fatspicblog

Do not ask me why did I write that as the title, I was simply looking for a good title that I could put up there and then make it work. It is a good excuse to write about thing.

Heights, I got it from the cover of a book. At first I did not know what it was, I could not see the other words in the book so I could not think of the rest. Then I put my head forward and I changed my position in the sofa and I realized that the book was none other than “Our Northern Heights”. No, it is not “Woodernig Heights” that would have been too obvious and too easy.

In fact I am wandering now if I really know the meaning of that word. I think it is something to do with altitude but I could be wrong. Perhaps, it is the name of a place. Perhaps Heights is the name that certain places that have altitude are commonly named.

I do not really know.

Suddenly I just got a dislike about that word. I do not know.

In any case it is all about reaching Heights. You spend your life dreaming with things and place and things that you would like to achieve and when you get them, when you reach your goals new ones appear as if from nowhere.

It is all-confusing at the moment because the older you get the more to try to find out if what you have achieved is good enough. The answer it is very clear as soon as new goal appear in your heart. Then you face two options; one to get ready for the new challenges of the future or second to fell depress because you have not achieve enough things in your life to fell that everything was worthy.

I would like to be in the middle of the first option but at the moment I am having a stroll though the second one and it is not a very nice and pleasant place to be.

It all fells as if I am living two different lives. There is one that happens in London and so far exists because Spymonkey exists. There is another one that exists in Bilbao and that one exists because Miren is there. I am sure that the day that one of them will stop existing perhaps I will stop having two different lives.

As it happens when I am in one of them I long for the other and thou I have tried to find solutions to become more relax with the reality of living two different lives at the same time I do not seem to deal with them well and at the same time I could not live without any of them.

I have arrived to Romo ( Bilbao) before yesterday and it is true that I am quite tired after so many days working non stop I have not had a second to rest. On Friday I am going to Italy where I will be working in a show with two clowns and until then I have to give a big push to “Hienas Rellenas”

It is at the moment my favorite show. I love Moby Dick but as I have said before to some people I think the audience likes the show much more than I do. I see what is the appeal and I recognized that it has very funny moments. We play very well together and so on but for me there is something that it does make it a little bit too easy. Perhaps it is that we have mastered after so many years the Spymonkey style so whenever we do show things go well or it could also be that this time we have been not as ambitious as in previous shows.

Mean while in Hienas Rellenas it is a challenge all the time. The show is great, or better said it is going to be great when we play it better than we play it now. We are very committed but the amount of possibilities that the show has it immense. It is very funny and it needs to be play. We are fighting against the fact that Bilbao it is not a good town for theatre, at least not as good as it is London. We want to take the show to London but first the show has to be good and has to be very well play.

So here I am sitting at the sofa of my flat looking through the window thinking all those things that I am afterwards writing in this piece. I will go later on to have a meeting with Hienas and then in the evening I will do boyfriends life with my wife. We do not see each other’s much and I really miss her.

The whaling boat has a slippery deck

Moby Dick. Spymonkey theatre group’s visit to Espoo City Theatre. Directed by Jos Houben. Roles: Aitor Basauri, Toby Park, Stephan Kreiss and Petra Massey.

THEATRE

There is now another great opportunity to laugh your head off at international comedy in Espoo City Theatre. The British four-actor international theatre group Spymonkey forces faces to smile relentlessly, and the only thing that gives the spectator any respite from this non-stop smiling is that one’s mouth opens repeatedly with laughter and astonishment. There are also a few frights.

There have been plenty wordless plays in Espoo in recent years, but this time there is enough speech to make up for it all.

The actors’ English is sometimes so incomprehensible and heavy with dialect that one finds oneself glancing up at the subtitles, which are surprisingly humorous as Aila Herronen and Tanja Oreto’s creative translation plays with Finnish words and includes adapted lyrics for the songs.

Miming has a key role in this play, which was premiered last autumn in Northampton and is based on Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick.

This anarchically abundant production has achieved a good balance between the plot of the novel, its philosophical content, open playfulness with the audience, and the pure joy of being on the stage.

