Days 14 & 15 (Our Wed. and Thurs. Weekend): Henry IV, part 1 and Stratford-upon Avon

So my plans of a quiet, restorative, self-caring day on Wednesday were altered when someone offered me a matinee ticket to Henry IV, part 1 at breakfast.  I had heard good things about this production, and so I decided I could take a yoga class and do laundry any time, but I could only see this production here and now!  Also, the yard tickets to stand are only 5 pounds.  Another friend from the program was also going so I grabbed a sandwich, my sunhat, and a drink, and we secured spots near the front of the line and made a bee-line for our spot with our elbows on the stage, just left of center stage.  I wolfed down my sandwich like a true groundling and then turned around, admiring the banners which dressed the theatre for this production.

Panoramic view of The Globe dressed in banners for Henry IV, part 1

 I just loved this production; it was my favorite so far of the season.  The performances were nuanced and fresh, there was much interplay between the actors and the audience, and it starred three strong actresses in the major male roles: Michelle Terry, who played Hotspur and is also artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, Helen Schlesinger, as Falstaff, and Sarah Amankwah as Prince Hal.  There were other women on stage, as well, playing both men and women.  The Globe has a policy of casting an equal number of female and male actors each season, as well as color-blind and ability inclusive casting.  Schlesinger's Falstaff conducts an actual catechism of the audience on the nature of honor, and besides the usual bits of stealing and drinking people's beers, will meet eyes and carried on an extended silent conversation with raised eyebrows and chin juts with me, in the scene when the character has either fallen asleep or is playing dead on the battlefield.  When Terry's Hotspur died, my eyes suddenly welled up with tears, and it felt like the most important moment of the play.  We will see Henry V on the 27th, which is the sequel to this, and I can't wait.

Thursday was to be bloody hot, 100 in London and 95 in Stratford but about fifteen of us went to Stratford-upon-Avon anyway.  My group met in the lobby at 7AM, to take the tube to Marlebone Station where we would take the train to S.A.

Marlebone Station, London

We bought pastries and pasties and coffee for breakfast, activated our e-tickets, and boarded a comfortable, air-conditioned train which arrived on time.  Some practiced their lines but I read Henry V, which I am trying to finish before we see the play.  After changing trains we arrived in Stratford shortly after 10.  We used google maps to find the Shakespeare Center, where we bought tickets and walked through the house where William Shakespeare was born.  Personally, I scooted through the exhibit to get to the house and gardens.

In front of Shakespeare's birth house; that's me hiding under the sunhat and sunglasses.

Gardens at Shakespeare's birth house, where some very hot (literally) actors were performing scenes.

Entryway at Shakespeare's birth house

Shakespeare's father's glove-making workshop.  His father was a tradesman who purchased a coat-of-arms at one point to improve the family's status.  William Shakespeare didn't attend university but received a very good grammar school education with Latin and Greek and studies of the great mythology and narratives of the classics.

My next goal was to find Trinity Church, where William Shakespeare, his wife, and his daughtersare buried.  This walk probably seemed much longer than it was due to the heat and my not knowing exactly where I was going.  I also took the scenic route: I walked down the town's long main street to the slow-moving river Avon, and walked along the river until I got to the end of the park, past the RSC Theatre, and thence to the church.  I used my CityMapper app to find my way, entered the church through an atmospheric graveyard, and walked to the back where the Shakespeare tombs and displays are, where 4 pounds donation is requested.  I will admit, I was in awe.  This is the same church where the family would have attended services, possible the church where he was married, and the same church he was baptized in. 

William Shakespeare's grave.  The inscription (in iambic pentameter) reads: "Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear, /
To dig the dust enclosed here. / Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones." 

  

Entries from the church registry: William Shakespeare's baptism and burial

Interior, Trinity Church, crossing, oldest part of the church

Leaving the church I felt contemplative and was glad I had split off from my group to make the pilgrimage on my own.  I checked the time and realized I would have time to see Hall's Croft, which is a lovely, graciously proportioned house where Shakespeare's oldest daughter, Susanna lived with her doctor-husband, John Hall, prior to inheriting Shakespeare's New Place upon his death.  

Hall's Croft

Interior (apothecary) Hall's Croft

There was even a pleasant tea room on the premises where I enjoyed a fresh lemonade and a berry scone.

