Light Thickens

As a former English teacher, I was well-known for loving Shakespeare, whether in book form or live on stage. He was a master of great writing, of course, with towering stories of powerful heroes and villains. But he was also a master of that perfect image, that one detail that really works.

I watched the wintry night falling over the horizon and I thought of one of the greatest tragedies, MACBETH: Light thickens, and the crow makes way to the rooky wood. Never saw a crow that evening, but the scene was set perfectly for one. Light does indeed "thicken."

Trinity Church

Our tour to Stratford had made a stop at Oxford earlier and then taken us through the Shakespeare birth home. It was midday and of course, everyone was hungry. We were turned loose for 45 while minutes on Henley Street, outside the Shakespeare home, for a pleasant lunch and for some souvenir shopping. That is what most of the tour members thought. Having been told that there was no time on the itinerary for a visit to Trinity Church, we walked into a restaurant, ordered paninis to go, and ate lunch at a brisk walk.

The effort certainly paid off. The sense of pilgrimage could not have been completed without seeing the famed injunction not to 'digg the dust encloased heare.' With the walk, we had time to see the ancient churchyard, see the gravesite right front in the chancel, view the baptism and burial records on site, and look at the renovation underway at the old church. The pilgrimage was complete.

On Avon

For a literature teacher, for a drama teacher, for anyone who loves great writing, a visit to Stratford-On-Avon is more a pilgrimage than a tourist visit. Not much looks surprising, as we have seen photos of Shakespeare's birth home right in the midst of town, and we have seen pictures of the Hathaway house and flower garden out in a more rural area. We have seen it all, we recognize it, and yet we walk there in awe.

Truly our visit to the Globe Theatre two days earlier was more important, more alive, more of the essence of Shakespeare. Every time actors breathe life into Romeo and into Juliet, the spark kindles the flame and Shakespeare lives. Every time I have a ticket to a Shakespeare play I learn something new about the characters, people I know, and myself. But touching base with Stratford was very special.

Magic of the Globe

Our arrival in London early Sunday morning, followed by a full day of sightseeing and flying on the London Eye, was capped by something special for a retired English teacher. I had procured tickets online at face value for perfect upper level center stage tickets at the Globe Theatre. We left O'Hare at 6:00 PM Saturday and were at the Globe by 6:00 PM Sunday -- only 18 hours later due to the time zones we had passed through.

ROMEO & JULIET was performed in traditional format, though not traditional casting (which would have required all males on stage). The play was performed in a solid, straightforward manner including several interactions with the groundlings standing on the verge of the thrust stage. Ticket price for the groundlings is always just 5 pounds, about $9. Following the conclusion of the play, the cast members all participated in a dance.

While all the actors were finely cast and did a great job, for this American audience member, the star of the show was the theatre, from the traditional thatch roof above to the cobblestones below. My mind knows that this recreation was built to modern building codes in the 1990s, but my heart felt that some of those stones were ones walked on by William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage and the rest more than 400 years ago. The atmosphere was magic, the play was wonderful, and our first day in London was a major success.

Maybe it was not the stones. Maybe the feeling was more personal. A poem about the feeling of where I walked:

FOOTPRINTS AROUND THE GLOBE

This particular Globe Theatre was built some four hundred years later;
The skyline and the vista from the site is completely different.
Modern food preparation and sanitation are totally reinvented;
Fashions worn by the playgoers are radically different in every detail.
Perhaps a few of the stones we walked on were here, but most were not,
But there was still a sense of walking in footprints around the Globe.
Those belonging to Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare.

Happy Shakespeare Day!

A wonderful holiday for former or current English teachers and students, drama lovers, language experts, and pretty much everyone else.

Today in honor of Shakespeare Day, the reputed date of not only his birth in 1564 but also his death in 1616, I am taking out some tickets and looking at them. The tickets are for ROMEO & JULIET at the Globe, bankside in London, on Sunday July 5. A couple of days later I will be visiting Stratford. Rest assured the blog will have some of the results upon my return!

