Lots of Shakespeare

As part of our lesson plan involving seeing many of Shakespeare's plays performed, our class took a trip to Stratford-Upon Avon to see Shakespeare's birthplace, where he lived, and to see the Royal Shakespeare Company put on Macbeth.

Stratford is just over an hour's bus ride from Oxford, so we departed right after class and ended up at Shakespeare's birthplace. Then we walked over to the house next to the house where Shakespeare used to live (his actual house was torn down; archeologists have been digging up the foundation) and then to the house of his doctor friend. Due to the RSC being around, there were also a lot of props from Shakespeare's productions over the years with many references to the actors who have played in the RSC plays, such as David Tennant (As You Like It, Hamlet, among many others), Patrick Stewart (Macbeth, Hamlet, among many others), and Ian McKellen (King Lear, probably among others). There was also the awesome Shakespeare's First Folio, open to display Henry V.

We visited the site where Shakespeare was buried, located inside a very old church from the 1200's. It was a very pretty church, and Shakespeare was buried next to his family and friends, which was nice. (I won't go into the whole R & G Are Dead thing about being dead in a box...)

I had been looking forward to seeing a production put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company, though I was a little disappointed at their Macbeth--apparently they can be very hit or miss. There were no witches, just ghostly children, so some of the more famous scenes and lines were cut. There was a LOT of religious imagery. The actors were not particularly good. And yet...the lighting and music gave the play a wonderfully creepy atmosphere. Particularly the music, supplied by three cellos, which was creepy and beautifully haunting at the same time, especially during the ending sequence after Macbeth's death where he rises, a ghost, and walks into the darkness, with nothing but the cellos playing in the background. So, a bit disappointing but with some great directorial choices.

I'm excited for the next RSC production we see, Cardenio. It's directed by Gregory Doran, who directed the Hamlet with David Tennant and did some excellent work with the story. So I have faith that this should be very good.

Then we got home, not too late because the bus driver apparently drove really fast, and today I head off the Edinburgh on an overnight bus trip. Should be...interesting, to say the least.