My mind has been on Shakespeare a lot these last few days. I never realized his brilliance with words and plots before I came to London. Now I am here I can't get enough of him. Who knew there was so much depth in his plays?Well... probably most people who have taken the time to sit down and read...but that last question was rhetorical anyway, no need for me to explore the answer.Anyhow, yesterday some lucky students from the centre got to go see a special showing of Macbeth at the Globe theatre. They all came home gushing about how wonderful it was and how it was their favorite thing they have done since they have been on study abroad. Obviously I am a little sad that I missed out but I realized that I too have seen some wonderful productions of Shakespeare here in England. Last summer I endured through jet lag to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe and I loved it! The actors executed the comedy really well and made sure to have audience interaction to keep the flow of the production. Of course I didn't know very much about the playwright at that point so maybe I was just simply entertained. But seeing Twelfth Night here made me realize how much more enjoyable something is when you actually put in the effort to educate yourself about it. So this morning I got up and began writing my review on the production of King Lear that the Royal Shakespeare Company did in Stratford-upon Avon. I am pretty sure I downplayed how great the play was in my last post. Blogging was getting to be tedious and I flippantly mentioned how much I liked it. But really guys, I loved it. It's not my favorite of Shakespeare's plays but it was a marvelous production. The quasi-industrial setting and the costumes from different eras created some wonderful symbols that paralleled the fall and destruction of King Lear and his kingdom. The staging was magnificent and the acting from David Hicks (King Lear) really brought out the magnanimity of the character's suffering. If you get the chance, go read some Shakespeare or see a production (check the reviews first though because I have an inkling that a poorly done Shakespeare production could be painfully long and boring). Writing this paper for my Shakespeare class has been hard but rewarding. I've got to go finish it instead of singing praises to the production on my blog. But before I head...
Ok, the Royal Shakespeare Company seriously knows what they're doing. Last year we saw The Tempest, and we studied it before, so I LOVED the whole thing. They do such a good job and find really cool ways to put a new twist on Shakespeare's work, without totally defiling it.
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