Yes, we are still here.

Today was rather boring. I did laundry. Yaaaaay... Exciting right? Well about 3:30 we went to go find some stuff to do. We made a plan. We were going to go to the Imperial War Museum, get some fish and chips, and then go see The Habit of Art at the Royal National Theatre.

It kind of worked.

I really enjoyed the museum. We spent most of our time learning about submarines and MI6 (think James Bond). There were a bunch of exhibits that we just didn't have time to see. So we're going back at some point. One thing that I loved about the museum is that on the sign next to the tank, missile, airplane, etc. they would have a short description of when and where it was used and then it would have a picture from the war of the weapon. There were some amazing pictures. There were some images from WWI and WWII that were just stunning, especially so if you consider the type of equipment limitations that they had to deal with. It makes war photographers of today look like pansies.

After the museum closed we decided that we had just enough time to go get fish and chips. You have to understand that, for me, having my first English fish and chips seemed like a sort of right of passage, or initiation. We needed to do it right. After some research we found a place that was close to the theater and the museum, was cheap, and most importantly, got great reviews.

It is called "Master's Super Fish". Sold.

It was great. I got the cod and chips. Unfortunately we had little time and had to get the food take away, but it actually made it more fun because she wrapped it in the paper (one of those customs that seemed to add authenticity and legitimacy to my experience) and we ate on the walk over to the theatre.

When we got there we found out that the show we were going to see and had heard was amazing was at standing room only for the night. I was not a fan of standing for the whole show, I had already done that at the globe for Macbeth (which I still need to write about...). So we decided that we would see one of the other shows at the National. To be fair, most of the shows that are playing there currently sound great, so we were fine with switching shows since we were going to see the other ones anyways.

We ended up getting tickets to see Love the Sinner. The idea of the story was actually not too bad. But (in my opinion) it was pretty poorly executed.

The story is about a man who is struggling with his sexual identity and also examines religion's role in matters of homosexuality. The main character is a volunteer for a conference at which the international leaders of his church are gathering to discuss their bylaws, specifically the one dealing with homosexual bishops, unions, blessings, etc.

At this same conference, the main character has a homosexual affair. He then returns home and has to figure out who he is, what he stands for, how to deal with/hide from his wife who is struggling to get pregnant. Things get really twisted when the man who he had the affair with shows up from Africa to his house in England and essentially blackmails/begs him for help in gaining asylum in England.

I think that there were some interesting moments in the show. Watching the main character struggling with his decision and his double life was difficult in the good way (the kind that seems to teach us something and leads to a catharsis). It was interesting to watch him become hyper-religious to try and force an identity upon himself, and how he was so unwilling to accept any of his actions and yet his inability to forgive himself for anything. Just very interesting all around.

The issue was that I felt a lot of the acting was off, there were scenes missing, and the lines were just terrible. Jason made the argument that they were going for a natural feel to the conversation and that they were just talking around the issue and not naming it. I agree with him on that fact, but I felt like it was pushed to an extreme to where it was so "real" that it was actually surreal. I feel like if I had read the script next to an absurdist script there wouldn't have actually been that much of a difference. And yet it wasn't being played in an absurdist way, it was being played as realism which created this awful disconnect for me.

... Anyway...

The set was pretty amazing and the music and sound design were very well done. But overall I did not like it. Sorry. But it happens.

We still plan on seeing The Habit of Art and have heard that it is absolutely wonderful.

Tomorrow is church. That should give me a chance to get caught up on sleep and picture editing. Yay!


Sleep.