WE SAW SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE ON SUNDAY!!!!!!!! For those of you who know me, I
absolutely love Shakespeare. I think the plays are absolutely genius (except for Romeo and Juliet - what a ripoff that one was), and I've been reading them since I was in fourth grade. I have seen very few of them in performance though. I have gone to many Shakespeare performances, but they all happened to be A Midsummer Night's Dream. I have booked tickets to see Henry IV at the Globe next weekend though. A Midsummer Night's Dream was also playing, but I didn't want to see that for the ninth time. I have no idea what Henry IV is about, but at least it is new.
Anyway, the Globe. We got a tour from Gerard. He was absolutely fabulous - if you ever take a tour at the Globe, request him! The tour was very informational. We learned about
how the audience was set up in Shakespeare's days, and how similar it is today. There is standing room in the bottom, for 700 people to squish in right in front of the stage. Then, there are stands surrounding the stage (it's a circular, open-topped building, with only the stands and the stage covered). The best stands, on the sides of the stage, are painted and have cushioned chairs. This is where the nobility would have sat, since part of going to a play was to be seen, if you were fancy and rich. One of the first things our guide asked us was if anyone knew the fate of the first Globe theater. I practically shouted "It was burned down by a cannon!" (I know, I know, I'm such a Shakespeare nerd). He seemed a bit taken aback, but I could not tell if that is because he did not expect an answer, or if he was just shocked at my enthusiasm. it was barely nine in the morning, and most of my peers were barely awake, so that's fair. Either way, he delved into the story of why the theater decided to fire a canon in the theater (their reasoning was quite flawed, as you could imagine). He then pointed out the current roof of the theater - it is
straw, covered in moss. The London fire of 1666 burned down so many buildings because nearly all buildings had that kind of roof back then. Native Londoners have since learned, and the Globe is the only building allowed to have such a roof now. That just made it all the more exciting to see! There were sprinklers in the roof, to keep the moss alive, and also to keep the roof damp enough that another fire of 1666 wouldn't happen. As we were exiting the theater, I saw a piece of moss on the floor, and I was sorely tempted to take it. But I can't even keep moss alive, so that was that. But how cool is that - when pieces of the Globe's roof falls off, it's just displaced plant matter, but when shingles or something falls off a normal building, you'd better watch out so as to not get a concussion!
It was freezing outside (which, actually, has been very rare on this trip - we've had remarkably good weather), so we decided to spend some time in the Tate Modern museum. Oh man, was there some weird stuff in there. I mean, I'm not into art, but I think even if you were, you would think some of this was very weird. There was a model, by Kader Attia, of a city Ghardaia, made of cooked couscous. There was a collage made from posters Mimmo Rotella ripped from walls. What I don't get about that is a) how is that art? and b) the artists who created the posters do not get any credit from Rotella, but the did more work for this piece than did the person who just ripped them all up and glued them together. Another piece that confused me was basically a wide ladder with a bunch of hanks o wool tangled over the rungs. Art? Apparently. Jannis Kounellis apparently "made this sculpture when he was starting to work with unconventional "nonart" materials." I'll give him that. This certainly looks like "nonart" to me. There was also piece that was made to resemble an abstract painting, but was made of woven, flattened bottle caps. It actually looked pretty cool, and reminded me of the metal dress I saw in Scotland (in my first post). It seems like something I would be assigned to do in a studio class. There was a really cool installation piece, that was made of a bunch of window blinds handing from the ceiling. It's hard to tell what it's made of, until you get really close, so that is cool. I especially liked this piece because it reminded me of the dress I made out of woven window blinds. It's kind of fun to make stuff out of unusual materials, and then see what other people have done with the same materials. Perhaps my favorite piece in the entire museum was Red Flocked Wall 1969, by Keith Sonnier, and was made by "painting latex directly onto the wall of the gallery and peeling most of it away." That's just such a unique way of making something! I mean, I don't know that I would call it art exactly, but it definitely seems like a fun way to spend an afternoon. There were two more pieces, both made by Mrinalini Mukherjee. She wove and knotted hemp rope together to make the pieces shown in the last four pictures below. Maybe they speak to some people, but they just look like a mess to me. I suppose that's the point of art though: to some people they have a deeper meaning, and to others they're just a waste of space. You need the stuff that you don't like, so that when you find something good, you really appreciate it.
We also saw Tower Bridge (which is arguably the most iconic London landmark). We got to walk in the elevated walkways, which had chunks of glass floors, so you could see all the way below you. I quite enjoyed that part.
Tower Bridge is not to be confused with the Tower of London, which we also saw. The Tower of London was basically a castle crossed with a museum, not a tower. I saw the armor for Henry Stuart, the Lost Prince. It was shockingly small (obviously, it was meant for a child), and actually quite beautiful; there was gold detailing over the whole piece. I also saw this salade (which is a type of medieval helmet) covered with velvet, and another samurai outfit (these just keep popping up!). There was also a driver's coat and a drummer's raincoat, worn by Ordnance employees. The Board of Ordnance was part of the British Government during Tudor, and basically protected forts and provided ammunition to the military. The people who wore these coats "represented the Board of Ordnance's public face and they were dressed appropriately. Uniform coats could cost as much as 50 pounds (nearly 4,000 pounds today)."
We headed back to Oxford today, after those final sights and experiences. When we got back, I was so exhausted that I barely ate food before collapsing into bed. I hadn't realized how exhausting it was to be going going going all weekend long. Also, not having a moment of alone time (since I was staying in a room of 8 girls at the hostel) really takes it out of a person. I slept really well that night.