Stratford-upon-Avon (Day Trip 14/7/12)

I spent my Saturday in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown. I was there from 9 AM until 7 PM. I visited Shakespeare’s childhood home first. Pictures were not allowed inside the home, but this photo of the exterior shows the style and design of the house:

The First Folio was one of the coolest things at the site. It was on display before we entered the house. The item originates from the first printing of the text in 1623. Without this text, the massive influence of Shakespeare’s plays would be absent from our culture.

The house was decorated with genuine 16^th century items to resemble a typical 16^th century Stratford-upon-Avon home. I found it fascinating that the wallpaper was made from cloth and animal fat – it was quite beautiful! In the bedchambers, a guide crafted a detailed picture of Shakespeare’s life in that room by telling us about the experience of English boys in his time.  Shakespeare would have slept in the bed with his parents in infancy. He would move into a crib until he could walk. Then, he would have slept on a trundle bed beneath his parent’s bed until he could pass the candle test. If he could carry a candle without dropping it from his parent’s room into the next bedroom then he could sleep in his own room.

I signed the guestbook at the end of the tour. The past guestbooks have added value to visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace because of those who have signed it. Many famous writers, such as Charles Dickens, have visited the house. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited the house in 1786. Queen Elizabeth II has visited the house twice.

In the garden outside the home, actors in 16^th century garb were taking requests like DJs at parties. You would suggest a Shakespeare play and they would choose a scene from the play to perform. They were brilliant! They acted as Caliban, Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth. Then they performed a medley of scenes from The Taming of the Shrew. I thought it was interesting that the actress playing Kate performed her as a genuine and pious wife in her lengthy speech at the end of the play. Most of us in class thought of the speech as sarcastic, so it was interesting to see a different take on the character. Below, Petruccio carries Kate off in the comical wit-filled wooing scene:

At 1:15 PM, I saw a performance of The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Company. They followed the original script and only added or omitted small details. The costume and set, however, was modern and added a new dimension to the play. For example, Prospero and Ariel were both bald, similar complexion, and wore the exact same suit. I think this was done to imply that Ariel is in many ways an extension of Prospero. Ariel not only does everything that Prospero commands but also does things that Prospero does not command but would have desired to be done. They are very in tune; Ariel knows Prospero well enough that he can predict the commands that Prospero would have given him. The outfitting of these two characters allowed me to make that connection. It was also interesting that this interpretation of the play would sometimes disregard distinctions of race, gender, and age. Miranda and Prospero were not very far apart in age, if at all. In this case, I think this was more a factor of choosing the best actors for the roles because despite her apparent age, she was dressed to look young and wore clothes a teenager would wear. Sebastian was an attractive middle-aged woman in a hot pink dress and high heels. I liked this alteration to the play because it created an interesting Bonnie and Clyde-type dynamic between Sebastian and Antonio. And though this seems arbitrary, I think she was also used to add visual interest to the stage. She provided a pop of color in the scenes that would have otherwise been a group of men in suits. Casting Ferdinand as black and his father as white abolished our established expectations for racial boundaries. I think this was done to point out to the viewer how we label, define, and categorize people by their race. Their bold move made a statement about the arbitrariness of defining people by the color of their skin.

After the play, Anne Marie, Leslie, Annastasshia, Trinity, and I walked over to church where Shakespeare was buried. On the way, we walked through a park where we saw a group of young people (probably students) performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I thought that was cool because it really reinforced the feeling of being in Shakespeare’s town, where everyone knows who he is and thinks he is awesome! Here they are performing the last scene of the play. In this photo, Pyramus has just discovered (or so he thinks) that Thisbe is dead:

Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon was a bonus feature because I had no idea it would be so beautiful. It was a stone edifice with massive stained glass windows along the walls and high vaulted ceilings. Shakespeare is buried alongside his wife, Anne Hathaway, beneath the stone flooring near the altar. Here is a picture of his grave:

The church placed banners along the nave of the church that gave information about Shakespeare’s life and his religiousness. Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church a few days after his birth. It was pretty cool that I got to see where Shakespeare came into the world and where he left it within the same day.

After we left the church, we walked around Stratford-upon-Avon and got dinner. I was surprised by how small a town it really was. By approximately six o’clock in the evening, almost every store was closed. This visit made me realize that London is as expensive as it is because it is a metropolis and not just because of the brutal exchange rate. I got a soda, burger, and chips for four pounds, which is only about six dollars in the US. That’s a good deal anywhere!