Back to Stratford

I am so, so behind on blogging. This week has been packed with experience. It started off not-so-great. I had a huge issue with the topic for the term-long essay we have to do--the essay that's worth about four credits in itself. Not having a working topic is not good. I did get through the trauma...I just had to start over. A little stressful. Ok, quite stressful. The essay is due in four weeks, but now my topic will work. I hope.

The week went on to better things. Fantastic things actually. I went back to Stratford for the whole weekend. My dear friends Lissy and Janice whom I met the last time I was there had me stay with them and see Twelfth Night at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The show was so uniquely done--the ending projected a deep and unsettling melancholy I haven't seen in other interpretations.

But the show was only the beginning. Lissy and I stalked the door where the actors came out and got almost all their autographs. Then we went to the Dirty Duck pub where the actors relax after shows and had a fantastic conversation with Pamela Nomvete who played Maria. She is from South Africa and so is Lissy. She spoke with us for about half an hour and was absolutely lovely. Lissy is going to be applying for drama school in London and elsewhere, so Pam talked to her about getting into acting.

I told her that I was studying Shakespeare at Oxford, and we started discussion my impressions of the way they had interpreted the ending. Her face got really animated as she listened to the questions their performance had raised in my mind. She told me about preproduction and how those choices had been made. She seemed extremely gratified when I told her that I saw the play in a completely different light after seeing the show.

And now I get to put my conclusions into words in my next essay for my Shakespeare tutorial. I tell ya--it's so hard doing my homework here. Absolute misery, believe me. Research is a total drag---attending live performances of Shakespeare: drudgery.

And I just laugh.