The actors all have very different personalities, but their long collaboration is revealed in the group’s strong cohesion, particularly when the spectator is led to believe that the performance is

Hufvudstadsbladet / Linnea Stara 19.3.2010

MELVILLE CAUGHT IN A NET OF CLOWNS

Spymonkey’s Moby Dick

Direction: Jos Houben. Scenography: Graeme Gilmour. Costumes, props: Lucy Bradridge. Music: Toby Park. Performers: Aitor Basauri, Petra Massey, Toby Park, Stephan Kreiss. Spymonkey, a guest production at Espoo City Theatre, 16–20.3.2010.

Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick (1851) is a long doorstopper of a book about one man’s obsessive search for a great white whale. Now audiences have the chance to get to acquaint themselves with this seminal work in a somewhat lighter incarnation at the Espoo Cultural Centre in Tapiola. Yes, the British Spymonkey Theatre Company is back in Finland with its latest production.

In Spymonkey’s deliciously irreverent reworking of Melville’s novel, directed by Jos Houben, we skip over all the boring chapters, have all those complicated orders explained, and encounter the mastodon itself, all crammed into a performance that lasts just over two hours.

Ishmael, the narrator of Melville’s novel, is played with great charm by Aitor Basauri. The bulk of the interaction with the audience rests on his shoulders, and it’s not long before he has the whole auditorium joining in and singing in the aisles. Stephan Kreiss demonstrates a fine command of slapstick comedy as, dressed in a pair of patent-leather shoes, he tries to keep his balance on the ship Pequod in the role of the cannibal and harpooner Queequeg. The infamous captain Ahab, the man with his beady eye on a certain whale, is played by Toby Park, a young man with every bit as much sex appeal as Gregory Peck, only without the self-important demeanour.

Still, it is the attention-seeking Petra Massey who gets the biggest laughs of the evening. As the ship is about to set sail, she resolutely jumps up on board and barges her way into a story without any female characters. “I didn’t read the book, I didn’t know there weren’t any female parts,” Massey explains to her shipmates. Later on she reappears in a variety of roles, including as a mermaid with a beautiful voice dreaming about a beaver.

The humour in Spymonkey’s Moby Dick is based not only on perfectly timed physical comedy, but also on various meta-theatrical revelations. The theatrical illusion is broken time and again in true Brechtian style. One might hope that more high-school-aged viewers find their way to the theatre to watch this production, as it is all too rare that audiences are offered such a splendid opportunity to experience such theatre play and interaction between performers and the auditorium.

The performance is rounded off with a very local surprise.

Lets meet at the hotel lobby? It is very TV. We have been thinking of creating a TV show. Well, you need lots of money and producers and lots of people and lots of thing but if someone asks you something like “Is there anything that you would like to do in TV? You should be ready with a nice idea. If they like the idea or they thing that it could work maybe they are the ones that would pay for it. At the moment we have not been approached very often but they have sometimes. I think that is what TV people do. It is like the classic pull line when you are in a bar or a restaurant and you want to pull a girl and you said that thing of do you work or study? Sorry that got a little bit confusing but whenever we have done a show there has always been someone that have told us that should be on TV or you should be on TV and because it has happened so many times I do not think I believe it anymore or better you do not know who to believe. The reality or the action that we have taken is to developed ideas of things that we would like to do on the TV.

It fells as if going into the middle of the space. I do not know anything about TV. The only thing I know is that I would like to do a TV series like the ones I like to watch. I do not think I am very good but I would love it very much.

So we met at the lobby as proper TV people. I think they always meet at hotels. At least that is what happens in movies and TV series.

Stephan, Petra, Toby and Me gave our ideas to the group for the last two weeks and we had time to think about them so that was the time to talk about them. I felt a little bit weird. It always fells to me as if every one of them thinks that the rest is wrong and they are the only ones to be on the right.

We came up with an idea and we started to develop it and we have set a schedule to have to idea as much develop as possible so if someone came to us saying Would you like to do TV? We will be able to say, yes we do and this is what we would like to do.

