Preparation took the form of reading the wikipedia entry, which told us that we had a tale of torrid & tragic love. And the poster told us that we had some tasteful nudity, although the claim for artistic necessity was rather weakened by the thought that actresses did not exist in England (at least not in licensed premises) at time the play was written. Perhaps to be truly authentic we should have all male nudity - and see what that does for the takings!
Interested to see two Muslim girls in hoods in the school party which occupied a good chunk of the upper gallery. It was not OK for us to see their hair but it was OK for them to see an unrelated male nude. Did they get their mullah to rule on the matter?
Presently normal, that is to say too long, running time at three hours with interval, which meant that the first half seemed a bit long. Second half better. Not helped by the rather uncomfortable seats and slightly distracted by a chandelier between me and the front left hand part of the stage. We learned along the way that snuffing candles with one of those conical snuffers makes as much smell as blowing them out, unlike the much less smelly wet fingered touch.
The translation and staging, as ever with old material, something of a compromise between authenticity, practicality and comprehensibility. I found some of the updating rather tiresome, for example a banner proclaiming 'Happy Birthday' strung across the back of the stage for Soranzo's birthday party. As far as the theatre itself was concerned, the Globe people had clearly given it a lot of thought, all explained in the programme, with a full complement of advisory committees, but they were not helped by the state of knowledge shifting as the project went along. In any event, as they say, the result is another compromise, but one which I think gives one as good a feel for an early 17th century playhouse as one can reasonably expect. Even if it is rather uncomfortable by modern standards and even if one would not want to be fat at seat number A17.
We also have a feel for revenge tragedy from the same time. Interesting to have seen, but I doubt whether we shall make a habit of it. Rather thin fare, despite the gore, after the immortal bard.
I close with two unrelated luvvie thoughts.
First, the Catholic Church clearly shares my unease at the whole business of acting, to the extent that the French branch used to deny actors both the sacraments in life and the consecrated ground in death. This at a time when people like Molière were allowed to hob-nob with royalty.
Second, there are limits to realism. So if one is portraying a bore on the stage, it does not do to be boring, one has to point the thing up a bit, make a bit of a performance of it. To turn reality into a story, to give reality some meaning in a story. Which is why, I guess, that a lot of reality TV is so terribly dull, once one has got over the rather childish fun of seeing people making prats of themselves on the box.
But what would a real Richard III make of the pretend one on stage? Would he be annoyed that an actor made a much better fist of looking like a thug than he, a real one, did? Or would he watch to learn how to turn in a better performance himself?
Home via the shiny new version of Blackfriars Station, which would have been a good wheeze, despite all the stairs from embankment level, had we not just missed one train and then missed our connection at Sutton on the one we did catch. But at least a railway station on a bridge with prior railway connections seems a lot more sensible than a garden with full sized trees on a brand new bridge.
Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/sir-gawain.html.
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