Day 25 Stratford (Thursday 12 April)
Bad first
This was another modern dress performance, allowing the setting (where the Duke of Ephesus has just ruled than any Syracusan caught in his city will be put to death) to be translated into a modern openly repressive regime, complete with soldiers/cops in riot gear with machine guns, loudspeakers, bright lights in faces, incongruous musical processions, and casual torture of suspects (the first few minutes of the play, as the duke interrogates an unfortunate Syracusan merchant - the master twins' father, searching for them). That opening turned a lot of people's stomachs, including mine, watching this old man being shoved face down into an ornamental fish tank, over and over. Later re-use of the same torture took some of the chill off it, and turned it to comedy, as the Ephesus twin's wife interrogated her sister (whom the visiting twin, mistaken for the husband, had taken an instant fancy to): the scene ended with the wife dunking herself to control her desire to scream with rage and frustration.
The wife (who played Sebastian the night before) was the most wonderful harridan (a gorgeous and sexy one), but besotted with the husband she's so jealous of: a marvellous comic performance. (Her husband, going off with a prostitute in a snit, had better watch his step now he's home, though.) Her little sister (literally; I hadn't realised that the actress (Miranda the night before) was so tiny - Miranda was always sitting on high things) was also a fun performance. The contrast between the sister's heights, as between the master twin brothers', did its bit for the fun.
It all worked out in the end, of course, though there's no hint that the duke's regime will become less repressive. The director never let you forget for long how dangerous it was to live in this place. There were some very gruey moments in among the comedy. (And historically, of course, that might be a fair enough reflection of Elizabethan society generally, if one got on the wrong side of authority. There's textual authority for all of it.)
I coughed as much as the night before, but all the bursts of laughter covered it much better! And I was so taken up with the play that I didn't have too much attention to spare for physical discomfort. It was a great night out.
Both plays ran for around two hours, including the interval, so the texts must have been lavishly cut. I feel no particular impulse, just now, to check what was cut, though it'll be interesting to see if I can identify what's been taken out from the last play of the three, Twelfth Night, which I know much better.
So. On the whole, a very good day.
Hey, today is very misty, so I wonder what that rain is planning? And how pleasant it is, knowing my landlady won't want to do the room unless I ask her: I can just relax, and go out when I feel like it.
- Yes, there may be a cold cure, but you can't have it: I don't know why I bothered to trek across to Boots to ask for something to discourage my sinuses from working so hard. They offered me things for allergies (this is a cold, a heavy cold; I know what my allergic reactions feel like, thank you, and it's not like this); for a dried-up nose (would that it were!); for a dry cough (the cough works just fine, thanks). If it's a cold, it's hung on for a long time: ten days (really? I've had a cold lasting for more than a month before, and that's what I'm afraid of this time). However, you can't have anything decongestant, because it would put your blood pressure up (even though it's a very low dose? - yes. I didn't bother to say that at present my doctors are more concerned it might go down than up - that passing out thing). Bah. Perhaps I'll go back and buy their allergy stuff and hope it does some good.
- It rained! It actually rained on me. This rather dictated my choice of where to have a cup of coffee/ lunch/whatever. I went hastily into Carluccio's, on Riverside opposite the Swan Theatre, and found it a good choice: the mushroom soup was excellent, and the (allegedly small) glass of wine I had afterwards, to put off going into the rain, was not only okay, but was unthinkably generous for most restaurants. I may lunch there Saturday before I hit the road for Birmingham. It also rained while I was going home from the theatre, but I had my umbrella, and an extra warm layer under my rain jacket, so apart from all the panting and puffing, that was okay too. I was warmed up fast enough once I was in my room.
- Lunch, see above.
- The extra warm layer: I've been sorry that I left my polar fleece in London, though putting one long-sleeved Tshirt over the other, under my rain jacket, keeps out a lot of the cold - but the fleece would have been awkward under the jacket anyway. So, as Stratford has its share of charity shops, I decided to see if I could find a padded vest, to be an extra layer that wouldn't make me feel like a roly-poly woolly bear when I had it all on. The third charity shop had something acceptable: a gent's vest, in a pleasantly slidy sort of material, not padded, but lined with something fleecy, though not the sort that comes off on your clothes in little bits of fluff. I'd rather it had a zip up the front, to be easier to get on and off, but it probably looks better as a pull-over-your-head. It was also new, therefore unworn, so I didn't need to worry if I should wash it before wearing it. It may not be super elegant, but it's efficient, and the colour is a pleasant blue that looks well with my jeans. Satisfactory.
- The play. The Comedy of Errors is a riff on confused identity: two sets of twins (one master, one man) separated at birth, reunited in farcical circumstances, with no one realising there were two of each, rather than the one all of Ephesus knew. I still remember fondly a musical version the RSC did of this, many years ago, long before the days when there might have been a DVD recording, alas.
This was another modern dress performance, allowing the setting (where the Duke of Ephesus has just ruled than any Syracusan caught in his city will be put to death) to be translated into a modern openly repressive regime, complete with soldiers/cops in riot gear with machine guns, loudspeakers, bright lights in faces, incongruous musical processions, and casual torture of suspects (the first few minutes of the play, as the duke interrogates an unfortunate Syracusan merchant - the master twins' father, searching for them). That opening turned a lot of people's stomachs, including mine, watching this old man being shoved face down into an ornamental fish tank, over and over. Later re-use of the same torture took some of the chill off it, and turned it to comedy, as the Ephesus twin's wife interrogated her sister (whom the visiting twin, mistaken for the husband, had taken an instant fancy to): the scene ended with the wife dunking herself to control her desire to scream with rage and frustration.
The wife (who played Sebastian the night before) was the most wonderful harridan (a gorgeous and sexy one), but besotted with the husband she's so jealous of: a marvellous comic performance. (Her husband, going off with a prostitute in a snit, had better watch his step now he's home, though.) Her little sister (literally; I hadn't realised that the actress (Miranda the night before) was so tiny - Miranda was always sitting on high things) was also a fun performance. The contrast between the sister's heights, as between the master twin brothers', did its bit for the fun.
It all worked out in the end, of course, though there's no hint that the duke's regime will become less repressive. The director never let you forget for long how dangerous it was to live in this place. There were some very gruey moments in among the comedy. (And historically, of course, that might be a fair enough reflection of Elizabethan society generally, if one got on the wrong side of authority. There's textual authority for all of it.)
I coughed as much as the night before, but all the bursts of laughter covered it much better! And I was so taken up with the play that I didn't have too much attention to spare for physical discomfort. It was a great night out.
Both plays ran for around two hours, including the interval, so the texts must have been lavishly cut. I feel no particular impulse, just now, to check what was cut, though it'll be interesting to see if I can identify what's been taken out from the last play of the three, Twelfth Night, which I know much better.
So. On the whole, a very good day.
Hey, today is very misty, so I wonder what that rain is planning? And how pleasant it is, knowing my landlady won't want to do the room unless I ask her: I can just relax, and go out when I feel like it.