Sunshine!

I woke up Thursday to bright, sunny skies (!), so Terry and I went for a run before the weather even thought about changing :-). Lucky for us, we discovered the Oxford Canal Path, which is yet another great run in this city. We ran right along the water and the many houseboats into the more rural fields right outside the city proper, crossing adorable bridges and locks to stay on the path. We have decided there simply isn't a better way to start your day in this city than an early morning run before rush hour hits and soon thereafter, the tour buses. We got back in time for breakfast (bran flakes and yogurt--yum!) and then I got ready for our class discussion on RSC's production of Midsummer. We all admired the production, but we still managed to debate and describe various details of it for 2 hours. I left class still loving the production, excited about seeing The Globe's version, but still less than inspired about a topic for my paper due Monday.

Annie's awesome friend, Liz, has been in town this week, so we all met up for a picnic in University Parks in an effort to again take advantage of the sunshine. Saw some sweet boys in school uniforms buying lunch at the Crepes truck in the park and just had to take a picture :-)

2:30 rolled around quickly, and our class once again boarded the Bard bus. This time, however, we were headed to London and The Globe. Our bus driver took us straight through the city, so we actually enjoyed a fun tour of London before ever arriving on the South Bank of the Thames. Most of us headed to the Tate Modern before dinner to check out their huge collection. Dad, I saw some works by Picasso--pretty intriguing. Perhaps the most original piece I saw was a collection of different soaps (different colors, different widths) that were threaded through a stainless steel wire and hung from the ceiling. We all had fun trying to pick out which brands were which in the chain. Yes, we are about to graduate from graduate school-scary, huh?

Ali, Jessie, Lizzie, Terry, and I found a perfect cafe for dinner, where we enjoyed smoothies, pizzas, and calzones. My pizza had a super thin crust with lots of basil and fresh tomatoes, which took me back to my European Adventure Tour with Nina in 2001--I ate a lot of cheeseless Margarita pizzas back in the day. Good, good times.

We then headed to The Globe--my first time seeing it! I loved it. There is a fairly big entry space with a great giftshop (Brittany, I saw the posters you got for me a few years ago--thanks again!), but then you head back outside to go into the actual theatre, which is much smaller than I had pictured. It feels very intimate inside, actually, and I liked being able to see almost everyone else in the audience; it made the experience of watching the play feel much more communal. The open air ceiling was also incredible--we actually saw a few planes fly overhead during the performance, and I loved the clear tension between being transported back to Elizabethan England but also living in the 21st century. For this production, a huge white balloon was suspended in the middle of this open air space (to represent the moon), which somehow seemed to help bridge the gap between the two worlds (1600's/modern, outside/inside) for me. The space for the "groundlings" was also a brilliant part of Shakespeare's design--people were leaning on the stage and were in the midst of the action, especially when the actors ran down the voms and out the main theatre doors. It's just 5 pounds ($10) to buy a ticket for this standing section.

The play began with a little friendly drumming competition to get everyone's attention, and then Theseus and Hippolyta entered. From the very beginning of the play, I liked these two characters much more than I did in Stratford. I took lots of notes at the beginning and during all of the scenes with T & H in preparation for my paper, which I am definitely going to write on The Globe production. I especially loved seeing a production in which Theseus and Hippolyta double as Oberon and Titania, which I had heard was a popular way to stage the play but had never seen before. It definitely added another layer of meaning to the intersection of Athens and forest in this play. The colors in this production also stood out: all of the characters were wearing black at the beginning, then the forest was dominated with blues and hot pinks, and then the wedding scene at the end featured all of the characters (including the mechanicals) in pure white. Evolution of the play from a tragedy to a comedy, perhaps?

The rest of the play was fantastic--totally different than RSC's, but equally as impressive. It was not nearly as funny to me, but some of that may be because a lot of the jokes were performed in the same way and thus weren't as original and revealing to me. The entire staging seemed much more "authentic" to what the play probably originally looked like, so I appreciated seeing that, but in the end, RSC's production will probably stick with me more. It is simply hard to beat.

Returned home around 12:15 and, after writing down a few final thoughts, fell asleep.

Today is another sunny, gorgeous day (hurray!), and I enjoyed another great run and yoga routine this morning before class. We are now free from obligations until Monday morning, so it looks like this weekend is going to include: writing Midsummer paper (due Monday), drafting King Lear paper (due the next Monday, but Clay will be here--YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!--so I want to get as much work done as possible beforehand), a hiking trip to the Cotswolds, and some reading. Clay gets here Tuesday, and I can't wait to see him and experience this gorgeous place with him.

Happy Weekend and Love to All!