I have to ask what it means because I do not even know what it means Swarm. Swarm describes behaviour of an aggregate of animals of similar size and body orientation, often moving en masse in the same direction. That’s it I found this definition in Wikipedia, I know it does not have the best of reputations but I am sure they cannot make it really wrong with a very small definition.

In any case I am talking about a book by Frank Schätzing that Stephan recommend it to me. At first the book was read by Elka, Stephan’s wife and then he read it and then he liked it and then we recommended to us. Toby got it and I thought of getting it too. At the end I bought it in Amazon and by mistake I bought two copies instead of one. I know I am stupid. It does not please me to accept it but I have to and I have.

The book goes about a swarm of organisms that try to take over the earth or better said they try to kill the whole human race because they have been killing nature. So they are an intelligent being on the earth and they decide that they are the ones that are going to take care of the earth.

The book is written in that trash and silly way of blockbusters but deals with facts that are very interesting. So I am enjoying the book very much. I am not enjoying very much the parts that are about the characters because those parts are a little bit boring but all the science parts are really great and very interesting.

I am spending lots of time reading the book in my hotel room here. Every time I look through the window and I see the plants or the animals, I saw a big rabbit yesterday running on the snow, I think of when are they going to rebel and start to say stop killing us¡¡¡ When that they will arrive we will disappeared from this planet as we have done to many of the animal species.

In Helsinki there is at the moment a plague of giant rabbits. We could not believe at first but when we saw the rabbits running around Espoo it was clear they were telling the true.

So I do not know if I want to recommend this book to you. I am having fun reading it but it is a little bit of dirty pleasure.

I believe Hollywood has already bought the rights for the movie so if you do not fell like reading a very long book about having troubles with nature to not bother and wait for the movie.

The do know how to do it in the continent when it comes to greet someone into their houses. They always have some eatable and some drinkables and that is very pleasant especially if you just have finished doing a show that is really really demanding physically.

As they do over here the whole board of directors of the theatre was there. They were really nice. Jussi says that they love the show but they are not very noisy when they laugh so it is very difficult to know or even to believe that what they say it is really true. I believe them but now we just have to wait for the reviews.

The best thing is that they had prepared a wonderful buffet with many different ways of cooking salmon. I love raw salmon. I love it with fresh cheese in a bagel but I love it anyway is cooked or not.

They had wine and they have gathered a very nice group of people to honour their guests.

I have to say the Finish people do not laugh at loud. Every time that happens I remember a scene from a movie where a character that has recently been in prison tells to other character that people that does things, normal things in silence is because they have spent some time in prison. I do not think the whole finish population have spent time in prison but perhaps the winter here is a little bit of prison for them and that is way they have developed more their inner laugh.

I did get a little bit drunk and I went back to the hotel before everybody else so did not have to say no to the pint at the hotel bar. I felt sleep in my bed with the light on and the book on top of me. Talking about the book that I am reading I am going to tell you all about it tomorrow.

It is very close to Helsinky but not really there. You can see it far in the distance, well not really but it fells that those houses that I see from the window of my hotel room are the houses of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It is quite funny that finish like us quite a lot. I say this not as a bath of vanity, not at all on the contrary I say it as a fact. Apart from Canada and Switzerland this is the country in the world where we have played the most. We have played three times in Jywaskula and this is the second time we are playing here. I really do not know if that last sentence was really good English or English at all but anyways.

We arrived late last night, like really late. I was very happy to see Petra and Toby and the rest. Stephan had arrived a little bit before with his family. Actually he had arrived in the morning and had already had the whole day with his family here. When we arrived they for sure were sleeping. We went to our rooms to leave our suitcases and in the best English sense we all went down for a drink. Everybody is in good form thou I can see that everybody is also starting to get a little bit worked out about the run in the Lyric.

It could be an important thing for Spymonkey but we have to be careful that we do not kill each others or we get completely exausted by the time we are there. We have to be at our best.

