Final Days with Zarah

An American friend that I made here, Zarah, was only in Birmingham for a term.

After our assessments for our practical classes, we started packing up and finished up our papers for our Theatre Lab class.

On Thursday, her dad came into Birmingham and we all went out to dinner with the closer friends she made here.

Oh yeah and David shaved for the occasion!



The next day, after handing in our Theatre Lab papers, we finished packing up and headed for London. Zarah and her dad had reserved a room at the Hotel Russel. The people I was hoping to stay with weren’t around, so Zarah and her dad snuck me into their room.
It was an incredibly posh hotel.



So this whole term it’s been Zarah and my goal to see “Othello” in London which starred Ewan McGregor as Iago and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the title role. I mean, we HAD to!
After getting settled in our rooms, Zarah and her dad took a walk to the Donmar Warehouse where it was being put on. The performances were sold out but on the day of a performance they sell 30 tickets; 20 standing and 10 seated. At the box office, Zarah asked when people started lining up for these tickets. The guy said about 4 in the morning. So naturally that meant that WE had to get there at 3.
Oh and we did. 3:30 actually, but still!
After about three hours of sleep we got our asses out of bed and headed for the theatre.
So there we were huddled together at the doors of the theatre. True theatregoers.





The next person in line didn’t arrive until 4:30. From there it gradually started building up.

We got our tickets, went back to the hotel and went straight to sleep. I got two hours in, but it seemed like more.

When we got up we decided to visit the British Museum where we met up with our friend Reece who was in town.



Adam said he was going to be in town as well for a birthday celebration, and along with him he brought the most pleasant surprise: Tommy!
So the two of them came to our hotel for a brief visit. Shortly afterwards Reece had to leave us.

I then (pretty much) followed Zarah and her dad to a dinner with some family friends that lived in London…at a very VERY posh restaurant; the kind that adds the grated cheese to your pasta, the truffles to your ravioli, or the lemon juice to your cutlet right in front of you.
I ordered one of the plainest things on the menu.

From there we took a taxi to the Donmar.

It was a very intimate theatre…and America Ferrera was in the audience. (!)

I totally forgot that Iago was in the very first scene. And the moment Ewan came on Zarah and I groped for each others hands immediately. It was like “Oh my god! He’s RIGHT THERE!”
It was almost surreal.
And then Chiwetel came on! One treat after another!

All in all, I wasn’t all that impressed by Ewan. He was wonderful to look at but I found myself looking for brilliant Iago moments that just weren’t there. I felt like he wasn’t relishing enough in his malicious plotting in all his asides. Let’s just say his Iago was an excellent actor and incredibly secretive- if it weren’t for his asides, the audience would also be calling him “honest Iago”. Plus I think I was pretty distracted by the fact that I was watching Ewan McGregor.

With Chiwetel, there was never a moment where I thought, “Oh my god that’s the guy from Love Actually and American Gangster.” He completely embodied the role of Othello and his performance was amazing.

Afterwards, we all waited in the lobby for Ewan. He was the only one of the stars of the cast to come down…and he came down literally minutes after the performance. Zarah and I were all prepped with the other’s camera. Zarah’s picture with him was first and he was about to leave when I begged him for one more. I’m pretty sure no words came out, I look back on it I think it was just me saying something that sounded like “Just one more?”



What a night, what a night. A perfect conclusion to my England adventures with Zarah.