scotch egg. My cup runneth over -- again. Now wonder I feel so much at home here!

Friday, February 4
Today Peter took off work and gave me a grand tour of the Peak District and Buxton, a town I'd fallen in love with back in 1986. We shoved off at around ten, driving through the Cheshire countryside in an enchanting roundabout way. Peter even got lost at one point. The day was perfect, warm and still, with great puffs of white cloud in a mostly sunny sky. As we rose into the foothills of the Pennines, however, the day became more gray. But nothing could spoil our outing. The Peak District is shared by Cheshire and Derbyshire, and as we passed into the latter, towns melted away. The glorious mountains, smooth and green and not a bit craggy, are broken only by the very occasional farm. A lace fretwork of ancient low stone walls give the landscape the look of a vast green quilt draped over a mountain range. Our only companions were sheep. The road we were on is called, for some reason lost in the mists of time, the Cat and the Fiddle.
We reached Buxton about an hour and a half after starting. Buxton, in the heart of Derbyshire, was the site of one of the most enjoyable days in my life, which I have remembered with extraordinary vividness ever since that July day in 1986. About eight or nine of my British friends and I piled into two cars and drove to Buxton for a picnic and a day's pleasure. The sun shone; a band played in a gazebo above the park; duck families glided over the stream beside us as we spread our cloths for the picnic. After eating we piled into the cars again and drove a dozen miles to Ashford-in-the-Water, an idyllic village set above a lazy, meandering river. It struck me then as the most beautiful village I'd ever seen. Afterward we returned to Buxton to see a (not very good) musical, "Blood Brothers," in the Opera House, then returned to Wrexham. Ever since then I have remembered it with a fondness that has never faded.
But this was winter. No baby ducks plied the waters this time, only adult geese, ducks and swans. We found our old picnic spot, then walked to an old hotel pub for lunch. The Old Cock Pub is decorated from floor to ceiling with chickens -- ceramic chickens, framed chicken prints, chicken placemats, children's drawings of chickens -- you name it. In honor of the place I had a chicken tikka and cream cheese sandwich and a cream ale; the chickens looked down on us in silent reproach. From there we walked over to the Opera House, which was exactly as I remembered it, an ornate little jewel box. Buxton is an ancient spa, transformed during Victorian times into a resort for the rich and pampered, and it still retains a faded air of grandeur. Elegant buildings in the local gray stone rise above beautiful parkland, and the grandest one of all is a large indoor garden which, sadly, was closed for the season.
After checking out a couple of the local antique stores, we drove on to Ashford-in-the-Water. To me it still holds the title of most beautiful village I've seen, just as I'd hoped. Memory had played me false, however -- I remembered the stone as soft butterscotch brown, whereas it's actually a soft dove-gray. The famous Sheepwash Bridge spans the river Wye, which runs clean and clear, and even in winter it is home to great numbers of waterfowl. This time we stayed a bit longer and walked around the narrow streets. Everything is kept beautifully; it is very likely popular as a spot for filming, if an idyllic English village is called for. There are only a mere handful of shops, and all is still and calm. In the churchyard burial ground, snowdrops are blooming in profusion, and we even saw some crocus breaking the ground.
We drove north through tiny hamlets and broad farmlands, then got onto the highway to Manchester. I was to be dropped off to spend the night and next day with Phil Edwards, one of the delightful friends I made in the summer of 1985.
Having wearied of being burgled time and again in his old neighborhood, Phil has bought a new place. Phil himself is an outrageous and charming man with the broken nose of a prizefighter and the twinking eyes of an aging pixie, which he in fact is. Together we laugh more than is seemly in two men in our fifties, and his company is champagne. Peter dropped me off and drove back to Wrexham, and a bit later Phil and I drove down to central Manchester.
He had made reservations at a restaurant called Velvet. Velvet supposedly has a mostly gay clientele, but tonight there were as many straight couples as not. A palpable feeling of conviviality filled the room. I had a fine half a roast chicken with a mushroom risotto, faultlessly cooked and quite filling. Afterward we toured a couple of the local bars, Tribeca and the Rembrandt, then went back home to watch a movie.

