My First Stratford Shakespeareance

I am sorry it has taken me so long to report about our first trip to Stratford on Thursday night! Wow, seeing Merchant of Venice in Shakespeare's home town was pretty powerful even though the play itself toed the line in terms of portraying MofV as a controversial text. The actors downplayed the religious, sexual, and racial issues that we spent so much time discussing in class; rather, they emphasized the ambiguity that so characterizes the play. Is Shylock a villain or victim? Is Antonio in love with Bassanio? Why does Portia love Bassanio? Is Portia racist? I was eager to see how the players dealt with these interpretive decisions and while I was a little disappointed that they didn't really seem to deal with them at all, I also felt that they illuminated the minor characters for me. I had trouble "seeing" Graziano, Lancelot, Lorenzo, Jessica, and Nerissa in my reading of the play, but the actors portraying these characters stole the show. Their lines were infused with humor, eloquence, and emotion, and I really appreciated their reading of these often overlooked characters. The set was strikingly bare throughtout the play until the powerful courtroom scene, when they set up an altar as the space on which Antonio was to be sacrificed. They also depicted Portia's Belmont as an ice castle, complete with ice caskets and modern effects and music--still deciding what I think about that. My favorite actor in the play was definitely the woman who played Portia, and lucky for us she is the one our class gets to have dinner with on Monday night before seeing A Midsummer Night's Dream. Our professor is making dinner for us and we get to talk one-on-one with a pretty distinguished and talented Shakespearian actor--how lucky are we?? Click here if you want to see a trailer for the play, some images from the play, and more: http://www.rsc.org.uk/WhatsOn/6914.aspx

Stratford itself is charming--a mini-Shakespeare world. Before the play Jessie, Ali, Terri, Adam, and I wandered our way through the streets, grabbed a drink at a pub, and then ate dinner at Thai Kingdom before the show. We were definitely loving life. By the way, the sheer number of thai and indian restaurants here in England is astounding; I feel like I am in culinary heaven.

We have our first paper due on Monday: a description and justification of how we would stage the opening moments of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's a great assignment and I am having fun with it. We have four papers total this summer, which is very manageable. We continue to love our professor, Miriam Gilbert, who is both super smart and wonderfully considerate.

Next play: A Midsummer Night's Dream on Monday at the Courtyard. Hooray!