Stepping into the world of Austen, Edgeworth, Burney, and Wharton for a night out at the Theater

Ever since I started reading 19^th century fiction, there are some things that I have always wanted to do.  I’ve had this vision of what people used to do in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Because of my fascination with works from that era, I’ve always been interested in the things that men and women from the 1800s did for entertainment.

I really enjoy seeing plays, concerts, and dances—I love watching the performers on stage because to me, it seems more real than going to the cinema to watch a film.  There is something about entering a theater with plush red seats and individual boxes for those willing to pay more, dressed up in a fancy outfit, sipping wine and chatting with those around you that just drags me straight back to the someone in a Jane Austen novel, or maybe a scene from a Frances Burney novel or perhaps even the more recent Edith Wharton.  At any rate, to me, spending a night out at the theater feels like something that only the aristocracy would do.

This is just how I felt on Florence.  Over my easter holidays, my mother decided to come with me to explore northern Italy.  Partly because we wer both very busy, but mostly because we both despise planning, we decided that instead of making extensive plans, we would just buy the flight there and back to Milan, and then we would go from there wherever we decided.  In the end, it was an adventure trip, which ended up being really great.  But this also meant that we were deciding want we wanted to do the night before.  Sitting in our suite in Florence, I mentioned that I was interested in maybe seeing a show or concert.  Of course, I don’t speak Italian, so a play was out. I did a little research, and discovered that the Russian ballet was stopping in Teatro Verdi for one night on their way to Rome.  I was excited—they were performing the classic Swan Lake, and I had never seen it.  Suddenly, I was intrigued. I felt a shiver of excitement run down my spine—and later that afternoon, I was the proud owner of two tickets to see Swan Lake the next evening.

The theater was just what I was hoping it would be.  We were on the very top floor—but we had our own box. Sitting in those plush seats, I settled down to wait for the start of the ballet.  Wearing a flowing dress and heels and waiting for the curtain to raise, I immediately felt like I had been transported to the 18^th or 19^th century. They didn’t have a TV or the internet that they could easily turn on and use at any moment of the day.  Instead, going to see a ballet would have been something they did only when they went to town, and for most (except for the very rich), it would have been something very special, just like it was for me.

Two weeks later, I visited Vienna, city of music.  I had a friend, a music major, who was studying there, that I was excited to visit.  We did the usual tourist things—visiting museums, churches, palaces, the Danube, and we did a lot of walking, including down the famous Ringstrausse.  But she also decided to take me to the opera.  I was more exited for that than anything I had been for awhile.  The Opera—that was even classier than a concert or a ballet.  The only time I’d ever heard of anyone going to an opera was in films and books written during or about the 18^th or 19^th (maybe into the early 20^th) centuries—and now I was going!  The ballet had been like a fairy tale—it had been so quintessentially Jane Austen or Frances Burney or Maria Edgeworth that I had felt like one of their characters.  I thought that the opera was going to be the same way.

However, as students, we were short on cash, so instead of buying a box, we spent €4 to stand.  I wasn’t really sure what that entailed—but you couldn’t beat €4!  It turned out that you walked into the theater from the back to the area directly behind the orchestra seats—seats that cost about €100 where there was the occasional woman in a long, very formal dress and (in the winter) poufy fur coats.  There were about eight to ten rows of these metal barriers, each about half a meter apart.  A woman ushered us into one of these rows, jamming people where only four were meant to stand.  When everyone was pushed in, we tied scarves to the banister (following the tradition to save our place), and headed out to grab a quick sandwich for dinner.  Back in our places, we squished into our places.

The warm air was filled with sounds of different languages, people of all kinds of cultures who had all come here because of an appreciation of fine arts.  We may not have been in a roomy box like a character from Edgeworth’s novels, we may not be wearing silk gowns—but everyone there was united in their interest in opera.  €4 or €100, we all got to see the same beautiful opera—Aida, an older opera about a young princess turned slavegirl’s love for the leader of her enemy’s army—listen to the same wonderful voices. It may not have been as glamorous as Evelina’s visit to the opera in Burney’s novel, but it was still magical.  It is one of my favorite memories from this trip so far—because it made me fall in love with going to theaters and ballets—and now operas.  It made me appreciate performance arts, and it let me connect with characters from novels that I love through the arts. 

Is Massachusetts a city? Or is it the 53rd state?

For the first time in a three weeks, I was finally able to go back to work.  With the visa I have, I can’t actually get paid—but that doesn’t stop me from volunteering. The central point of Bath is the Gothic cathedral, Bath Abbey.  On a whim the first week of class, I signed up to take a free tower tour and see if I liked the job. After climbing 212 steps to the top—making various educational stops along the way—we reached the top.  Gazing down at the rooftops, I was in love. 

Every Monday, I make the trek two or three times up the stairs, lecturing people on bells, bell ringers, the clock, fan vaulting (a style of ceiling), and finally at the top, general information about Bath.  I love my job, I love the feeling that I am doing something for others, that there isn’t anything in the job for me other than doing something for the community I’m now a part of.