Saturday, February 6
I have been fighting another damnable sinus thing for the past couple of days, and last night was somewhat difficult. But in the morning I was fine and rose at the scandalous time of 9:30. Phil fixed us breakfast, and we drove into the City Centre to the Manchester Art Gallery. This museum is a huge and varied gallery, with an enormous, first-rate collection of Victorian painting, the largest and finest I've seen. I have a soft spot for this detail-crammed, often sentimental, sometimes outright ludicrous style of painting; this was truly a banquet. Their European collection is fine and covers several centuries, but English art predominates here. Several special exhibitions were going on, including some spectacular 20th C. painting.
Our late lunch was at a huge and ornate bar, the Via Rosso. We returned to the house as the afternoon waned, and I relaxed while Phil showered for a dinner with his sister and some friends that night. He returned me to Wrexham and we parted. But even with a heavy rehearsal schedule from now till opening night I'm sure to see him again on this trip.
Tonight, Peter showed me that David has found a larger, louder police whistle than the one I’ve been using in "Consider Yourself." If anyone in the audience should fall asleep, this should wake them up. I'll find out tomorrow since we rehearse all day long.

Dear Friends and Family,
As of today, I return to you in less than three weeks. But of course I'm nowhere near ready to come back yet! Here are the details of a few days...

Sunday, Feb. 6
Today our rehearsal began at 10 in the morning and ran to 5:00. The first two hours were concerned with choreographing the curtain call -- when you have a cast of roughly forty, arranging this is more a matter of traffic control than stagecraft. In addition, there was reprise music to run over. One musical number, the title song, remained to be staged, then we ran the show.
We broke at five and tables were rearranged for Bingo -- but please don't skip to the next paragraph just yet. Bingo in the British Isles is different from ours. Here the game is big business and most towns of some size have a hall devoted strictly to it. It's generally played by the elderly and people of modest income, and huge cash prizes are promised -- and presumably given out. But our game was intended as a benefit for Tip Top Players, and the prizes ran more to chocolate and wine. Yankee Bingo provides piles of beans and cards with five columns, whereas the British give out pads of eight sheets, in nine columns numbered up to 90. The numbers are read off with unseemly speed, and one crosses them off with a pen. After the first four games, there's a break.
Three of the boys from the show were sitting at my end of the table, so I idly sketched a caricature of one of them on the back of one of my sheets. The other two boys naturally wanted drawings so I gladly drew them. I knew from prior experience what was in store for me at the regular rehearsal on Wednesday, so on Monday I bought a small drawing pad...

Tuesday, Feb. 8
Today I saw an old friend I first met in 1985. Jenny Glover is about my age and has always looked older, but the gap is widening more and more as the years go by. She has grown quite stout and subsequently has heart problems, and her hair is now snow white and alarmingly sparse. As her house swarms with cats, a visit there would have reduced me to a sneezing, eyes-watering, gelatinous mess. So we arranged to meet in town at her lunch hour. She still has the warmth and coziness of a teapot, but I wonder if her health will allow us to meet again.