Toddlin' Town for Theatre

Last month I saw a wonderful MACBETH; this week a rocky, excellent DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS. The phrase "Second City" is not heard as often about Chicago anymore, and of course Manhattan with its Broadway district is the most outstanding theatre area in the United States. But Chicago is certainly the runner-up as it hosts road companies, establishes touring success, and hosts outstanding resident companies. On the north side, the famed Steppenwolf Theatre still attracts large audiences, but the downtown jewels are the Goodman and the Chicago Shakespeare.

About a mile and three-quarters separates the two locations, one in the well-known loop and the other extending out into Lake Michigan. Each building is housed in historical buildings, Navy Pier being historic in its own right. The Goodman remodeled the former Harris and Selwyn Theatres and managed to reuse these wonderful stages after a period of time of disuse. In moving here less than twenty years ago, the Goodman left a location on the east side of the famed Art Institute of Chicago, opening up space for the new Modern Wing, opening in May.

While it was interesting enough moving from MACBETH to the ELMS over a period of four weeks, I recall a juxtaposition during the fall of 2006. Ben Carlson, currently the title character in Macbeth, was starring as HAMLET on the pier. Stacy Keach was heading the cast of KING LEAR at the Goodman. And I saw the pair in the same week. The result? A poem:

FIFTY-EIGHT HOURS BETWEEN SHAKESPEARES

Fifty-eight hours from Elsinore to Lear’s corrupt court:
Thursday matinee spent with the antic disposition of Hamlet,
Saturday night spent watching the madness and downfall of Lear.

Lear cut a cake to award the geography of Britain to flatterers,
Stabbing the knife into the heart of the cake and the heart of Cordelia.
The rashness of Lear at eighty recalls of course the rashness of Romeo
At fifteen, nearly justifying the introspection of Hamlet at 30.

Gertrude Thursday was a sexual woman, a match to Goneril and Regan Saturday;
Lusting without question and each loving only herself,
While the suicidal Ophelia showed doomed beauty
And the naked body of Cordelia was an artist’s study in death.

Nearly ten minutes Saturday devoted to dragging dozens of body bags onto the stage,
Five minutes then set aside to dump the bags into the pit of hell in modern warfare.
The power of Shakespeare in tragedy is to show us how the gods kill us
For their sport … while the rest, of course, is silence.

Time Out for the Bard

After spending a wonderful afternoon on Navy Pier in Chicago, I thought we would take a timeout from our Alaska postings for a word about the Bard.

It was my good fortune to locate a young Chicago company called Shakespeare Repertory Theatre in 1991 and enjoyed watching the group grow and expand over the years. Eventually plans were announced for a theatre company on the Pier, a wonderful building was constructed, and the renamed Chicago Shakespeare Theatre came into being. Regular opportunities for all audiences including interested students to see world-class drama and comedy.

Of course, we all know that Macbeth is not only one of Shakespeare's most popular tragedies, it is the shortest and thus the one that careens down the track at breakneck speed. The 2009 mounting, directed by Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, features Ben Carlson and Karen Aldridge as the doomed Macbeth couple. They are as powerful and as well-presented as any couple I have ever seen in these roles. Set in modern times and featuring air power in the wars, video reports from the media, and airport waiting while flights are cancelled. But beneath the updating of details, the tragedy looks into a man who becomes lost in his ambition and his wife, how loses her mind when she loses his loving attention. For Chicagoans, this is a must-see.

The Scottish play has been featured here several times, including a 1992 mounting starring Kevin Gudahl and Susan Hart. That version was highlighted by music by Lloyd Broadnax King, pounding his chest, screeching and using various tools and items as instruments. More recently, a Short Shakespeare production covered the complete tragedy in 75 minutes and a Kabuki-style presentation featuring the character of Lady Macbeth. A highly-creative version was Marionette Macbeth, in which all actors were 3-4' tall marionettes controlled by a series of master puppeteers, featuring the Colla Family from Italy. As they manipulated the actors, the lines were provided by seven actors sitting in a chorus format.

The Wednesday matinee had an informative post-production session with several audience members asking some probing questions. Three of the actors including Karen Aldridge (Lady Macbeth) joined the discussion with Marilyn Halperin, Director of the Education Department. Season after season, production after production, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre provides topnotch professional theatre for the people of Chicago. Thanks for the wonderful afternoon and we will return to Alaska tomorrow.