So many things, so little time

Just August in London (apart from a week in Scotland/Wales) is a little time for too many things.

For the whole month I kept dreaming way too much for my poor body to rest. I woke up sored by the violent intensity of my dreams: all the people and places of my (short) life mashed up in my mind's intense night life. Dreaming is necessary to digest reality but what if you've been overfed?

London's over stimulation took a bow in Orpheus' land for letting her the doors open.

According to the English language I've been taught at school, "city" is no person, thus the correct pronoun to use to address to London would be the neuter "it". But all the cities are women: their complication; their varieties but little conforming; their big hug - cuddling, welcoming, loose, unmindful, incumbent, suffocating, overwhelming. Villages are men: difficult to reach, simple to get to know, though still keeping secret corners and likely surprising outdoor routes.

London is a woman. It is one of those women whose personality you could get to know just little by little, partially mysterious but not hidden. There is always something new to discover about her, and even those part of her you think you know, well, they're ever changing and much more complex than it might look. She'll let you know her but she knows you won't be really able to catch up, even with a big effort. She is there anyway, blooming with restless activity; all over, whether you're curious or not.

"Lisboa é sò cantinhos"- Lisbon is but little corners. Lisbon is shy, she hides her treasures. She'll let you in but it's not for the masses. Milan is grey, many people don't like her. Once an old friend of mine said: "liking Milan is like falling in love for an ugly woman. Rome, instead, is a whore: she spreads her legs and hides nothing. She's wide open." Quite a definition.

A few days ago Wales-based playwright/dramaturg and friend Kaite O'Reilly said to me "I've always found it hard to work and think in London because it's so over stimulating". I couldn't agree more. In order to properly work, therefore think, London is spurring one's senses way too much and in too many directions. Especially if you know your time there is limited. It is not only fast but also and foremost hyper-offering. My existential issue - that could be summon up in the question "What to choose?" - got exasperated in London. And sometimes you feel like 80% of your energy is spent on keeping away from distractions and being focused on what you have or want to do, cos it's so easy to be blown away by randomly-encountered events or propositions.

Even in such conditions, I got to work on my projects and almost completed all the goals I had set.

I got to read at least one play a week: one about London (Pornography by Simon Stephens), then classical Greek tragedy, in preparation to September in Epidauros.

Aeschylus' Agamemnon: Clytemnestra's revenge over her husband who killed his and her own daughter. Euripides' Andromache: Hermione's jealousy causes her own despair. Aeschylus' Persians: a great army facing the worst defeats. And now Euripides' Orestes.

All the misery of mankind in a few pages. And these feminine figures...they're mesmerizing like a city map. Complicated, undismayed, unabashed, unreachable, quick-tempered, trigger-happy, fierce and brave...and desperate.

Wonder what city I am.