Wednesday, Feb. 10
Today the sky was streaked with enormous blue patches with no threatening clouds, so I walked to the nearby village of Gresford, a roundtrip of about seven miles. First I stopped midway for lunch at The Beeches, the first pub Peter took me to on my arrival. Gresford is an old village, and I'd never seen much of it since the main road passes along the edge of town. As I walked along the Gresford High Street, I came upon a gorgeous pond, sprinkled with ducks and hundreds of small gulls. The sun was out in full, turning the water to blue and gold. Along the west side of the pond is a line of terraced houses, modest homes of red brick. How lucky, I thought, to be able to look out your window and see such an enchanting view! In a moment the wind changed direction and the smile died on my lips. The smell was indescribable, something between an uncleaned monkey cage and a week-old corpse. I rushed past to get to the center of the village, but the wind capriciously changed again and followed me all the way.
In the center of Gresford is a beautiful old gothic church, blackened with age and soot, and bristling with gargoyles. An ancient yew tree grows in the churchyard, and it's said to be at least 1600 years old; I believe it. Its cluster of trunks is as thick as a small house and the texture of the bark looked like a rushing, tumbling stream of brown water. I tried to go into the church but it was locked, so I wandered around looking at the gravestones, most of them worn smooth -- and unreadable -- with time. The oldest birthdate I could still manage to read was 1605. A sexton was attending to one of the graves so I stopped for a moment to chat with him. He assured me of the tree's date, but as he was a mere sprout in his seventies, I can only take his word for it.
I braced myself for the pond stench as I made my way back to the main road, stepping up my pace. I heard a soft clip-clop behind me. A young woman in full riding silks and a riding cap was seated on a shaggy white percheron, shambling along lazily; they clopped along beside me for a spell. I was irresistibly reminded of one of those Thelwell cartoons from the old Punch Magazine.
All along my route I noticed that crocuses have popped up all over the place, and daffodils are everywhere. I saw two trees covered with little white blooms. February be damned, spring has definitely arrived in Wales.
At rehearsal it happened just as I predicted: the boys in the show came at me in a solid wave, clamoring to be drawn. I pulled my pad out and opened my pen and in a surprisingly orderly manner they sat for me one at a time. I'm fast, thank heaven, and took hardly more than a minute to do each one. Every now and then I had to take a break to actually rehearse, but at the end of the evening my pad had been reduced to one lone sheet. There are still some boys to draw yet, and the grownups have been hinting broadly that they'd like drawings too, so I guess my fate is sealed. Luckily, I enjoy it all immensely. Kids are the best damn audience in the world.

Thursday, Feb. 10
Bought a new pad today. On your mark... get set... go!

Saturday Feb. 12
In the morning Peter and David and I piled into the car and drove up to Port Sunlight, a community built by Lord Lever for the employees of the company he founded, Lever Brothers. It's a gorgeous town, built very much in Ye Olde Englishe style, but with a neat grid to the streets and spacious, well-maintained lawns. The premiere attraction of the town is the Lady Lever Museum, a grand art gallery in a beautiful belle epoque building. It's a smallish collection, very good, though hung badly. Glass has been placed over most of the large oils, and too many of them are placed, in the good ol' 19th century manner, too high to appreciate fully.
Afterward, Peter drove me to our rehearsal spaces to pick up my costumes. The dancing policeman costume is very Keystone Kops, surmounted by a tall black felt hat; the drunken reveler costume is nothing more than frowsy looking pants and shirt, with a rough suede overjacket. I'll look like a blacksmith or a common laborer out for a bit of drink and a willing wench. But the Dr. Grimwig costume! The man is clearly intended to be a human peacock: high purple pants, a plum colored jacket in the Regency style, a wild paisley waistcoat with an ascot tie in the same pattern. It's quite the most elaborate rig I've been fitted for in thirty years of doing theatre.

Sunday Feb. 13
Today was long and arduous, a typical tech Sunday; nobody on earth could enjoy such a day. We began at 2:30 in the afternoon with the announcement that several pieces of set had not yet arrived. The tech crew put the quite complicated set together laboriously -- but thoroughly -- so we were even later in starting. Typically, the show was done in short fits and starts, with no scene played out to the end. After a short break for dinner, we had our one and only dress rehearsal. I was concerned about my costume change from low barfly to the elegant Dr. Grimwig, but managed to put it together with time to spare. The cast seemed quite happy at the end, and Leslie, our director, was jubilant. I forsee a happy run.