Then it was time to get to the theatre for As You Like It, performed by the Royale Shakespeare Company.  As I walked back through the park I ran into a group of friends who had taken a later train and we all walked together and talked about what we had seen.  

The arena stage was wonderful: an oval shaped theatre with seating almost all around, very vertical indeed.  Instead of a center thrust area, this production was designed with two diagonal thrusts, stage right and left, so actors could enter and exit from the house, as if they were coming along a forest path.  Touchstone, a character who is sort of like a low-born Falstaff, or one of Shakespeare's fools, was full of antics which it was hard to tell if the matinee audience was enjoying or suffering, as he abused them by pouring various detritus on them, and making lewd gestures.  However, the show was stolen by an enormous Bun Raku puppet, worked and voiced by three actors, representing the Greek God Hymen, to bless the marriages of the characters.

After the play we all re-convened at the Black Swan, aka the Dirty Duck, where we saw a few of the actors retiring to a private room and enjoyed hearty food but suffered for lack of air on this very hot day.

To recover, four of us headed out on a walk that was longer than expected, as we sought Anne Hathaway's cottage, a rural house amid gardens, where Anne and William are thought to have met and romanced.  Our long, hot walk took us through suburban neighborhoods and along at least one busy street, but at last we found ourselves there.  It was too late to enter or even walk in the garden, but we could lean on the fence and look.

Anne Hathaway's Cottage

As many people are aware, Anne was 26 and William 18 when they married.  Is is suggested that their romance began when he was helping at the harvest at the Hathaway farm since they married hurriedly, without the usually three readings of the bans.  Baby Susanna was born six months after the wedding, nine months after the harvest.

Our sight-seeing group split again, as my guide book had mentioned a footpath one could take to the cottage, and I was craving a quiet path over suburban pavement.  We found it and meandered to the train station where we joked with the young man selling cold drinks from an airstream trailer and tried to beg the gift of extra ice to little avail.  Who knew that ice could seem such a luxury?  The return trip was delayed due to the heat of the rails which meant the trains had to slow down and a few trains were also cancelled so we were quite crowded.  Lucky for me a nice young man offered me his seat, and I took it with thanks, right across the aisle from two lovely border collies who must have been even hotter than I.  And so, we made it "home", and were ever so grateful for showers and fans. When I dreamt, it was in iambic pentameter, so William must have blessed the pilgramage.

Day 13 (Tues., 7/23: "Aye me!")

Tuesday may have been the climax of our time here at The Globe, as we met very early and then had a backstage and ON STAGE tour of it.  We met Tom at 7:30 at the stage door, climbed up to the Musician's or Juliet Balcony, and had a look 'round.

The garlands and stained glass that you see in this video are dressings for Merry Wives; the other elements are permanent.

This is a wooden door, and the pattern you see is
made of wooden nails.

Me in the Juliet balcony: "Aye me."

The best was when we descended to the stage and walked around.  We tested out different spots on the stage, and practiced speaking to our 'three circles: myself, me and you, and me, you, and the audience.  We strutted on the boards, using lines from the scenes we are working on, and then we had a chance to deliver our lines like a dialogue with another actor, using the 'King's spot' which is just under the sun, up center stage, beneath the canopy, and also the down right corner, in front of one of the big pillars.  Then we each got a line from Puck's last two soliloquy in Dream and delivered them one after another, directing our words to one person sitting in the seats.  It was quite magical, and gave the impression of a Puck who could be in many bodies at once: very Puckish indeed.

What could make this day even better?  Maybe seeing a play on the stage later in the day?  In fact, we were scheduled to see Merry Wives of Windsor after lunch at 2:00.  It was, by that time, over 90 degrees F. in the shade, so I sprung for a seat rather than standing again.  I also walked down the river to a hat shop I had noticed and bought a sun hat, and I picked up a souvenir fan with my program.

The show was a lot of fun, and Falstaff was rather a merry prankster, demanding the drinks of the groundlings, and spitting what he didn't like right on them.  I was glad to be safely seated in the shade for more than one reason!  The setting was the roaring 20s, and the band played ragtime while the performers jitterbugged.  After our work with Mary the day before I had looked for Falstaff to be sorely beaten in the climax but they staged it so he just led them all a merry chase, like a clever fox playing with the hounds.

Although this was Tuesday on the calendar, it was Friday night for us, and at the end of a long, hot, emotional day I was happy to head back to my room after dinner for a cool shower and sleep.

