The Master Class

Serious snow was falling in London, yesterday. As Alex said, there are two kinds of snow – the kind that hits the ground and melts and the kind that stays. This was the snow that stays. I was careful as I walked along the streets – no use wiping out when so much fun is going on, and though the men who attended the show, The Master Class, with us said it was not fun, they may have been thinking of a different kind of fun – like the one they had on the way home, throwing snowballs at each other as we walked from the Station.

The opening lines of the show went something like this, the actor playing Maria Callas turning to the audience saying, “Can you hear me. This is as loud as I am going to talk. Good. You can hear me. Now, concentrate. And if you can’t hear me, it is all your fault!”

Nice lines – casting some blame on the audience if things would go wrong in the play, between them and what was going on in performance.

I tried to concentrate, so much so that about half way through the first act, I wondered if I would be allowed to sit back in my chair and lean into the soft velour backing, or would I be required to sit on its edge for the whole performance as I had been doing.

I could hear the people to the right of me laughing, and Duncan, to the left, was catching the jokes as well. A nice show when a 10 year old gets it. I like being in the audience with my grandchildren when there are difficult themes going on in plays. We were talking later at home about the kinds of performances we all like to go to. And the kinds of performances that are difficult for us? – but still worthy of the time we put in to see.

What would be some of my favourite lines from the play? A long sequence was acted out where Callas was teaching the young singers how to do an entrance and an exit – a terrific metaphor for life. And I took heed, hoping to make more entrances, and still trying to stave off that last exit. And if not that, making it with class.

Another sequence showed Callas teaching the performers that they have to have presence. Then she turned to the audience and told them that some of them could use training , for looking at them from the stage, she could tell that they didn’t have it, either. She couldn’t see one person in the audience with it. How all of us laughed! Yes. Presence. Where does that come from? Obviously none of us brought it to the theatre last night.

Alex and Duncan were armed with treats from Tesco, the kind that all people in the theatre are given a warning about – to have them already unwrapped, so as not to bother the performers. Duncan couldn’t eat all of his Orange Ball. This morning he asked me why I had eaten his left-overs before he got out of bed this morning. For once I am not guilty, and again, the whole house knows ... Kiwi is vigilant when theatre goers arrive home and don’t put there treats where she can’t get at them.

Last night’s theatre was another first for me. Rebecca put a pound in the binocular slot in front of us, and gave Duncan a pair of binoculars with which to see the stage. We have been having seats in the front rows of the shows, lately, and being back at Row R is not the norm, even if the theatre is an intimate one. I am used to my 10X binoculars for the night sky and my 6X for bird watching. These opera binoculars were about 2X, but we had fun using them from both ends – giving us a distorted long view of the stage and a minor close-up view.

I am still not accustomed to the mix of theatre props and film projection onto screens that change the scenes – and I like the wonder of it, and the power of the lighting to suddenly have the stage darkened and then open again to have us in the opera house, La Scala, at this event. At intermission I told Rebecca that I heard Callas sing at the grandest opera house in the world in that act.

Alex complained about the theatre, saying he missed the close-ups that we get in HD Live from the Met. I have to agree with him, I miss that at the theatre. Even in real life we can’t get as close to people as we do with the extreme close-up shots that film gives us. What I like best is that Alex has the critique for articulating that.

As well, we were talking today about going into High School, and I was telling him that he has already seen Shakespeare plays which will make English in high school easier for him, Alex said, “No grandma, it will not be easier. I have only seen MacBeth on film, not in the theatre. English will not be easier for me.”

I love being wrong.

Steve was at a disadvantage at the film, thinking he was going to see a show about Edith Piaf. The words Maria Callas hadn’t clicked in for him. Thus, many of the pieces of the play weren’t fitting for him up front. No one needs to have the burden of a hard play, made even more difficult in that fashion.

Rebecca and I put in some time reading reviews of Master Class from newspaper. Both of us had also skimmed internet articles so that we had a broad arc of information about Maria Callas’s life.

My interest in biographies was heightened a couple of years ago, during the Biopics Film Class that I took. I wouldn’t mind picking up one of the biographies of Maria Callas, and giving it a good read. On the other hand, while I am here, maybe going to the play again would be a good idea. No one can understand the nuances of a script in one viewing.

At least, I can’t.

Arta