It's been raining for ever here AND it is the season for watching outdoor theatre, so guess who got wet sitting in front of the Globe Theatre's touring production of "Hamlet"?
This was what I saw as I was queuing in the quadrangle of the Bodleian library, waiting to buy a ticket for the play:
After buying my ticket, I wandered around the quad (a paved courtyard), looking at the quaint stone heads "guarding" the many doorways into the different sections of the library:
The bronze statue of the library's founder, Thomas Bodley, seemed to be enjoying a look-round too!
In fact, he seemed to be inspecting the layout of the seats:
Whether his metal stare had anything to do with the rainclouds running away for a bit, I don't know, but we were suddenly blessed with a blue sky:
Here's a detail of the tower, with King James already seated to enjoy the actors' performance:
The production used a stage made like a section of the tiered Globe Theatre (reconstructed on the banks of the River Thames in London) where some of Shakespeare's plays were performed by Shakespeare's own company of actors:
The stage was a very small space, even for a small company of 8 actors and two musicians/hands, but it was imaginatively used at different levels (floor, stage, roof) and with devices such as curtains, planks and trestles, which divided the view and made the space change in shape and light and aspect.
Here's a shot from the early part of the play (see - we still had sun!):
During the interval, Sir Thomas Bodley appeared to be eaves-dropping (listening-in uninvited) on this romantic conversation!
The interval was cheered by hot apple juice and brandy (hooray!). So, on with the performance:
The brandy in the interval was a good idea because, as the sky darkened and the lights were trained on the stage, the rain started again. *sigh* The actors bravely continued, delivering their lines in defiance of the hair sticking to their faces and the costumes turning black with water.
It wasn't the most poetic rendition of Hamlet that I have seen, but the stage-craft was excellent and it was definitely good entertainment which, in the Globe tradition, exploited the comedic elements and unhooked the play from its position as "literature" by making it truly a performance fit for the people. The setting was also glorious: architecture aside, there is something creepily magnificent about watching one of the great works of the English language being performed noisily in the usually silent confines of one of the world's greatest English language libraries. Did the volumes of Shakespeare, inside, shuffle a little on their shelves to hear the actors more clearly? I wonder!