Monday Feb. 14, Valentine's day
The day began bright and sunny, with only a few clouds in the sky, a most propitious beginning. I walked downtown in the glorious sunshine, grooving on the flowers that are springing up everywhere. Even the hedges are budding leaves and blooms, and by the time I'm ready to fly back to America, the springtime here should be even further along. One dark thought spoils it all: this is all certainly due to global warming, that phenomenon that our Commander-in-Chimp doesn't think is a problem. Still, it's hard not to delight in the physical world when the sun is out in full. I walked down into a new part of Wrexham, a winding green parkway south of town, then back to the town centre for lunch at La Baguette.
Opening night. An hour before curtain, Leslie and Peter addressed the company. Peter was practically levitating with pleasure. Opening night was sold out except for two single seats at the very back of the theatre -- which seats 430. And the rest of the run seems to be sold out except for a handful of single seats on Saturday. Those will be sold, too. That means that by the end of the run we will have entertained about 3000 people. Leslie gave us a few notes. I had two. My opening line as Dr. Grimwig tends to be swallowed by the scene change, so I'm going to have to bellow it like a Wagnerian tenor. And as the dancing policeman, I'm going to have to change into smaller black shoes, which pleases me. The heavy boots they gave me to dance in have been quite clumsy; imagine hoofing with two heavy loaves of bread strapped to your feet.
The show began well, continued even better, and our pace was brisk and efficient. This is due in part to Simon Phillips, our music director, who has consistently played his tempi more briskly than is generally done. We also have a crackerjack crew, who kept the set changes moving smoothly. The opening number, "Food, Glorious Food" is performed marvelously by the boys, who as far as I'm concerned are the true stars of the show. The audience is clearly in love with the lot of them. The part of the set that I do my scene on is inconsequential, but the other pieces make up for it. Fagin's den, in particular, is a marvel.
The most effective part of the show, I think, is Bill Sikes's murder of Nancy. It is nothing short of harrowing, and her cries for mercy are heartrending. After his attempt to strangle her has failed, leaving her weak and on her knees, he pushes her backward with his foot and finishes the job with a club. (To add a note of realism, the crew has placed a cauliflower out of sight for him to club, providing a sickeningly convincing sound.) A few minutes later, Bill himself is shot while trying to crawl up a ladder. He makes it halfway up, and is shot again, falling down onto the bridge, then down steps. It's most gratifying to see this monster meet such a dramatic end. Leslie has added a touch of grace to the final scene which is not in the libretto. Nancy's body is still lying high on the bridge while Oliver, saved, is taken offstage by Mr. Brownlow. It's always seemed to me a shame that this young woman, who has saved the boy's life, lies forgotten at the end. Leslie has brought Bet, Nancy's young companion, onto the stage to weep over her friend as the curtain falls.
The audience's response was gratifying, and our first night -- which is always a bit ragged -- was deemed a roaring success. Leslie was joyful -- and so were we.

Wednesday Feb. 16
Last night was a repeat of opening night, with everything running just a bit more smoothly. And today the sun is shining again.

