For a number of years I had the pleasure of being the research assistant to Edward Berry, a professor in UVic's English department whose focus, among other things, was Shakespeare. He taught a course that was a joint offering called "Language Against Law: The Rhetoric of Civil Disobedience," which studied famous speeches from literature on the subject (think Antigone, Billy Budd) and real speeches, by Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, even the Clayoquot Sound protesters. I loved going to Ed's house and having an espresso in his kitchen and talking literature.
Before I moved to England for the first time, Ed and his wife visited London. We joked about how expensive everything in England was, especially at that time, in 2004, when the Canadian dollar was so abysmally low and the British pound so strong. He joked that he and his wife had often popped into Tesco to buy a roast chicken for dinner rather then eating out in London's pricey and not-very-palatable restaurants. A chicken cost 7 pounds and 50 pence at that time, I think, and he said that pretty soon, they started pricing everything in "chickens." A day pass on the tube, he explained, would cost "half-a-chicken." His wife had seen some cute shoes that were ten chickens.
Ed gave me a fabulous little book on London as a goodbye present, and had tucked into the book two "chickens," which he noted would get be a standing ticket to the Globe Theatre. Sadly, until this Wednesday, I had never gotten to see a performance at the Globe, although I had walked by many times. I was working away on Friday afternoon when an email came round from a colleague who had a ticket to see Troilus and Cressida, but couldn't go, and said the first person to email her back would get the ticket for free. This is a common practice when people have to work late at my office. I often reply, but never win. Anyways, I emailed back, saying "I'm probably too late, but..." and she replied right away, saying, "Not at all...well done you! But you'll have to leave here by 6:30 to make it." I looked at the pile of work on my desk, back to the computer screen, back to the work, and...grabbed my bag and hightailed it out of my office right away, and off to Bankside and the Globe.
My seat was not a standing seat down with the plebs, but in one of the seated boxes, which was fortunate as it was somewhat rainy. For 1 pound I rented a cushion to place on the wooden bench seat, and settled in for a great 3 hours of theatre, as the sun began to set. Troilus and Cressida is a problem play; labelled a tragedy, except no one dies. Love just sort of...fizzles away with no explanation. Which I guess is the tragedy (it's certainly a modern tragedy), but hardly tragic compared to Romeo and Juliet's deaths, or Macbeth's fate. The play disappeared after being published in the first years of the 17th century and has only enjoyed a staging revival since 1922, as the play emphasizes the pointlessness of the Trojan War and the empty nature of heroism, which somehow struck a chord with a post-World War One audience. Cressida is also a great heroine, mouthy, headstrong, and very modern in her approach to relationships: she is an independent woman and a sexual being, unconstrained by social conventions like marriage.
The production was long, but there were innovatively choreographed fight scenes, music provided by a live "band," and, um, lots of handsome young men running around stripped to waist in togas, as Trojans and Greeks, to keep me occupied. Most of all, I was just happy to be sitting there in the Globe at last, soaking up the atmosphere, watching the crowds mill about around the stage, watch those of us in the seats lean over the rafters to get closer to the action.
And it didn't even cost me a chicken.
Inside the Globe...horrible Blackberry photo, but was unprepared.
I'm finally here (hair curly due to rain!)