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Blog 4: Queer Shakespeare in As You Like It

A moment of Queer Shakespeare in As You Like It is the part when Rosalind/Ganymede and Orlando meet up in the woods and he professes his love for Rosalind. He’s crazy in love with her and agrees to role play with Ganymede pretending it’s actually Rosalind. My first thought when I read and watched that scene is he’s just fine acting in love with what he thinks is a man but really is Rosalind in disguise. This shows the audience Orlando is actually attracted to Ganymede and would on some level be into it. We also see Rosalind eager to play a male role which shows her willingness to switch genders. Also the fact that all of the plays in Shakespeare’s time period had men play women roles which was quite normal for the audience to view and probably wasn’t seen as out of the ordinary. After seeing this performance live gave me a better visual of what was actually happening with Orlando and Rosalind. Love is fluid regardless of the gender and Shakespeare demonstrated that in his works long before fluidity was a thing. I also think Shakespeare loved seeing men in a relationship even if one of them was supposed to be portraying a woman. 

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Blog 3: 1 Henry IV scene

I chose to focus on Act 2 scene 4. In this scene, Hal is happily chugging wine with the guys while egging on Falstaff to tell the truth about getting jumped by a bunch of thieves. While Hal is busy living the low life, he is summoned to the castle to report to his father who is trying to not be overthrown as king.  Falstaff and Hal put on a skit to play out Hal’s upcoming meeting with his father, then each take a turn as the king. This scene incorporates the tavern with theater versus the throne.  At the beginning of the scene Hal is boasting about being the masked robber that jumped Falstaff and having a great time drinking and being irresponsible. By the end of the scene Hal is preparing himself to go back to his honorable duties knowing he is the future king and his partying days are coming to an end. In this one scene different spaces are used from the tavern and careless drinking, to theater and pretending who he is and who he is not, to throne where Hal is accepting his responsibilities to be king. 

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Blog 2 Revivification of Shakespeare

This is a hard one for me. I am ashamed to say I haven’t seen much Shakespeare in film. I had to look up a list of all the films that were adapted from Shakespeare’s plays to see if I knew any of them. The best I could do was She’s the Man, The Lion King, Gnomeo & Juliet, Romeo & Juliet with Leonardo DeCaprio but I have no memory of that one, and West Side Story. The one I know best is West Side Story which I have seen a half dozen times (at least) on stage and a few times in film.This retelling of Romeo & Juliet is the same story but with modern language set in the city. The film uses the Jets and the Sharks to replace the Montague’s and Capulet’s feuding with each other. Both stories have two people come together as star crossed lovers who ultimately cannot stay together in which ends in tragedy. The good thing about Shakespeare revivification’s is the stories Shakespeare told so many years ago are getting rebooted over and over to appeal to the modern audience. I know many people that have no interest in Shakespeare plays but would tell me they loved She’s the Man. The stories never get old and will continue to be retold in countless ways for many years to come. Shakespeare will always be kept alive and many times without one being aware of the source.

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Review of Henry the IV part 1

Like many others in the group, I was very disappointed with this performance. In fact, I would rather be writing about the performance of “Six” which was phenomenal! I also wish I had the opportunity to see A Midsummer’s Night Dream. I know I would’ve loved that one. Anyway, back to Henry, I found this performance boring. I wasn’t entertained and found myself drifting off throughout the night. Being someone that is not a huge Shakespeare fan (except when Jen is teaching), I found all of the changes the Globe made to be confusing and didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t get the Queen songs that were sung by Falstaff. It didn’t fit in with the play itself. While I understand that Shakespeare can be performed in any way a theater chooses to portray it, I find it weird to put in something so modern. Modern clothes don’t bother me for a Shakespeare production as we saw in As You Like It, but adding songs from our present time period is just plain strange. All of the gender changes were also confusing and didn’t make sense to me. I feel like it was too much. The sets were not great either. Aside from the production, the theater is absolutely beautiful and exciting to be inside. I loved the open atmosphere and style of it. The group tour we had from earlier in the day was super. I also made sure to rent myself a cushion for the show which was fun. Overall, I was really disappointed because I had been so excited to experience a production at the Globe. Instead I found myself anxiously checking the time so we could leave.

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Unique Cultural Experience

I decided to write my cultural experience about the Tube. It may seem pretty basic to write about a subway but I was so impressed with the cleanliness of the underground that I think I talked about it every single time we rode the train. See, I have a lot of experience in NYC and consider myself a pro at riding the subway and traveling on public transportation there but it is absolutely disgusting. If you have never been on the subway in NY, then let me explain it. It is very dirty, trash everywhere, extremely smelly, and rats running around the tracks. It is something you easily get used to while visiting the city but I was truly blown away by the cleanliness of London’s Tube. It wasn’t just one train line, it was ALL of them. The other super impressive part of this was, there were no garbage cans in sight! It would be a really good idea if our country looked at England as a role model. Our underground needs a LOT of help!

Picture of a NYC subway track (and this is not even close to being the worst):

London Tube tracks:

and one more:

It’s crazy the difference between the two!