This week, we had 8 people sign up for a tour, meaning we needed two people.  The other guide let me do most the talking, which was sweet of her, since she had been doing the job much longer than I had.  Leading the group up the spiral staircase, I chatted with the woman behind me, an older woman in group of six ladies who had all come together.  It was just the usual—where are you from? How long are you in Bath? Etc.  Inevitably, she started asking about America. People always love to ask me questions about America. 

Supposedly, only 33% of Americans own passports—and I get that waved in my face all the time by the Brits.  Yet, as much as we don’t travel, the Brits aren’t that much better.  I have British friends who have never been to Scotland (side note: Edinburgh is about a 6.5 hour train ride from Bath. So not that far.) They also have a terrible grip on American geography.  Americans are supposed to be the ones who can’t find Iraq on a map and yet, I’ve got some pretty strange answers when I’ve asked questions about America.  For example, how many states are there? I thought that’d be an easy one, as there are the same number of stars on the flag, and it’s a nice, even number. Yet, I’ve gotten 52, 53, 54, and 56.  One of those was my teacher while I was in Spain.  I’ve seen people place Boston somewhere in the south, I’ve heard both Massachusetts and Virginia labeled as cities. 

This would not bother me so much if there wasn’t such a stereotype on Americans that WE know nothing about geography.  When I first arrived, I had to pass little “tests” by my British friends (how many countries make up the UK? What are their capitals? Name 5 cities in Ireland.  What’s the capital of Germany?) I passed them easily enough.

In the end, I guess it all matters on perspective.  What’s important to know in one country may not have the same importance to know in another.  I’m glad that I was able to leave the States and see how another country views my home country, I’m glad that I was able to enter a new perspective.  I love the experience of seeing something the way another culture sees it, I love the ability to—at least for the time being—join in to that way of thought. 

I later found out that later that the group of older ladies on the tour asking me questions were on a university reunion—40 years ago, they had all gone to university at St Andrews, Scotland, and they were all still friends going on a trip to Bath together.  That was heartwarming.

In A World of Ghosts

I’ve just gotten back from spring break—and it was amazing.  The week began in Italy—Milan, Florence, Fiosole, and Lake Como, where I spent 5 days wandering the Italian countryside with my mother, my favorite person in the world.  After that, I headed back to London to meet up with some friends that I met while I was volunteering in Costa Rica last May. 

On the train to London, nestled in my barely-cushioned seat, I was obsessively reading my current school assignment, The Woman in White, a gothic novel by Wilkie Collins.  The novel is a (somewhat long-winded) account of the mysterious pasts of Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco, following several cryptic warnings about them by a strange Woman in White. At one point in the story, Sir Percival, angry that his new wife will not trust him enough to sign an unknown document without any explanations, he angrily storms off to London. As I was sitting there, absorbed in my book, it suddenly dawned on me—I was there.  I was on the train riding through London, much like Percival—and a few chapters later, much like his wife and her sister after they go down to catch a train into the city.  I was there.  Looking out the window, I was seeing the landscape that these characters would have seen, riding trains that ran along the same tracks as they would have ridden.  Its always interesting to experience first-hand the influences and inspirations that made a writer inclined to write about any given topic.   

In the beginning of the book, the hero is walking along a lonely road to London late at night when he feels a ghost-like hand on his shoulder.  It turns out to be the woman in white, a lost soul searching for an escape, both a mental one and a physical one. She was just a lonely woman who was falsely imprisoned in a mental hospital because of her knowledge of a Secret that would jeopardize the freedom of the two villains.  As I looked out the window at the setting sun, I shivered.  The train was fairly quiet, and I had the row to myself.  The more I thought about the story, the more it got to me.  The text itself wasn’t necessarily scary—but the ideas that it presented, ideas of imprisonment, ideas of ways to “treat” mental illness that were but suggested in the book, ideas left up to interpretation—it was scary to think that people, people here, mere miles from where my train was barreling off towards, would lock a young woman up for the crime of knowing a secret, calling her mad.

I know that this was 150 years ago.  I know that horror stories like this still exist today.  But still—it was nerve-wracking to think about.  You try to distance yourself from atrocities by time, by distance, by place.  You try to say to yourself that it won’t, it can’t, happen to you, to the people around you.  And when you suddenly find yourself walking alone through the streets of London as the sun sets, trying in vain to find the street that you are looking for—the plight of this young woman suddenly hits you.  Not only was she unfairly forced to live in this asylum, not only did she survive there under unimaginable events, but she was forced to run for her life to escape, stumbling through the streets of London on her own. 

Suddenly, I started to realize how that would feel.  As I got off my train, I realized that I had no map, there were no taxis at this small station, and the friend I was staying with didn’t answer their phone.  And of course the sun was setting.

Luckily, there was a map at the station, and the house was only a few blocks away, but the whole 10 minutes that it took me to locate the right house, all I could think about was the woman in white wandering through the streets of London after dark—much like I was doing—to enter a new phase of her life.  I was glad when I got to the right door.