In the second act of Hamlet, Polonius divides the parts actors play into "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited". We had a bit of all of those in our day in Stratford. Still, first let me assure you, gentle readers, that the "tragical" parts were all upon the stage.
First, the pastoral. We went into Stratford for the first time Friday evening. It was pretty quiet, and we were even lucky enough to find a free parking space. In the "golden hour," as director David Lean called it, just before sunset, the town seemed lovely. Here is the river Avon with the Most Holy Trinity Church's spire in the background. Shakespeare is interred in that parish church.
And, speaking of Hamlet, here is Hamlet looking at Yorick's skull. It is a portion of a large Victorian sculpture in a park on the river.
We had dinner in a nice Indian restaurant which seemed to specialize in the cuisine of Goa, the former Portuguese colony in India. It was quite good - such an improvement from the awful fish and chips we had in Winchcombe the night before.
Returning to Stratford Saturday morning, things were not quite so pastoral. By 10 in the morning, the sidewalks were already so thick with people it was hard to walk. Most of these people were not here to see Shakespeare. On summer weekends, Stratford becomes Anaheim-upon-Avon, the Myrtle Beach of the Midlands. I did not see anybody with a huge cotton candy, but they would have fit in well. The river was covered with small rowboats and powerboats, and the swans had beat a retreat to the nature preserve on the other side of the bridge. Two motorcycle groups, including the local Hell's Angels chapter had converged on the city for the day, prompting the Warwickshire Constabulary to issue dire warning about possible violence. There was none, but it was a opportunity for the English to think about something other than their favorite obsession, Swine Flu.
We wanted to take a walking tour, but we either missed it or it was not schedule. Too bad - I would have loved to have seen the sights of Stratford with Harley-riding, heavily tattooed motorcycle mamas. Instead, we did some some of the sights on our own. Here is Shakespeare's grave in Holy Trinity and the monument placed to him on the wall about twenty years later.
Leaving the church, we stumbled upon a free production of Hamlet done by the Gloucestershire Youth Players. We were prepared to think, "Oh, how sweet! They're trying their best." But it turned out that some of the actors were very talented indeed and brought a lot of energy to their roles. Even I was impressed. Here is Hamlet, on the right, confronted by the ghost of his father.
We could not quite stay to the end, because we had tickets for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of All's Well That Ends Well. We had not planned on seeing the play, but on a whim we asked if there were seats to the afternoon performance. The lady at the box office sold us "view restricted" seats in the orchestra stall for 15 pounds. The seats were not perfect. The RSC is performing in a temporary facility as they build their new theater, and this theater does seem to have a lot of steel support beams to hold up the balconies. But the play was good - much better than we expected. Neither of us is a big fan of the comedies, and All's Well has a particularly convoluted and ludicrous plot. But the staging, the costumes, and, above all, the acting, were outstanding. That was definitely the comical part of the day.
And now for more tragical and historical. We had about a three hours to spare before the performance of our third Shakespeare play of the day, Julius Caesar. Since we had missed the final 30 minutes of Hamlet in order to arrive at the RSC production on time, we knew they were doing a second afternoon show. So we returned to the park and saw the end of the play.
But we still had a couple hours. So we decided to see a few more sights which we had missed. Here is the big one, Shakespeare's birth place.
Down by the river, the crowds had thinned a bit and there were fewer people out in boats.
We had a quick snack at the RSC's Cafe, and we watched Julius Caesar. There were some interesting things about the production including a percussion and brass ensemble performing newly-composed incidental music. The historical consultant had also worked on HBO's Rome, and it had that same kind of interpretation that Rome was a nasty place filled with despicable people. True, no doubt, but it made it hard for me to care when any of them were killed or killed themselves.
We drove by to London late at night. Getting from the M4 to Vicki and Jerry's house proved more complicated than expected, but we arrive safe and even found a parking space. All's well, indeed, that ends well.