February 27
Dear Friends and Family,
The play ended yesterday with two solid, sold-out, and very well-received performances. After Friday night's performance about twenty of us went out to a local Chinese restaurant, Cherry Valley, for a massive Chinese blowout -- course after course after course. Throwing all restraint to the winds I wolfed down everything that was put before me, making for a most uncomfortable night. The company and the occasion made it all worthwhile but I must confess to having felt decidedly delicate in the morning.
Lee Hassett picked me up at noon for the matinee. It felt strange to perform in the daytime after so many evening performances, and everyone seemed markedly closer as we approach the end. Ours is a huge cast, forty adults and thirty boys, so I only got to know about fifteen or twenty people well -- in addition to the friends I made during "The Sound of Music."
The performance was pitch perfect, and moved quickly. Since we had about 3 and a half hours between shows I had a sandwich and coffee in the theatre bar with Peter and several of the cast members, then went down to our basement dressing room to read before the others returned for the final costuming.
For the first time since the late rehearsals, I stood in the wings and watched the entire show -- except the scenes in which I appeared, of course. Just before curtain, I stepped out onto the stage and quietly told the assembled boys how much I had enjoyed getting to know them, and how impressed I was with the work they've been doing. They were delighted, and I could see that my having sat down to draw for them had truly paid off. Since that time two or three weeks ago, they have sort of adopted me as a mascot and my affection for them has grown and grown. Three or four of them have become favorites, naturally, but they are all delightful performers, and together, are truly the soul of the show.
I loved the show seen in this intimate way, and it was gratifying to see that Jonathan, our Oliver, has fulfilled every expectation. His indifferent playing in the later rehearsals has disappeared, and in our week onstage he has given a rich, deeply-felt performance. He clearly has that one thing that talent and work are useless without: an unforced charm that audience can't help but respond to. The show, as usual, moved along briskly, due largely to that smoothly running machine, our crew.
During the run of the play I went through most of two drawing tablets drawing caricatures of the boys and the rest of the cast. As I was leaving the stage, one of the stagehands, a chubby, pleasant young man, shyly asked if I would draw him, too. So as they dismantled the set for the warehouse, I stood about and drew them all, to their delight. What a wonderful tool drawing is for breaking the ice.
In the theatre bar afterwards, we said our goodbyes, although there is to be one last party tonight; forty people have made reservations. I'll miss these wonderful players, especially the boys. It's heartbreaking to think that I'll almost certainly never see them again. Though I've always prided myself on being an uncle to multitudes, sometimes I think I might have made a pretty good father myself...
It has been a lazy, pleasant day, with periods of bright sunshine, and Peter and David and I have hardly done anything but read the papers. In times past, the end of a show brought days of melancholy. Now I feel only a mild regret, a nameless emptiness, and it never lasts for long. And tomorrow I fly to Dublin!

Dear Friends and Family,
I'm sitting in an internet cafe just a few steps from my hotel, aching with exhaustion but deliriously happy. Dublin is delight upon delight, a city rich in sights, literary associations, and wonderful good manners-- which I've always valued.
My flight from Liverpool (yesterday) took less than an hour, and a bus whisked me into the city center in half an hour. My hotel, an almost too-modest establishment called the Charles Stewart, was right on the bus route. It's a tiny, worn establishment, the birthplace of Irish writer (and surgeon!) Oliver St. John Gogarty, a great pal of James Joyce, my literary hero. My room is about the size of one of my closets, but clean and comfortable. I unpacked and immediately hit the street.
Within the first half hour of walking I was greeted by rain, a light snow, and hail! Then later the sun came out in full as I was walking through the park. Dublin is small and compact, and eminently walkable. I liked the city immediately (no surprise to anyone who knows me) but as I entered the magnificent park St. Stephen's Green, like turned to love. It must be the loveliest park in Europe. At once the sun came out, and my happiness was only increased by the cup of hot chocolate I'd brought with me. There is a series of chocolate shops, Butler's, throughout the city, and they make an exquisite cup of the stuff. I proceeded to Merrion Square, and walked all around it reading the plaques on the buildings. The Duke of Wellington was born there, as was Oscar Wilde. Across from chez Oscar is a sculpture of him, lounging on a huge rock. It doesn't quite look like the Wilde I know from photos, but is a nice tribute anyway.
I found the Irish National Gallery not a block away and walked in for the few more minutes it was open, determined to return the following day. I managed to see a couple of the galleries, a tempting foretaste of what's to come.
Temple Bar, the area south of the Liffey, is glutted with restaurants and I finally settled on Italian, The Botticelli, and had a large pizza. Afterward I was so tired from my long hike that I decided to make it a short evening. This was helped by the disconcerting Dublin habit of closing everything up early. A multiplex on O'Connell Street was playing an American romantic comedy (“In Good Company”) and I settled down to enjoy it.

