Children's Hour

My parents just left this morning =( I know I missed everyone back at home but saying good bye to people I love a second time, it was just as hard as the first. I always miss everyone but I put that to the side because as of today, I only have 32 days left! That is crazy! Can  you believe it? Because I can't! I feel like there is not enough time!! My mom asked if I was anxious to go home and be back in America, but honestly...I am not itching to go home like Justin was. London is similar to America and the lifestyle I want to have in Chicago. I miss everyone so much and that is the only reason I want to go home.

ANYWAYS! I will post plenty of blogs about my parents' visit later on when I have more time and pictures, but for now I want to talk about the play we saw, "Children's Hour." It was wonderful! Keira Knightley (from Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy),  Elisabeth Moss (from Mad Men), and Ellen Burstyn (from the Exorcist) starred in the performance. For those of you that don't know the plot, it is about an all girl's boarding school in New England. There is a very bratty girl, Mary, who gets into a lot of trouble and believes the teachers are "out to get her." She spreads a rumor to her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) who has a lot of power within the school. The rumor is that Keira's character and Elisabeth's character are lesbians, which back in the 1930's was not very acceptable. The rumor causes the school to close down and the two teachers to be out of their jobs. The story ends with Elisabeth's character committing suicide due to all the talk going around town and her true feelings for Keira's character.

Elisabeth Moss and Keira Knightley

Ellen Burstyn

"Children's Hour" was one of the first plays I have seen on a professional stage and I really enjoyed it. All the actresses were brilliant. I am now a huge fan of Keira Knightley, she has her own way of being beautiful and she is a very good actress. You can tell she put a lot of effort into her acting and it is very hard to go from screen acting to stage acting, there is no room to re-film if a line is forgotten. Aside from the acting, I also enjoyed the story line. It sent a message that how one lie can lead to many horrible things. Yes, I will admit I hated the character Mary because she was a huge brat, but her character proved many things. Another this was that I still can't wrap my mind around how homosexuality was such a horrible thing not even 100 years ago. In the modern day of today, homosexuality is accepted by many more people that it has years ago. Being a teacher in the making, I just can't believe a school would close down from such a scandal. If it were true or a rumor, I don't think that someone's sexual orientation should take them away from a job they love. I did like that the characters still stayed together when everything happened, they didn't feel the need to go away from each other in order to prove that the rumors weren't true.

I highly suggest this play to anyone who can see it in London and if not, anywhere that is it showing.