the unintended irony of weather interludes was good for a laugh
Oh god why do I do these things.
So I was late leaving and roared up to the Globe with five minutes spare. Yes, this IS almost exactly the same as last time I went. One day I will actually have time to do anything other than try to position myself by my friends and catch my breath.
So I watched Dr Faustus and stuff and it rained and it rained and it rained, there was lightning, at one point it HAILED ON ME IN MY EYES and also all over the actors ("Back to Marlowe!") and Arthur Darvill was ace.
After we had run away to two different pubs to try to remove the danger of hypothermia (my scars, normally red, and my fingernails, ditto, had both gone blue) I had a wee rant about Marlowe being less than Shakespeare, which at the time centred on his less brilliant eye for human nature. Now, having had time to think, and discuss further, I think there is also less wealth of wordplay, less natural rhythms of speech and - most importantly - less tidy and well-presented plots. In Shakespeare's plays the extraneous scenes are placed to allow set changes and costume changes; as far as I can tell in Dr Faustus the purpose of almose every scene is to either Show How Wicked Faust Is Becoming, or to no end whatsoever. There is endless repetition of dreadful struggles over his soul. Without wishing to sound like a grumpy creative writing teacher, the point of scenes is to contribute to the motion of the plot; the idiot watchmen in Much Ado have a PURPOSE, the idiot drunks in Faustus do nothing and come to nothing.
So yeah. On the other hand, the staging was inspired, the costumes were muff-rubbingly gorgeous, cast often had to make the best of awful lines in the middle of a fucking storm and did so with aplomb, skill, and good humour characteristic of Globe productions, and the effects/puppetry were amazing if disconcertingly literal at all times.
Image of the day therefore is Mephistopheles sitting at the end of the trust stage in a chair staring into the pouring rain without flinching as it soaks him through, staring intensely out over a see of faces with his profile against the sky from where I was standing. Lovely.
So I was late leaving and roared up to the Globe with five minutes spare. Yes, this IS almost exactly the same as last time I went. One day I will actually have time to do anything other than try to position myself by my friends and catch my breath.
So I watched Dr Faustus and stuff and it rained and it rained and it rained, there was lightning, at one point it HAILED ON ME IN MY EYES and also all over the actors ("Back to Marlowe!") and Arthur Darvill was ace.
After we had run away to two different pubs to try to remove the danger of hypothermia (my scars, normally red, and my fingernails, ditto, had both gone blue) I had a wee rant about Marlowe being less than Shakespeare, which at the time centred on his less brilliant eye for human nature. Now, having had time to think, and discuss further, I think there is also less wealth of wordplay, less natural rhythms of speech and - most importantly - less tidy and well-presented plots. In Shakespeare's plays the extraneous scenes are placed to allow set changes and costume changes; as far as I can tell in Dr Faustus the purpose of almose every scene is to either Show How Wicked Faust Is Becoming, or to no end whatsoever. There is endless repetition of dreadful struggles over his soul. Without wishing to sound like a grumpy creative writing teacher, the point of scenes is to contribute to the motion of the plot; the idiot watchmen in Much Ado have a PURPOSE, the idiot drunks in Faustus do nothing and come to nothing.
So yeah. On the other hand, the staging was inspired, the costumes were muff-rubbingly gorgeous, cast often had to make the best of awful lines in the middle of a fucking storm and did so with aplomb, skill, and good humour characteristic of Globe productions, and the effects/puppetry were amazing if disconcertingly literal at all times.
Image of the day therefore is Mephistopheles sitting at the end of the trust stage in a chair staring into the pouring rain without flinching as it soaks him through, staring intensely out over a see of faces with his profile against the sky from where I was standing. Lovely.