Tuesday, Feb. 22
I started off in the hotel restaurant with a hearty breakfast, which comes with the room. My ultimate goal was the National Gallery, but I first stopped to do a bit of shopping, a birthday gift for my cousin Lisa. I was able to buy it, have it wrapped, and buy a box from the stationer's next door, AND mail it within one hour. From there -- on to the Gallery.
This is a wonderful collection, with much Irish art, including a long gallery devoted to the Yeats family. The poet's father and brother were both fine painters, and so, to my surprise, was his sister. Fine work, but nothing to William Butler Yeats's incredible verse.
To my delight, the museum has a huge collection of painting from the Italian Renaissance, and a glorious Vermeer as well, one of the rarest of the rare. I stopped only to have a slice of fudge tart and a bottle of water, which was lunch enough for me. I spent a long time in the museum shop, one of the best I've seen.
Dublin's Francis Street is the place for antique shopping, so I repaired there. A gentle rain had started, but hardly worth putting up an umbrella for, and I made a special effort to include St. Stephen's Green on my route. The antique shops were plentiful, but most of the stuff was wildly out of my range, just as well since my packing for my return is going to require herculean effort simply to squeeze everything in. Several of the shop owners were quite friendly, and all of them mentioned the cold, which is nothing. I assured them that the Boston weather was much colder.
The friendliness has been my greatest and best surprise. As I was looking for a bureau de change on my first walk down O'Connell Street, I got into a conversation with a charming man coming out of a pub, who gave me advice. He was pleasant and curious about Boston. And before the movie yesterday I stopped at another pub, Madigan's, for a half pint of Guinness, and the man at the next stool politely engaged me in conversation, just enough to be friendly, and allowed me to return to my book. Ah, these Irish!

Dear Friends and Family,
Wednesday was another typical Dublin day: rain, hail (again!), snow, and bright sun. I got up early to walk north to see the Hugh Lane, a museum of modern art I was very much looking forward to seeing. But it is closed till April! I was quite chagrinned at missing a wonderful collection. I headed farther north, just to exercise, and happened onto Eccles Street, where Joyce's Leopold Bloom, the most real, the most human of literary characters, started his long day's journey into Nighttown in "Ulysses." Number 7, his house, has been torn down (but hey, he wasn't real!), so I walked back to the museum next to the Hugh Lane, the Irish Writer's museum. It was a joy, of course and held me for three hours. I haven't a trace of Irish in me, but my head is crammed with Irish literature so I had a lovely time.
Lunch was in a bookstore cafe, and then I walked over to Trinity College. I didn't particularly want to see the Book of Kells, but wandered over the large campus. The kind host at my hotel had given me a map that went a bit further than the one in my guidebook, so I wandered south to see if I could find the house where George Bernard Shaw was born. I lucked out, and found it. It's a shockingly modest place, but in a delightful neighborhood (I was expecting a slum), and found out that there is SO much more to Dublin than the tourists' area. That part of town is lively and lovely and very much like an American city, though with a different flavor. I'd been told that Dublin is fine for a few days visit but quite dull after that. I have not found it so at all; it keeps revealing itself to me like a set of nesting Russian dolls.
I found a wonderful market, just before closing, and was able to buy some foreign coins for the daughter of a friend of mine from Natick. I wandered about the city, making my by-now-necessary walk through St. Stephen's Green, this time with a cup of hot white chocolate (!) in my happy hand. Dinner was at a delightful Irish bar, O'Neill's, so very much like my neighborhood's Doyle's, but a bit grander, lots of gleaming mirrors and mahogany wood. I had a poached salmon piled high with salad and steamed snow peas -- heaven.
Today, Thursday, I did a bit of shopping --and mailing-- then went to the Irish National Museum. It was a trip through time to the ancient Bog People, the Vikings, and even the Egyptians. Delight upon delight. I had a fiery dish of Thai Chicken and Rice at an interesting little hole in the wall on Dame Street, with high Georgian ceilings and the walls painted a dim series of VERY ODD pastels, a pale light filtering through a skylight. But the food was sublime.
The Chester Beatty Library was next, in Dublin Castle. This collection was amassed by an American mining engineer, a wonderful philanthropist who endowed the Irish people with this stunning collection of old manuscripts, Islamic, Oriental, etc., with an addition of Asian art. I spent two hours there, then went walking in the castle gardens. I stumbled across a bizarre fountain hidden away in a corner. The figure in it is a huge coiled snake worked in blue and clear glass, and was something I imagine many visitors miss altogether.
Dinner was at the Twenty Twenty, ostensibly Persian, though I saw no evidence of it. My pasta dish was perfect and I am, at the moment, logy with red wine and food, glorious food, and happy as is humanly possible.

