Delights
The first sight that met him when he peered in
through the window was the most horrific thing he would ever see in his life:
Her face was turned toward him, but there was
no life. Her nose had been cut off, as well as her eyelids and eyebrows. The
skin of her cheeks and chin had been shaven clean off, and her throat cut so
deeply only a few strands connected her head to the rest of her body. Her
breasts had been removed with circle incisions, one put beside her head and the
other by one of her feet.
Her abdomen had been cut and splayed open from
her genitals to her breastbone. All the intestine had been taken out and dumped
on the table next to the bead. The skin on the inside of her thighs had been cut
off, the femur bone visible in one place.
Barely human anymore, she resembled something
one may find on a butcher’s workbench.
That was
the description of the murdered Mary Jane Kelly, given by the guide at the end
of our tour. Mary Jane was the last murder assumed and credited to have been
Jack the Rippers last, and by far most gruesome, murder.
***
We got on
the half-ten train from Southend to London to see the third year combat and
physical theatre’s show cases. A showing created solely for the purpose of
showing off the students in the third year, where agents come to look for
possible new stars.
When this
was over, we all went to a pub to celebrate a show case well done (and heavens
were the third year combats’ show case done well!). But while some went home
after a while, and others stayed to get smashed and subsequently terribly hung-over
the next day, me and four others did something else.
The last
two weeks before Easter we have priority in devised. While with the Shakespeare
priority, where we get a taste of making a show with a director, devised is to
give us a try at creating a show entirely on our own from the bottom up. Our
theme is The Themes, but apart from this we make everything. My class has been
divided in three groups for this, and in my group we have decided to focus on
the Jack the Ripper murders. And so, since we were in London, we thought hey, why not? and went on a Jack the
Ripper tour. It cost ten pounds a ticket, began at 7.30, lasted over two hours
(that we were not prepared for) and we weren’t back in Southend until close to
23.30. It was a bittersweet experience. Fun (the guide was amazing), but
exhausting (walking around London’s streets at night for over two hours…)
And that is
what happened Thursday, the 27th of February.
