In Which A see a ring that "may have been" Shakespeare's

Woke up the next morning with about five hours of sleep under my belt, and opted for jeans and my hair up. We got on the bus that took us to Stratford Upon Avon, a place I really enjoyed, for the most part.

We wandered around a bit at first, and Mary and chatted up the woman who owns a pottery shop on the main road. She was really sweet, and told us what the best shows to see are. Eventually we made it over to Shakespeare’s birthplace, a stop I actually could have done without, but I guess I had to do it since I was there and all and you can’t just NOT go to Shakespeare’s birthplace when you’re there. Before entering the house we went through a video tour that reminded me a bit of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland. The lights in the room were timed just right to illuminate on things when the voice talked about it… a ring with WS on it found outside his church a few years after his death that “may well have been” Shakespeare’s, a desk that he may have sat in at school… etc. As corny and far-fetched as some of it was though, they showed a lot of clips from great Shakespearean performances that I really appreciated. His house was a good recreation of what an Elizabethan-period home would have looked like, and after climbing around it we were pretty tired and sat to watch some scenes being done outside the home. I got a mug with all the main Shakespearean characters to add to my mug collection. In his garden, Maria Louisa found some edible berries that we snacked on, and I got a bruise on my knee from trying to jump over a pile of rocks.

We got lunch at a place called “The food of love”, where I got a smoked salmon baguette sandwich that was scrumptious. We had a good time telling stories and laughing. After lunch, which lasted a lot longer than we meant it to, we took the hike over to Anne Hathaway’s (Shakespeare’s wife, not the actress) house, which is through a footpath lined with tudor houses. All of the houses have names; my favorite was the “Lavender House”.

Picture?

The best part of the day by far was the performance of The Winter’s Tale by the Royal Shakespeare Company that we saw. It was incredible! There was a realy creative design concept of books and paper that made up the set. I always find an act of gravity onstage really tangible, and at the end of the first act the two tall bookshelfs crashed on top of each other, spilling out the books to look like a winter land.Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s problem plays due to a stage direction, “exit, pursued by bear” regarding on the character’s exit. A huge polar bear made out of paper and operated by an actor was used, and it was amazing! On top of that, the performances were absolutely incredible, and a great example of how both technique and feeling have to be present in the theatre. For it to make an impact.

My scene partner Chris and I ran lines and did some scenework on the bus ride back, and were so fired up by the performance we saw that we decided to just go ahead and put the scene on its’ feet that night.