Friday, Feb. 25
On Friday morning I stopped by Butler's for another fabulous hot chocolate (this is getting to be a serious addiction), then got a ticket for a bus tour of the south coast. This was scheduled to last for four and a half hours. We boarded at 11:00. Our guide was a middle-aged leprechaun named Richard Kelly. He began by telling us he had serious bad news for us -- but his demeanor clearly indicated that he was having us on. This bad news was that the tour was going to have to let us off three blocks away instead of at the starting-off point. I figured we were in for a good deal of classic blarney when traffic forced us to stop briefly at a rusty old overhead railway bridge, the beauty of which he began extolling at length. We continued down the Liffey toward the sea, and into the lovely seaside suburb of Sandycove. The Irish sea was rolling in in huge brown waves, and the sky was nearly clear except for some huge cumulus clouds to the north. We continued down the coast to Sandymount, and the martello tower where "Ulysses" began, with 'Stately, plump Buck Mulligan' greeting the morning. Joyce based Mulligan, it is said, on the poet and wit Oliver St. John Gogarty, who was born in the house which is now my hotel.
At the resort town of Bray we stopped to 'have a pee and smell the sea,' and where the poor addicts among us could get out and smoke a cigarette. Bray is charming, a large town fronting the sea, which did indeed smell wonderful. We next hit Dalkey, which our guide told us is something of a magnet for celebrities (Angelica Huston, Mel Gibson, Sean Penn). At Blackrock we turned inland, into the Wicklow mountains; some of the distant peaks were still coated with light snow. Our ultimate goal was Powerscourt, reached by way of some of the loveliest scenery I've seen on this trip. At the main gate Mr. Kelly squeezed the bus through a stone gate with only a couple of inches leeway on each side, a feat I could never have managed.
Powerscourt is a stately mansion with acres and acres of formal garden. We were given an hour and a half to tour the place, which I thought was more than generous. It turned out to be the very minimum we could have wished. Lunch in the Powerscourt restaurant was perhaps the best meal I had in Ireland, a large salmon cake accompanied by three generous salads. It was so huge a meal that I had to pass up the most delectable tray of sweets you can imagine, but my lunch was more than satisfying.
It was colder here than in the city, so I bundled up and marched into the formal garden. The garden is quiet and mysterious; one could almost imagine gryphons or winged horses glaring balefully at one from the undergrowth. It took most of the remaining hour after the meal to explore. Tall trees of all species grow thickly here, but to my chagrin the identifying tags were in Gaelic! I climbed the steep hill to the Pepperpot tower, an ancient crenellated round tower guarded by several cannon. I suspect this predates the estate and main house. Further on are Japanese gardens, which were more English than Asian, with a mossy gothic rock grotto set into one corner.
In the center of the gardens is a lake, with a bronze copy of Bernini's triton fountain in the center -- a lovely reminder of Rome. A handful of waterfowl shivered in a small flock at one end. Up a slight hill I found the family's pet cemetery. The earliest stone is from 1901, commemorating a favorite borzoi. There's even a stone for Eugenie, a cow! I noticed that the time was moving along faster than I'd expected, and Mr. Kelly had warned us that the bus would leave exactly on time. I stepped up my pace.
The ride back to Dublin was further inland, and just as scenically satisfying as the route down. We approached Dublin through the suburb of Donnybrook (yes, such a place actually exists) and on into the city. Our first familiar sight was my beloved St. Stephen's Green.
All along our tour Mr. Kelly kept up a running commentary, even breaking into song on several occasions. He was witty and learned and highly knowledgable about Ireland's history, even its geology. I hated for our journey to end.
That evening I decided to return to O'Neill's for dinner. O'Neill's may be a typical Irish pub (I didn't go into very many), but I doubt it; it is distinctly quirky. It's not one bar, but a series of small, sociable rooms cobbled together, situated on several levels. When I arrived the dinner crowd had definitely beaten me but I wandered through the place and finally managed to nail down an empty table. I ordered an ale and left it along with my bag and book to order food. Lunch had been such a Luccullan feed that I wanted no more than a sandwich. The counterman, a tall and beautiful young man with enormous ears, had clearly been working there for only a short time. I ordered the veggie delux, and he looked at me in sheer panic. He didn't seem to quite know what he was doing, so, worried that someone might lay claim to my table, I went back to sip on my ale and read for a short spell. When I finally got the sandwich the promised goat cheese was nowhere in evidence. He had merely put a green salad between two slices of bread and grilled it. After a few exploratory bites, I took it back up and the colleen at the bar said, "Oh, dear, he's me brother, and he IS new... I'll get you another." The replacement was fine and I lingered over dinner as long as I could. I'd bought a small sketchbook that morning, so I did a few caricatures of unsuspecting denizens of the bar.

