The Tempest and London x 2

This post is long overdue, but one of the most amazing parts of my study abroad experience so far has been going to see The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe in London. It was so good, I went back to see it again! Seeing a play at the Globe has been on my bucket list for a long time, so when someone had an extra standing ticket for opening night (23 April, also Shakespeare's birthday and death day), I scooped it up and booked tickets to London on a whim. A major motivating factor, beyond seeing a play at the Globe, was that Colin Morgan (Merlin from the BBC series) is in the cast. He's one of my favourite actors and a total babe!

The view from my tree I settled by to read for a bit

So I went down to London for the day, and it was some of the best weather London had seen in a while. I hung out in Kensington Gardens for most of the afternoon, which was lovely. I really love the Kensington area of London, and it was so nice to sit out in the sun, watch kids playing football and frisbee and see the gardens.

Peter Pan, my main bro for life

This picture is most for my mum, the heron was literally a foot away from me at one point!

Such a beautiful day in the gardens

I headed over to my hostel in Bankside before heading to the Globe to get in the queue around 5.30 (we were queuing so early because we weren't sure when to get there to be close to the stage). And we were smart about it, because we were RIGHT next to the stage, a bit to the right of centre! Seriously, it was so, so amazing. It's completely changed how I think about theatre, and rekindled my love of Shakespeare and theatre. The way the actors interact with the audience, who are literally right at their feet, is so different and refreshing from a typical theatre experience. And I throughly believe seeing Shakespeare in the original context of how it would have been performed is far superior than reading the text for class or even seeing it in a regular theatre.

A (very blurry) picture of my view of the stage!

The cast was BRILLIANT, all of them. I hadn't seen the Tempest before, so I'm not sure about how it usually comes across on stage, but their casting and staging were hilarious!! It's not meant to be a comedy, but you can get so many different puns and jokes from the script when it's performed live, and the relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda was very well done, extremely funny. Ferdinand had a cheeky boyish charm in the best way that made their flowering love quite funny, and Prospero's rolling eyes and orchestrated interventions in their relationship came off quite hilarious. And Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo were obviously hilarious, especially since they were the ones most often interacting with the audience in the front row. Colin Morgan is seriously such an amazing actor as well, he was so in character as Ariel the whole time I didn't even think of him as Colin Morgan or Merlin, and he made himself seem like this ethereal, birdlike spirit of the wind, not a human. And he tried to attack me with a demon dog prop as well, so that was exciting :-p

Colin Morgan as Ariel, photo credit to Marc Brenner for the Globe

Miranda, Prospero, and Ferdinand, photo credit to Marc Brenner for the Globe

Since I went opening night, there were a few little blunders along the way, but it was still a spectacular production. I was on cloud nine for days afterwards, and bought tickets to go back to see it the moment I got back to York. I already had to go back to London to go to the US Embassy at that point, so I figured I might as well go see the Tempest again! Honestly, it's £5 for a standing ticket, which is less than many cinemas, and the quality of entertainment is so high, so why not??

The Natural History Museum

So on 7 May I was back in London! I spent the day in Kensington again, this time I went to the Natural History Museum, which has an AMAZING dinosaur display, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was really cool to see the V&A as an art history student as well, since I've seen so many of their online videos about production methods for different materials and such for classes. It was quite huge though, and a bit overwhelming haha.

Sooo many dinosaurs, it was a dream come true.

Entryway to the V&A

Guess what I wrote an essay on for Islamic art? This here manuscript, it's one of the largest in the world WOOOO

The V&A!

I got in the queue for the Globe around 5.50 after picking up my tickets, and there were far fewer people in front of me this time compared to last time. I got a spot right next to the stage, this time to the left of centre, and met a few other Americans who were there by themselves. One of them just graduated from CMU and we knew some of the same people from Midland, so that was quite funny! Another is from MSU and was studying abroad in France, so many Michigan people all over the place haha. So it was really great to make some new friends while we waited for the show to start.

It was even better the second time around, they'd worked out some of the kinks in production and it was just as funny and enthralling as the first time. And this time, I was even more involved in the show, as Caliban "killed" me at one point! He was miming how Stefano should kill Prospero to free him, and he all of a sudden was grabbing my head, and whacking me with his hand as a rock and nail (it kind of hurt a little haha but it was still so cool!) At later when Stefano was actually holding the nail and rock, he lurched at me with them saying "I begin to have bloody thoughts!" And there was one point when Caliban and Stefano were talking about the voices and music on the island, and a helicopter flew over and they had this wonderful improv scene about the sound of it and it was hilarious.

Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo being fools haha, photo credit to Marc Brenner for the Globe

After the show was over, I yet again was on cloud nine, and I walked to the London Bridge station with the girl from CMU, and gave her a mini tour of Bankside, after which she told me I should be a tour guide, so that was pretty cool haha. Maybe I'll just become a travel agent? The next morning I got myself over to the National Gallery, the last museum on my to-do list for London, and that was AMAZING. I think between all the museums I've been to on study abroad, I've seen 2/3 of the works we studied for Seventeenth Century Art, so that's pretty cool! And lots of Impressionists, the only things that matter in life. So I'm officially done with London (for this trip at least), and I've seen almost everything I wanted to (Abbey Road and Baker Street are the only exceptions). And I definitely highly recommend the last hostel I stayed, Palmer's Lodge Swiss Cottage. It's a two minute walk from the tube station, free breakfast, tea, and wifi, and it's in an old manor house, complete with a suit of armor! Can't beat that! Seriously, it's so nice, the nicest one I've been at and not that pricey at all.

This doesn't even look like a hostel, it's like a museum.

And go see a play at the Globe if you have a chance! Don't worry about not being able to follow the language and plot if you don't know the play, or being bored, this isn't like reading if for English class haha. The Globe museum is really great as well as the theatre tour, and they're always doing really cool stuff there, like productions with original pronunciation. And for funsies, some cats insulting you with Shakespeare haha.