Wednesday 28.10.09

Well, well, well. Today was jam packed with theatre! After a very productive rehearsal this morning for Physical Approaches to Playtext and then onto the first year group meeting of the year, I met my Mother Cathy and Sister Jodie for a matinee in Richmond. The journey there in Mother's car was ... interesting. We were bickering anyway because Cathy was late again and her driving isn't exactly what you'd call calm. I was in the front and Jodie was squeezed in the back with a fridge and a microwave (my Mother loves getting her bargains from the Friday ad...even when we have 2 fridge freezers and a spare microwave already) but the next thing Cathy said actually surprised me. "Oh...I forgot that pheasant was there" I looked down to my feet and saw a plastic bag with feathers poking out the end. I had been standing on road kill. "How long's that been there mum?!" She casually responded, "Oh, just since Monday" It was now Wednesday. Anyway, so I settled down at approximately 2.30pm in the Richmond Theatre to watch Rainman starring Neil Morrissey. The title for my dissertation is "How can Play help the autistic child?" so I thought it would help me to see this performance. Now I hadn't really thought about how I would feel watching an able actor playing a special needs person, and when Neil Morrissey first came on stage as Raymond it was quite a shock to see the transformation, and I wasn't quite sure how to take it. However after the first few moments I realised that he played it so sensitively and realistically that I just saw Babbitt for who he was. Morrissey had clearly spent a lot of time watching the traits and habits of adults on the autistic spectrum as it came across as such an honest and open performance. It was lovely! It was a very good set visually with a wall that moved across the stage with one door. As the walls were slided across the stage the door moved along as well representing different rooms. This is something that might be useful to think about in our Christmas activities for one of the short stories as we don't have a lot of room. So I thoroughly enjoyed Rainman.

In the evening I watched Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter by 2 of the 2nd years. There wasn't much of an audience which was disappointing but it was very well done. Simple set and the actors were good. Beg my pardon for not knowing his name but I always love watching the Scottish one perform. He is so versatile.

So all in all a very dramatic day :)