Saturday, Feb. 26
Dublin presented me with one final gift: a flawless blue sky and warm sunshine. My flight was in mid-afternoon so I treated myself to one last stroll through the city. For the first time since my first day St. Stephen's Green was sunny and filled with people enjoying the balmy weather. There is, I found, much more to it than I'd suspected. In one corner was an almost-hidden monument to Yeats by Henry Moore. From one angle it looked more like a monumental pelvic bone from some strange creature, but as I walked around it, it took on a distinct likeness to the Max Beerbohm caricature of the young poet, languid and self-conscious of his growing fame. It occurred to me that I hadn't really explored Merrion Square, only walked around it, so I walked the few blocks there. It's a wonderful park, with hidden gardens, formal and rich.
Dublin has its beggars, but I've seen no more on my whole trip than one sees in three blocks along Boston's Newbury Street. But today there were at least five on my walk back to the hotel. I picked up my bag and got the bus to the airport.
This city made a wonderful first impression on me. It is a delight for tourists, but I think it must be an even better place to live and work. Since most shops snap shut at precisely six o'clock, tourists can only dine or drink, or go to the theatre. It's a modern, prosperous city, just as Ireland now seems a forward-looking, confident country, no longer the despair of Joyce and Samuel Beckett, the "sow that eats her own farrow." I'll be back.
Peter picked me up at the Liverpool airport and drove me home. A dinner was planned for that evening at Chez Jules, a French restaurant in Chester. It was a very festive party, wine-soaked and delightful in every way. There were twelve of us, and all are now friends of mine except a new couple I hadn't met. I finally had a chance to get to know Pam, our choreographer, a bit better. She is a great Dublin enthusiast. The food was so sublime I won't even go into it, and the company was even better. They shooed us out at nine, and we moved the party to Wrexham, to our local pub, the Acton Park. A glorious end to my trip.
The next morning Peter and Maureen took me to the airport and I headed home. My flight was smooth till Philadelphia. There, my plane was delayed for an hour, but on my arrival at Logan Toby was there to meet me, the happiest greeting I could hope for. My bag was lost and he patiently waited while I flew frantically through the masses of bags stacked up in the storage area. I never could find it. At long last I contacted an agent who assured me that my bag would be sent out the following day.
Robert Dimmick was waiting at the house, having turned on the heat for me and provided a vase of cut flowers. He and Toby and I went down to Doyle’s, then back to Robert’s for a final liqueur. I was in bed by midnight, and, if mildly disconcerted by the huge piles of snow on the streets, delighted to be home.