Today everything has been building the set and getting ready for tomorrow that it is the opening night. I have come to my hotel room to rest and watch a little bit of TV because I am destroyed.

It is on hour more than in Spain and I think I have a little bit of jetlag. Also I have got fat again. In just one week all the weight I had lost while working in Hienas Rellenas and Moby Dick I have put it back in one week. I am such a pig.

In other order of things I have to say that I really like this theatre. The fact that we have been here before it is really great. When we arrived the technicians already knew us and Arto was here and lots of familiar faces. That is one of the best things of going back to the same theatre.

I have started to re-read that play. This time I am reading it in English. I am not sure if I understand everything so I am reading the play very slowly. In a way it would be fair to say that I am reading the play three or four times. Yes, because if suddenly I am not very concentrated in the reading suddenly I realised that I have missed everything that I have read so I have to go back to the beginning. So I can say that I have red the first two pages at least four times.

It is really great. It so well constructed and very inspiring. In a way you do not need anything else in order to have a comedy situation than just that. Someone loves someone and everything is complicated because that person loves someone else. Every comedy goes with a big tragedy. But I am not going to bore you with silly theory about comedy.

I am reading a lot this week. I can not explain way because there is always a little bit of time for reading. I arrived the other day and I was existed. I really was. I think I am getting into an existing face of my life. Better I am running out of steam because I have been working a lot at the end of the last year. And now I suppouse I am going to have to pay the price. It scares me a little bit because the run at the Lyric is coming and I want to be very good by then. In a way it is imposible to calculate how good are you going to be … it is imposible, I wish I will be able to tell but I can’t. The only thing I can promise you is that I am going to try to be the best possible and I will take care of myself and I will be focus and light but the rest is just in destiny’s hands

You are not going to believe it but I am going to tell you anyway. In Spain the weather is exactly like it is in Poland. I may have exaggerated a little bit the whole statement but since I arrived on Saturday it has not stopped snowing.

The mountains around Bilbao are full snow. People are skiing and snowboarding in places where normally there is not snow.

We are very close to the sea so there is never too much snow and when there is it never really stays.

This time the snow is staying for quite a while. I look at the previsions on the TV for the weather in the next days and everything is going to be until we go to Finland. It is really terrible I am going to Scandinavia and there is no change in the weather. I am sure that the weather is not going to be better than here. But is not fair!!!!

I live in Spain and supposedly in this country the weather is good. Not in Bilbao that is true because here it rains as much as it rains in Edinburgh. So you know now Scottish people if you come to visit Bilbao you will fell at home, at least weather wise.

I am looking through the window of my flat and it is not pretty. The sky is really grey. It is so grey that it fells is going to close down so much and then everything is going to fall in our heads.

There is also water coming from those clouds and it falls down as rain or as snow, now it is snowing again.

I would love to jump over the fact that today is the day of women, of women workers. I would like not in a misogynist point of view it is more in a men’s point of view. I do love women and because I love them there is not one moment when I ma not thinking about them. So my aim would be that today I would not need to think about them.

But I am going to have to mention today that today they celebrate that little by little, too little by little are getting the same rights as men.

I have to say that there are far too many things in our society that still makes them second-class citizens. They get paid less money than men for the same work. Men who said they love them beat them and then those men are free on the streets because most of the time someone let them go free. They have lots of stereotypes that have been created by men and that the only thing does is to put them down in many different situations.

And then in my country a man kill a woman almost every week. A man that normally is married or has a sentimental link to the woman that got kill. This is really outrageous. It pisses me off and I think it is completely unacceptable.

So this and many thing like that the fact that my lovely and talented wife has more difficulties to find a job because she is a lovely lady than people who are men … in any case this is just personal and it is not fair to mix personal with revindications.

So at the end of the day lets of celebrate women today. We love them, we want them we need them and we cannot live without them and I hope that we all would end up being equal very soon.

Forgive me for my very poor English in the last paragraph of the writing. May be I should try to make it better but I do not fell like it, silly I know but sometimes that is how it is.