All the World's a Stage...

This past week has been extremely busy…I had my internship on Monday and Wednesday as well as two plays (more on those in a bit) and then class on Tuesday and today. Monday and Wednesday were long days because usually I would get back from my internship for an hour or less then head off to the plays, which lasted around 3 hours. This would put us back at our flats around 11pm or so…definitely makes for a long day!

The first play we saw was Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” dating back to the 1600s. We got to see it in Shakespeare’s Globe, which made it even better! Although it was not the original globe, it was still really cool to be in a place that had such historical significance. When recreating the globe, they used the same elements of an outdoor theatre (Jacobethean Round to be exact) with an open rooftop as well as room on the ground for the commoners to stand. So guess where we were placed…standing on the ground for the full 3 hours. It may not seem that long, but let me tell you-my feet were quite achy by the time we left! I kinda felt like an old lay…but after a solid night’s sleep all was well. I really enjoyed “As You like It” and thought the actors did a great job portraying the parts…it is interesting how you can read something and invent the picture in your head compared to when you see it in real life. My favorite part was at the end when they tossed love quotes on scroll-like paper that one of the characters wrote for all audience members. This was a highly interactive play and broke the “4^th wall” a lot of times to have the audience feel engaged as if they were there back in time with the actors.

Then there was Mother Courage on Wednesday night…yikes! When I originally read this play, I didn’t really like it all that much because it was a bit melancholy and ended on a sad note. I thought that maybe the live version would be better and would allow me to understand a bit more what the point was of the play itself. Basically, Mother Courage has three children, all whom die throughout the course of the play. It is meant for the reader/audience member to realize the conundrum that war creates…Mother Courage made herlivelihood off the war byselling things from her cart yet killed all whom she loved the most creating a vicious cycle. Not to mention all of the profanity that happened throughout…I just did not enjoy myself. (*read side note) Something that I thought was interesting though was that the stage hands were actively apart of the show and the concept of Brecht (the creator) was that the audience would be fully aware that they were watching a show. This is something I have never seen before. AND there was a really cool BIG chair outside of the theatre which we enjoyed taking pictures on.

*Side note on profanity…I think they amplify the usage of curse words here. But why?! Since when was it attractive and classy to use such vulgar wordage? What ever happened to ‘Oh My Goodness’ or ‘Oh dear’ or anything other than…well you know what. This is something that seemingly urks me and that I just try to tune out and not become numb to hearing it.

Anyways, tonight I am preparing for my London extravaganza with 4 of my flatmates. We are leaving bright and early tomorrow morning to enjoy a pack-filled weekend of the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, the Siene River, etc. I cannot wait! Be sure to check back later this weekend/early next week to see pictures and videos of our adventure! For now I will leave you with my favorite quote from Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages…”

Check out what each theatre looks like inside!