Avenue Queue

Reshuffling our bags to make the quickest departure possible, my companion and I moved to the front of the bus, eying the other passenger and checking for those carrying tents (luckily to no avail). Though it was far too early on a Sunday morning for any sane person to be strolling the neatly trimmed streets, as soon as we disembarked from our red double decker we joined the handful of groups quickly making their way up the sidewalk with wary eyes glancing back at their competition. No group was running (perhaps because, like us, they thought it rude to pass up a fellow fan), but most were walking so fast that their overstuffed backpacks threatened to burst at every turn- and, in fact, some went further then threatened in an explosion of blankets, peanut butter jars, and underwear. Finally, signs promising of a queue began to appear, and (if possible) the pace quickened until, one by one, the couples past the park gate and the real running race began with increasing numbers of clothes casualties. Despite the fact that the first matches of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships were over twenty-four hours away, the line for tickets had already reached its second row. Making our way through the dewy grass to the back of the queue we passed tent upon tent with their excited owners sitting on lawn chairs watching the more recent campers trickling in and eagerly discussing the upcoming line up. Soon after we (with great difficultly) set up our tent, we too joined those early arrivals in watching the young and old make the trek towards the end of the queue in hopes that they were in the first five hundred to arrive. Thirty hours, six guitar-played Beatles songs by our tent neighbor, two games of soccer, and one game of cricket later we had finally exchanged our queue cards (marking us number 234 out of over 2,000) for center court seats at the 125^th Wimbledon Championships. Taking a deep breath and trying to suppress an impossibly big smile, I handed my ticket to the guard and entered into a dream come true.

Though watching the near mechanical perfection of Rafael Nadal from third row seats was no doubt the highlight of my week, it has had much competition for first place. Last Wednesday night I retired my (now wholly) jeans for my theatre best and made my way to St Martin’s Theatre to see the longest running show in the world, The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. Growing up with Clue as my favorite board game and hosting a murder mystery dinner at age 12 (for those of you reading this who were there, I apologize now for the ridiculous costumes I made you all wear), The Mousetrap was a wonderful classic drama well worth the climb to the last row of seats. Despite giving over 23,000 performances, the play was just as enthralling and enchanting with its quirky characters and underlying dark humor as the day it opened 59 years ago. The following evening I again traveled to the West End theatre district to seeBlood Brothers, a story of twin brothers separated at birth only to be reunited upon their death. The musical was filled with witty songs of Marilyn Monroe, jests at Irish super station (Mom, I found someone else who won’t let their kids put new shoes on a table), and humorous depictions of childhood love; nevertheless, it ultimately had a stern message of class division in England and the extraordinarily opposite treatment and opportunities of the poor and the wealthy. Progressing from play to musical, on Friday I once again changed theatrical gears to attend a modern operatic interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Set in an all boys school with the chorus made up of youth, the tone was eerily mystical and dream-like with slow moving, sensual actors that seemed to make the audience almost uncomfortable. The score was absolutely incredible and fit Shakespeare’s verse impeccably and came to life with a faultless beauty in the cherubic voice of Oberon, the darkly deep voice of Titania, and the comically satirical non-singing part of Puck. Rounding out my dramatic week I veered away from drama to see the Shakespearean comedy Much Ado About Nothing at The Globe Theatre. The theatre itself is a reconstruction of the first known theatre in 1599, where Shakespeare worked and for which he wrote many of his best-known plays. Made of wood in a three-floored cylinder with an opened roof, the place has a magically joyful feel. Standing in the center leaning on the stage I had front row ‘seats’ to the hysterical tale of ‘merry wars’ of love, rumour, and deception. Though the actors preformed in Shakespearean English and dress, played towards contemporary perceptions of humor, which made it all the more amusing and memorable. 

Taking a break from the stage for a different aesthetic genre I ventured to the Tate Britain, which houses England’s collection of national artwork. The Romantics and Late Baroque satirical style of the feathery brushstrokes of John Constable’s landscapes and the socially critical dark humour of William Hogarth’s etchings that line the gallery walls give unparalleled insight to both the British mentality and art history. Much larger in size, I spent two days getting lost in the British National Gallery, spending hours following the contour lines of da Vinci’s Madonna in sfumatto and the contrapposto of Ruben’s three beauties in the Judgment of Paris. But by far my favorite canvases stained to perfection we those of J.M.W. Turner, the Romantic British painter whose sunset seascapes bursting with color foreshadowed the works of the famed Impressionists half a century later. His visions combining his affection for humans, belief in the sublime power of the natural world, and ominous premonition of the repercussions of the Industrial Revolution and modernization on both humanity and the environment in stretched linen swirling with dramatically transparent hues and highly intense natural light are simply awe-inspiring, so much so that their impression lingered in my mind long after my visit.

After a week’s worth of cultural outings I finally found myself in the Wimbledon grounds awaiting the first match of the day to commence. The park is faultless with perfectly manicured blooming flowers and shrubberies, precisely placed flagstones and carefully cut grass courts complimented by workers in suits and smiles offering tennis goers classic strawberries and cream. After watching a few players on the outer courts practice we made our way to Center Court, the largest of the complex, to absurdly good seats in the third row. We watched Nadal beat the good-humored American Michael Russell in three sets of unbelievable serves and unstoppable backhands and number six player Francesca Schiavone fend of an ill-tempered Aussi Jelena Dokic who challenged the callers more than I have ever seen in a Championship (to her credit, more than half were initially called incorrectly), and finally cheered on Andy Murray with a wonderfully wild national crowed (including the Royal Box) to defeat the Spanish Daniel Gimeno-Traver in four sets, the last two of which went bagels. Midway through the second match, the rain triumphed over the meek sun (there have only been four tournaments without rain since 1922) and the newly installed retractable roof leisurely covered the now wet spectators.

As I gazed up at the large metal and glass tiles lurch towards one another, I could not help but think back to Turner’s masterpieces of the wonders of man’s new technologies in his day, trains and steamboats, and his forewarning of their environmental ills. I have used our modern day advances at nearly every leg of my journey, from taking planes across oceans to using Skype to call my parents, inventions that make those of Turner’s day seem minuscule. The English painter was fearful that humanity’s modernization would ruin the truth held within the natural landscape and the simple peasants, and to an extent he was right. Constantly talking to my fellow Green Action-ers about domestic energy policies and discussing environmental security issues with past professors along the Thames River are clear testaments to that. But despite how much damage technology has done, it has made so many seemingly impossible feats possible for our generation, whether that is flying to Georgia within a mere day or watching Murray serve at 124 mph in the pouring rain. It is those now seemingly simple tasks of airplanes and retractable roofs that make me optimistic for future technology, and perchance our generation of artists will paint the contours of windmills in harmony with nature and the might of the sun with inviting tones rather than the radiantly dark power of 19th Century trains and boats.