Day 12 (Monday, July 22)

Monday morning started with a marvelous demonstration of Shakespeare for All, showing how a teacher would bring Shakespeare to students with a range of special needs, including people who have either sensory sensitivity or impairments.  This was taught by Fiona (Fe) Drummond, who used a few objects, such as bells, and a crown, and British Sign Language, to engage students in the issues of MacBeth.  She was just lovely, demonstrating how Shakespearian text can be -not translated or re-written- but edited, cut, to the simple phrases that get at its heart, and brought to all students.  After an explanation, Fe simply taught us a couple of the workshops she has used with her students, and then allowed us time to talk about what we had participated in.

After a short break we were all very excited for a workshop on stage combat with Yarit Dor, a dynamic and petite Israeli with a bit of an American accent as she has lived in the states.  Yarit has worked with many of the productions on the Globe stage, and I imagine that one thing the actors love about her is that she doesn't choreograph fights or intimacy but lets the actions come from the actors.  In other words, she might say to a pair of actors, "what do you want to do to this character when she says that?"  So the actions come from the actors and then she works to make them safe.  She requires actors to always get consent for touch, including where and what level of pressure, and then she works with them to make it look real.  In small groups we worked out some short exchanges of scuffles and repulsions, also practicing the consent process. Then we learned a couple of falls, and Yarit even let us film it!

After all of this physical exercise we were rather hungry as you might imagine and we had a two hour lunch break for a change so a group of us dashed over to Borough Hall Market where you can find anything you might imagine to eat.  One of the participants had raved about a tiny and very busy restaurant with amazing fresh pasta, so I put my name on the list and asked them to text me when there was a seat for me; that way I could wander among the various food stalls and tiny shops.  After admiring cheeses, spices, flowers, and a bakery stall with a small mountain of cinnamon buns, 

I bought two jars of fruited honey cremes to give as gifts, and shortly, I received a text that my table was ready.  I was seated up on a tall stool at a marble counter, and I had a lunch to die for:

After lunch we had an introduction to Merry Wives of Windsor (which we are to see tomorrow) led by the fabulous Mary McNulty, who made good use of our new-found stage combat skills and had us work in small groups on the climactic scene where Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page dress Falstaff in women's clothes, ostensibly to sneak him out of the house, whilst actually holding the conflicting objective of seeing him severely punished.  I jumped at the chance to play Falstaff, and had my glasses knocked off in the fray (though incurring no lasting damage).

In the evening a friend from the program and I walked across the pedestrian bridge, the Millennium, which I picture in my first post, in order to eat Indian food and then see an indoor/outdoor production of Hamlet, which we thought to be at St. Paul's Cathedral, but realized at the last moment was actually at St. Paul's Church, The Actor's Church, over a mile away.  We dashed over, not vey late, and enjoyed the lovely gardens, and viewed some of the performance before we decided to leave at intermission.  It was only 12 quid, and we did stop at a nice bakery on the way back to our digs on the other side of the Thames.

Days 9, 10, & 11 (7/19-7/21)

When we returned to class on Friday (after our 'weekend') we started by reflecting on the production of "Dream" we had all seen.  This play has born the brunt of our study, so each of us had plenty to say, both critical and complementary, reflecting on our own expectations and imagining the play as if our students could see it.  We worked some more on warm-ups and text work with Tom Davey and then after lunch had a session with Mary McNulty, whom I had gotten to observe working with eleven-year-olds last week.  She used essentially the same practice on we adults as she had on the young students, but extended up just a bit, on Helena and the scene where she is chased by both Demitrius and Lysander.

Saturday we began with a two-hour rehearsal for our various scenes, and all of us, I think, felt we could have done better at memorizing our lines and all of the other things our directors expected of us, like working with the meter and rhyme, and the audience, and our diction, and actions.  It did give us more respect for actors.  After lunch we worked again with Tom and then had a two-hour voice workshop with the dynamic Sarah Case.  Like all of the Globe professionals we have worked with, Sarah started with movement, the physical.  We were led through an extended vocal warm-up, which included alot of swinging the whole body around, and then added some of the text from our scenes.  Long ago, in another life, I had worked with a private vocal coach in NY on the advice of my teacher at H.B. Studios.  We sat at her dining room table and practiced vocal exercises, but I was never encouraged to use more of my body than my mouth.  So the Globe practice is very different, and I like it quite a lot.