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Historical Site: Roman Baths

I chose to do my historical site review on the Roman Baths. I know not everyone in the group had the opportunity to tour them because of our late arrival but this was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Kara and I rushed over to the Roman Baths to see this phenomenal attraction. The Roman Baths are an ancient spa that was used by the Romans from the 1st to the 4th centuries. The Roman’s ingeniously designed a unique system to bring the natural thermal waters into a sophisticated bathing complex. The Romans would go there to bathe, relax, and socialize. The Roman’s also considered it to be a sacred place and would come to worship the goddess Sulis Minerva. She was considered a goddess of wisdom and decisions. Inside the Bath’s is the Temple Precinct where the Roman’s once worshiped. There you can find the gilt-bronze head of the goddess Sulis Minerva. This is considered a very rare treasure of Roman Britain. Sacrifices were once made there at the great alter. Aside from the bath’s, the museum shows how the Roman’s lived their daily life. Many ancient artifacts and coins are on display as you walk through the museum. Throughout the self-guided tour, I was so impressed with the many rooms on display. From the worship areas to the specific changing rooms for men and women, sauna rooms and various bath’s for bathing. All of the water is heated from deep within the Earth except for one pool that holds icy cold water. This pool was once used to end one’s day trip to the spa. People are no longer allowed to go into the water due to algae and unsanitary reasons but I did sneak a finger into the side of the pool to feel the temperature. It was really warm and I imagine it must have been quite soothing to the Roman’s. Unfortunately we only had an hour in this fascinating and well preserved place from the past. I will definitely return someday to continue exploring all it has to offer. 

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George Inn

On the same day that we explored Borough Market, a small group of us decided to have lunch at the George Inn. We sat outside in a beautiful, old courtyard at picnic tables. When we sat down, I was worried for a minute that I wouldn’t find something I liked to eat but soon found out that there was plenty on the menu. Unfortunately, sometimes this a problem for me because I don’t eat cheese (I know everyone thinks I’m crazy). I finally settled on a burger with fries and  delicious Berry Hard Cider. Up until this part of the trip, I hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of going up to the bar to order your own food and drinks because I thought it was strange but soon realized that this was a much better system. You can save a lot of money from not tipping when eating out. Once our orders were placed, there were several servers that kept coming out to check on us which I thought was really nice. The food was delicious and we had a really nice visit at the George Inn. 

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Borough Market

I went to Borough Market with a group after spending the morning touring Shakespeare’s Globe and the Rose excavation site. It was not what I expected at all, it was so much more. I was very impressed with the number of vendors in every direction you turned. I did not love all of the smells because I don’t like a lot of foods. If it smells like cheese or seafood, then I stay far away! I did love all of the unique items that were available and wish I had unlimited funds because I could’ve gone crazy shopping in there. From the spices, soaps, plants, flowers, fine chocolates, lotions, and food galore in one stand after another, it was almost overwhelming. It reminded me of a gigantic farmers market but much, much better. I don’t mind crowds of people as long as I can still maneuver around and I found this market to be quite enjoyable. I just wasn’t ready to take the plunge and try something new to eat. Maybe on my next visit!

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British Museum

I went to the British Museum on one of the free days and was surprised at how huge it was. I originally thought I would breeze in and out but when I entered I was super impressed. There were so many rooms to explore that I couldn’t possibly see it all in one visit so I stuck to the first floor. The only thing I didn’t like was the mobs of people. It was packed with people from all over and school groups too. There were kids everywhere, even sitting on the floor drawing diagrams of displays. I don’t normally mind crowds of people but I found so many rude ones while walking through the museum that I was not impressed with the lack of manners. One more thing that was somewhat frustrating was the museum did not offer free maps to guide you along. While I understand the place is free to enter and they rely on donations for the upkeep, but I didn’t have any money with me so I just wandered along. Anyway, we were fortunate enough to walk through Ancient Greece & Rome, Asia, and Middle East. My favorite room was Ancient Greece & Rome. The beautiful stone artifacts were from the B.C. time period. It is amazing that they have endured from all of those years ago. I found many of the stone sculptures were missing pieces from it’s original design such as a horse statue that no longer had legs.Nevertheless, still breathtaking. I also really enjoyed the artifacts and displays in the Asia room. There was a cool display of ceramic pots that showed the many designs that were once used. There was also a huge bronze incense burner from a Qianlong emperor that ruled 1736-1795 that I found very interesting. My time in the museum was short because we had tickets for the London Eye next but I would love to return someday when I could spend more time exploring and hopefully when there are less people!

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Blog Post #1: Response to Robert Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit

Upon Robert Greene’s deathbed he drafted the pamphlet titled “Groatsworth of Wit” and was the first to write on Shakespeare. He clearly disliked the young actor and author calling him an upstart Crow. Greene wrote, “trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanket verse as the best of you.” Shakespeare was new on the scene at the time but unpolished and Greene did not like it. Greene was ticked that Shakespeare came along and felt upstaged by him. Before Shakespeare, plays were only written by university educated scholars and Greene complains that here comes this actor who thinks he can write as well as they do. 

Robert Greene was the first person to write anything on Shakespeare but was not the last to dislike him. It is interesting to see this dislike of Shakespeare when so many others admire him today with his sense of humor and brilliantly written plays that have kept people entertained for so many years.