The ephemeral art (of acting)

I hope to (someday) be the kind of working actor who goes straight from one project into another, the opening week of one play overlapping with the first reading of another.  Of course, this would require me to somehow reconcile my desire to travel and live in a new place every year or so with my desire to establish myself as an artist in one particular place.  Or figure out how to be a better traveling performer.  Maybe I should learn to lift heavy weights.  Or grow a beard.

Saturday was the closing night of a one-week run of Twelfth Night.  I played Viola, which was a great challenge and pleasure.  I worked for five weeks to memorize lines, discover how my character moved and spoke, and then give my lines new energy and meaning for each performance; and now it's all done.  It's an ephemeral art, and I think that's the hardest thing for me to embrace.  Months of auditions finally end in a casting; weeks of rehearsals end in a (series of) performance(s); and that's it. 

The show may be revived in the summer, but I'm leaving Ireland is less than two weeks.  It pains me to think of someone else taking over role.  Not Viola -- it would take too much energy to be pained by everyone else who had ever played her -- buy my Viola; the place I took in that production.  And yet, I have to move on.  I am moving on, literally.  I could have more work based on this show, but I'm leaving.  As is my wont.

Islandic [sic] volcanoes and why I should be employed as a translator.

For anyone who isn't up to date on the latest geological news, a volcanic eruption in Iceland has created a massive cloud of ash over the U.K., Ireland and Scandanavia, grounding all flights in those countries.  Just to be clear, I can't discern any kind of a cloud here (in Dublin), but ash has started to fall in parts of Northern Britain, causing concern for the health and safety of residents.

In an originally unrelated story, I was working on an article for the tourism blog I write for today, specifically on how to get to and from the Beauvais airport in Paris.  Much to my chagrin, when I opened my draft, I discovered the latest changes I had made yesterday had not been saved, so I had to go back through, rewrite, and recreate the links I had used.  One of them was for the Beauvais Airport website, specifically the bus timetables provided.  When I went to the site, however, this was all that appeared:

ATTENTION fermeture de l'aéroport

En raison d'un vaste nuage de cendre provenant d'une eruption volcanique en Islande, le trafic aérien en provenance et à destination de la scandinavie et du Royaume Uni est actuellement très fortement perturbé.

L'aéroport sera totalement fermé aujourd'hui au minimum jusqu'à 20h00.

Pour plus d'information, merci de bien vouloir consulter le site de votre compagnie aérienne.

---

WARNING disrupted traffic
Due to a large ash cloud coming from an islandic volcanic eruption, the air traffic from and to scandinavia and the UK is actually heavily perturbated.

The airport will be totally closed today at least until 20h00.

For more information, please visit your airline website

Okay, so first of all, the heading in French reads "fermeture de l'aéroport" -- "airport closure" -- so why does the translation read, "disrupted traffic"?  That's a bit of a mixed message, isn't it?  (Yes, this is going to be a gripe about grammar and translation, so stop now if you don't care.)

In the English version, "islandic" and "scandinavia" are improperly un-capitalized (never mind the fact that in English it's spelled "Icelandic" and not "Islandic").  There is often some confusion between French and English due to rules of capitalization (days of the week, months of the year, and nationalities all begin with lower-case letters in French), but the names of countries are capitalized in both languages!  They even effed up in the French version, forgetting to capitalize "scandinavie."

Also, "pertubated"?  That is so not a word.  Even "perturbed" would not have suited this context.  The verb "pertuber" should be translated as "disrupted" in when it refers to anything other than a person.

Another translational blunder?  "Actuellement" does not mean "actually," in English; it means "currently." And tisk for not ending the final sentence with a period!

I am also annoyed that I can't access any of the normal pages of the site, because now I'll have to wait for this whole volcanic ash cloud thing to clear up before I can reincorporate those links into my post!  And writing for that website is how I earn my monies!

So, website editors of Aéroport Paris Beauvais Tillé, if you're listening, your annoying translation and inexplicable closure of all web pages are pissing me off.  Also, if you're interested in hiring a better translator, I'm available.  And anal about grammar.  Rant complete.

Fame follows me to Ireland.

I once made the paper while living in France, and now, I've done it again!

See?

What?  You don't see it?  No, I'm not the one in the hat and glasses (though I would be impressed with myself for growing such a fetching little chin-beard).  That's me there, to the left, down, down, there!

Super high qual pic, right? Can't you tell that blurry white thing is my forlorn face?  And that the brown smudge is me, disguised as a boy?  With no hope of winning the love of the man standing just behind me?

There, that's better.  No exclusive interview, this time.  I guess that was the perk of being the only American in a small town in France.

Also, come see Twelfth Night!  It's on all this week at the Teachers' Club, 8pm.  That's in Dublin.  So, for the two of my three followers who don't live in Ireland, I'm sorry to say you'll be missing out at this juncture.

I need some levity!

And so, who better to turn to than Bret and Jemaine?



Oh man, I love Jemaine's sparkly pants! Also that the scrawny guy from Boom is featured in this video.

Here's another one for your viewing pleasure.

I really want to dance with that bouncer/sunglass-wearing fellow.

That's right, gentlemen, feminists can also enjoy humor about man bits!  I've been so engaged in feminist debate over that past couple of days that I forgot about the funny!  I know my good friend blogging Molly understands this.  Let's all be smart and considerate, but can we still maintain a sense of humor?

Is feminism misandrous?

Whew!  I just spent the last several hours writing this response to my good friend Molly's insightful (and apparently controversial) piece entitled The misguided, embarrassing war against feminism rages on.

Mine is a lengthy response, but please read it, along with Molly's post and the comments she's received.  If you care about feminism (one way or another) please join in the discussion/debate!  You can leave comments here, on The Ladies of Science page, or on the original post at True/Slant.

What do you think of the reaction she has invoked?  The apparent need for males studies?

One thing leads to another.

Why is it that, when I stop writing one thing, I stop writing everything?  I stop blogging, and so I stop writing new comedy, short stories and I just generally stop writing at all.  Maybe because writing has suddenly become my job in the form of lessons about France.  I do enjoy writing them (and getting paid for it), but after an afternoon of research, voice recording and blogging for profit, I'm much less likely to stay glued to my computer to write a post of my own. 

And I'm rehearsing for a play (which is awesome), but it means I've taken on odd hours of rehearsing until 10 or 10:30, and then coming home and staying up until 1 or 2 for no particular reason, which (in turn) means I get up at 10 or 10:30, putter around the flat, and around this time (12:30, as my blog has stopped using a time stamp) I think, Hmm, maybe I should shower.  And I do eventually, then I do some work, run through my lines, and it's time for rehearsal again.

This is what I've wanted for so long: to be in a play, to be making some kind of money at writing.  Now that I'm here, however, I've grown complacent.  I haven't done a stand-up gig in weeks.  I've stopped writing and editing my own work.  I haven't thought much at all about the fact that I will be in New York for two months this summer and I want to make something of that time.  I'll be in New York, for god's sake, I need to be thinking about theater and writing and performance and where will I rehearse? and who with? and what kind of time frame will I have?

And so the questions pile up and I shut down again.  Easier to leave the questions unanswered than tackle them all at once.  And in the meantime, I'm broke.  Or as close to broke as possible when my boyfriend provides most to all living expenses and I just halfheartedly chase dreams and hope that something will come up.