See the pattern yet?
We went and saw Macbeth at the Globe Theater last Saturday, and it was FANTASTIC. The director, Lucy Bailey, had some really fabulous ideas regarding the production, namely the groundling membrane. Let me explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up. Bailey wanted the audience to feel like they were in hell like Macbeth and the poor Scottish thanes. The solution? Have this giant black cloth stretch out from the stage, and have little slits for people's heads and make them stand there with their head stuck through this cloth for the entire production. The insipiration for such a creation was this:
(remember what I said about posting pictures at the beginning? yeah, I'm posting some now)
The end result was this:
Before the show started, the witches came out and were running around underneath this thing. They actually lifted someone's wallet down there. I found out after the production that they kindly asked him to borrow his wallet, but I didn't know that at the beginning. And right as the show started, three men covered in fake blood popped out of the giant black t-shirt thing and they were all moaning and groaning and acting like DEATH. And another one did the same thing on stage. It was mildly terrifying.
The production only got better from there.
For the feast scene were Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost, the ghost pops out of the dinner platter and grabs Macbeth's arm as he's reaching for some food. Again, mildly terrifying.
There were people constantly running in and out of the theater, and I was standing on the edge of one of the black membranes, so they were always running past me (usually with large pointy swords...mildly terrifying). And there was extensive use of fake blood and other liquids and I was never quite so unsettled in my life as I was during certain scenes.
Around the fourth act, it started raining. Being in the Globe and being a groundling, this means you will get wet. The membrane kept us dry through act four and most of act five, but when it started hailing, we were in trouble. But the hail turned out to be the greatest cosmic joke in the world. In act five, Macduff chased Macbeth out of the theater to kill him. When he returns, what are his lines? "HAIL! HAIL! HAIL, KING OF SCOTLAND!" It took a moment, but all the groundlings started laughing because we were cold and wet and it was hailing on us and poor Macduff was trying very hard not smile. I think he may have been. It was a beautiful moment, and I think the dear old Bard would have approved.
Then I went to church (not immediately afterward seeing as how it was Sunday and it would have been a little weird to watch people kill people and then go to church) and there were a LOT more non-british people than I expected. It was still good though. (Then again, isn't church always good?)
Then I had some classes and we started studying Twelfth Night, which involved copious amounts of watching this really fantastic film version of Twelfth Night with the woman who plays Bellatrix as Olivia and the woman who plays Lucy Steele (Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman) as Viola. There was some enjoyable museum going and an enjoyable jaunt to Trafalgar Square. Debbie has pictures of that. I went and saw Les Mis and I felt like angels of God were serenading me throughout most of the performance. The girls that I saw it with thought it was the best thing ever since boys (boys are very important, you know) but it didn't do much for me. I appreciated the talent, certainly, but I didn't feel connected to any of the characters--and I find character connection neccessary for good entertainment.
Today we saw a production of Twelfth Night that was QUITE unlike any other production of Twelth Night I think has ever been produced. There was a lot of crazy music (involving electric guitars, drum sets, and crazy keyboard made sounds), liberal amounts of alcohol (Sir Toby and Sir Andrew were drinking through most of the production and even did tequila shots during one of the scenes), cross dressing (oh wait, that's in every production of Twelfth Night) and a lot of other nonsense. The greatest moment was, perhaps, the "What is love" song Feste the Fool sings. It was sung, in the production, by the drunk Toby and Andrew and it got crazier and crazier as time passed. Andrew wore a hat with velcro bits on the side and on the top and Maria (followed by the audience) threw felt balls at. He had a second hat, which he made the fourteen year old boy in the front row don before he dragged him up on stage. Then there was some wild dancing. Then Roger Sorenson was dancing in his seat, and then he was dancing on stage (after manuevering quite nimbly through the auditorium). And then he was dancing with one of the girls from the group who was also suddenly on stage.
And then Sir Toby came out with two boxes of pizza that he passed down my row of seats and told us all to take.
The scene continued in this manner until Malvolio showed up, at which point the partying promptly ended.
HILARIOUS.
This scene was followed in favoritism by the "To be Count Malvolio" scene, in which Malvolio speculates what life would be like if Olivia were in love with him and married him. There were many euphemisms and innuendos, which is typical of Shakespeare's comedies, although these ones were particularly pronounced. At the end of his speech, Malvolio took a moment to play air guitar and act like a rock star.
This was followed by a scene that scarred me a little. The cross-gartered Malvolio looked something like this: A man with a beer belly wearing very very very small yellow shorts (no shirt) and yellow and white striped socks that came up to mid thigh. The shorts were very small (did I mention that yet?) and very tight. It was gross, and I wanted to ralph a little bit. Actually, I wanted to ralph a lotta bit.
Still hilarious (in a distinctly uncomfortable sort of way, though).
Now, the actress who played Viola/Caesario also played Sebastian (Viola's twin brother), which made the end reunion...interesting. I'll let you imagine how that went for yourself.
So yeah, things are going well. I'm managing to do some homework between site seeing and seeing really fabulous productions. I'm making friends with cool people and we're doing cool things together. I'm planning my future life as a billionaire with Rachel, the cool English major in room F. It involves multiple houses in Scotland/England, cool old furniture, old books, and tasty chocolate treats on a daily basis (with a personal trainer to keep us from becoming large blimp-like ladies). My future is looking pretty grand. Be jealous.
I hope things are going well at home/Provo. I love you all!
Pax ex.
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