Yesterday was another wandering Wednesday. This time, however, instead of setting off with the nebulous goal of finding a coffee shop or Indian food the wandering was of a particular sort—my friend and I needed to make it to the Royal Court Theatre bookstore in order to pick up three plays for my experimental theatre course. The lecturer who assigned the plays decided to order them through the Royal Court bookstore instead of the Kings bookstore because the Kings bookstore has not been too successful at tracking down the obscure scripts that we have been studying. I’m always eager to find new bookstores and to find new theatres, so the day seemed like a perfect trip.
The only problem was that I forgot to bring my London A to Z to class, and we were planning to go directly after class on Wednesday. Instead of going back over the bridge in order to retrieve it my friend proposed setting out in the general direction, and ducking into the first bookstore we saw in order to consult their A to Z. I agreed and we set off down Fleet Street in the direction of the Royal Court.
However, once we got to the promised bookstore we found that the Royal Court was in fact in the opposite direction, so we did an about face and headed down the Strand to Trafalgar Square, where we became lost and ducked into another bookstore. The trip itself was agreeable and took us through an interesting part of London that I hadn’t really explored before. We started out walking past Westminster Abbey and Parliament, but then veered up towards Victoria Station, where we made a short detour to check out a street fair that had a lot of clothes and hardware for sale along with the requiste produce sellers that seem to populate London’s street stalls.
After the station, the route took a turn for the tony. The neighborhood got really upscale really quickly. There were gorgeous brick row houses with wrought iron fences that had a Victorian feel to them, but as I know nothing about architecture I can’t be sure. We also passed a lot of antique stores. There were several blocks that seemed to be comprised of nothing but antique stores, but then you’d see a Starbucks that had been camouflaged to look like it belonged in a row of quaint shops—the siren sign suspended from an iron hanger--and you’d be reminded of the correct century. The theatre was located on Sloane Square, which is apparently a veddy veddy posh district. In British slang “Sloaney” is the equivalent of preppy. The actual square was un-prepossessing, but it was littered with upscale boutique clothing stores and posh chains like Tiffaneys.
The theatre was opened when we got there at two thirty (having set out around one—it was a long cold walk) but the bookstore didn’t open until three, so we decided to get lunch for half an hour and then return. We wanted to find a sort of sandwich café, but alas! even the Starbucks had vanished and the only restaurants we could find on the square were more Bistro than bar. We walked a few blocks away from the square and found a tiny sandwich bar where we got food and returned to the square and ate on a park bench. By then the clock had struck three, so we made our way over to the Theatre where we were informed that due to renovations the bookstore would not be opening until five that day. By then my fingers were numb, despite my gloves, and I didn’t feel like waiting around for another two hours, my friend concurred so we took the tube back to the flat.
In order to console ourselves for the Royal Court fiasco we decided to go out to see a show that night. We searched the listings, and toyed with splurging on a big West End production like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” that has just come to town with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin (the same production that I cursed myself for missing when it was in New York), but instead we decided to be kind to our wallets and go see a Sondheim review called “Marry Me A Little,” which was playing in a tiny Pub Theatre in Camden.
Camden itself was amazing. It’s the punk center of London, and as soon as you get off the train you begin to see people wearing Mohawks with more piercings than they have fingers. And no coat, which is a peculiarity to punk sub culture that I’ve never really understood, why is it that being a punk means you can’t be warm? It had started to snow lightly by then, so I sucked up the fact that I was going to stick out like an un-pierced thumb and headed to the theatre.
By theatre, of course, I mean pub. The theatre was a tiny black box that was located above a bar called the Oxford Arms. I really like the vibe of small places like that. The true sign of the theatre’s poverty was the fact that they gave us programs when went to take our seats. Theatres in London don’t give out programs as a rule, they usually cost anything from one to three pounds and are sold in the lobby, which is really irksome. Here, though, the programs were photocopied and reminded me of the ones we used to hand out for high school musicals. It was a two person show, which was convenient because I didn’t think the stage could hold anymore people, and the house seated about thirty people. The evening was intimate, to be sure, but still really fun. I love Sondheim music, and the performers were outstanding.
The show lasted only about an hour, and when we got home we still had an evening to kill. I could always do work, but that would be far too prosaic for a Wednesday, so we decided to make a pizza. When I say make a pizza I mean from scratch, we made the dough and everything. It came out great, but square.
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