Here I be, safe and sound, and in London!
My God it is COLD.
We went to Frost Fest this afternoon at the Globe Theater. It was a
little midway and some craft and food booths along the Thames. We ate
roasted pork sandwiches and hot chocolate and sang along with the
carolers. This is the 400th (!) anniversary of Guy Fawkes and the
infamous Gunpowder Plot, so the Globe and a lot of other London
attractions have exhibits going.
I didn’t take the globe tour, though, because I didn’t have my
camera, and I’ve never been, and I wanted to have pictures dammit.
So. But they had a little arts/crafts fair inside the theater
exhibition area, and that was fun to wander. We’ll go back and do
the theater tour once the entire family arrives, since I’m sure they’ll want to check it out as well.
It was exceptionallly cool to read some of the stuff on the mentality behind the productions at the globe, and how they construct costumes, sounds, staging, and such. There were exhibits on reproducing Elizabethan
“special effects” on stage, too. The groundings play such a huge
role, which I’d never really thought about. In an open air theater
like that, the audience is highly visible to the actors and to each
other, so that completely changes how they experience a play. It isn’t
a darkened, individual experience. It completely changes it for the
actors, too.
I’m very impressed that the Globe is still doing productions with
all-male casts sometimes. Not ALL the time, but still, that is
the historic reality and I applaud them for putting on productions in a style that is completely alien to modern audiences. Reading between the lines, the audience sometimes has
difficulty taking tragedies seriously when the hero is dying in the
arms of some dude in a dress. But the Globe puts as positive a spin
on it as they can and keeps going. It’s neat.
OMG the costumes. WOW. I got to see a few. It was this tiny cube of
a room and I could have spent an hour in there. Apparenlty
Janet Arnold, the Ren costuming goddess, was one of the primary
consultants and was intimately involved in the Globe when they were
just getting started. It makes me feel better, somehow, because I’ve
heard snooty types say there are historical inaccuracies in the
construction of Janet Arnold’s patterns, but come on, the body of her
research deserves respect, and I’m glad the Globe worked with her. It
makes me feel completely comfortable recommending her stuff to
absolutely anyone looking for Renaissance costuming resources.
We’re getting ready to go to eat dinner, and I’m mooching an internet
connection off of a neighbor. The flat we are staying in is unbelievable. We’re in a
really tosh part of London. I just hope the
heater is adequate - they’re assuring me it will warm up this week,
but it is currently at most about 20 degrees outside.
Sooooo tired.
Leave a Reply