After dinner a bunch of us walked up-river to see another production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, at The Bridge Theatre.  The contemporary arena stage theatre is opposite the Tower Bridge that you can see in the background of this photo:

The production was in some ways the opposite of The Globe production, as it used lots of technical effects, including playing areas, many with beds and some with trapdoors in the beds, that got rolled into various positions, lights, electronic music and other sound, and, most notably, 'silks', like trapezes, that the fairies could play on, taking advantage of the vertical space.  I sat in the third ring, for about 27 pounds.  All-in-all, this show was exciting and visually stunning.  Also, the production made the interesting choice of switching all of Oberon and Titania's lines, so it was Oberon, who is played a trick on and Titania who gains the upper hand.  The actors in these roles double for Theseus and Hippolota, and something of the 'dream' carries over into their world, so that Hippolota, the captive bride, gains power, rather than losing it when she marries.

Game of Thrones fans will note Gwendoline Christie  

 During Intermission

Sunday began with a bit of a glitch when the puppeteer we were supposed to work with didn't show up.  Suddenly we had two-and-a-half hours of free time.  I scooted over to The Tower of London.  If only it hadn't been Sunday; the world heritage site was jammed with tourists, and I didn't have time to wait in the queue to see the crown jewels.  The place is still chillingly atmospheric, with its history of torture and imprisonment.  I am thinking especially of Henry the VIII's wives, and their friends and relations, and Thomas Moore and Oliver Cromwell.  I did climb, with pounding heart and shaking knees, a steep spiral staircase into a tower room where the carved "graffiti" of prisoners waiting to die had been preserved.  

 the menagerie that was once kept here, prisoners like the human captives.

These are sculptures but they represent

A view from what was once a moat; note the high-tide mark on the walls.

Inside the castle walls

"The raven himself is hoarse who croaks the entrance of Duncan under my battlements."

I hopped into a London black cab and dashed back to the studio, carrying a sandwich to eat on the way, and wasn't late for rehearsal.  We did a bit better at our scene and worked out some crucial transitions during the two-hour rehearsal.  Some lines will be played for laughs.  Hopefully it will be fun and funny.

Days 7 & 8- Two days off

Well, I'm not going to lie; it was delightful to have some free time to explore and/or rest at one's own pace.  I set some modest goals: laundry, a yoga class, and a couple of healthy meals.  I met those goals.  The funny thing about being in England is that you expect everything to be the same because it is an English-speaking country, just like the USA.  But even the laundry machines and soap powder are different.  However, I did manage.  I had found an Iyengar yoga class in the neighborhood and emailed the teacher and so was able to walk to a class held in a church which was in a garden.  The teacher, Brenda, was sharp, just back from India, and her teachings were clear.  It was nice to spend an hour where I knew exactly what was going on.  Then on the way back I stopped at a lovely vegan restaurant where you help yourself to the portions you want and are charged by weight.  It was delicious, and right across from this funny building:

Southwark (pronounced Sow'ork) is quite the juxtaposition of the old and the new, quite obvious in the scale:

After my walk I visited the Tate for some more free modern art, finished my laundry, blogged, chatted with a few folks via FaceTime, and then went for dinner at Wagamama, sitting at an outside table.  Several people I knew from the program ambled by and a couple of them stopped and joined me.  So it was just the right blend of quiet and sociability, adventure and homebody time.

Today was the day for adventure, as a few of us had planned a trip to Oxford!  After breakfast we took the tube to Paddington Station, and then the rail just one hour to Oxford, and a taxi from the train to the city.  

Well, Oxford is just the most beautiful city, and one that has been filmed and written about so much that it seems familiar.  I think I first read about it when I read Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Whimsy mysteries.

 I picked a sprig of this lavender and it still smells divine - the strongest scented I have ever snuffed!

I want to live here; at least for a course.  I shall return!

 Friends on a cobblestone street

 Giant gargoyle

 A whimsical gate...

 Punting, viewed from The Bridge of Sighs

Bodleian Library

 Lunch at The White Horse, a pub that has been extant since 1541, and has low, beamed ceilings and not a right angle in the whole place.  

We also visited The Eagle and The Child, (nick-named 'The Bird and The Baby') 

where J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis used to drink.