back to brecht

It’s weird, this feeling.  Feeling closure without really closing anything.  I feel I’ve somehow come full circle while moving forward, like the ground beneath my feet has moved as i continue on my path.

Two years ago, I had the most amazing summer of my life: rewarding, fulfilling, engaging.  A milestone and a measuring stick.  And somehow, somehow, this semester has almost been better.  There were rough patches, but they didn’t last too long, and more than that, there were months and days and moments of living in this city.  There were moments of rhapsody when I felt fully and truly like a Londoner.

Two years ago, I saw a fantastic production of a Brecht play two nights before my return to the states.  Tonight, I saw a fantastic production of a Brecht play two nights before my return to the states.  And it feels so right.  So poetic and perfect.  Theatre has become such a huge part of my life here, part of my routine, that to see one final show just fits.  Two years ago, it was The Life of Galileo with Simon Russel Beale in the title role: a play about genius and its struggle against hegemony.  Tonight, it was The Good Soul of Szechuan with Jane Horrocks in the title role: a play about the absence of gods and the struggle to be good in inhuman conditions. The world is not what it was but it is also continuing in a loop on changing ground.  Brecht wrote more than half a century ago, but he continues to be produced and to be pertinent.  Theatre is powerful like that.  It can encapsulate and expand, be both the microcosm and the macrocosm.  It can make me feel okay about leaving this city I fall in love with every day–maybe not better, but okay; calm, fulfilled, bittersweet, proud.