1 October | The Globe

It is for nights like this that I wanted to come to London. (warning: an abundance of nerdiness follows in this post.)

Some of the students are taking a theater class at the Globe Theater, which is the theater for which Shakespeare wrote. The original building was demolished in 1644, but the current theater is an accurate reproduction of the original: round building, open air, still standing room only on the floor and wooden benches for the seats. Roscoe wanted everyone to see a production there, so tonight we all saw As You Like It—one of Shakespeare’s comedies.

I had a cold and was feeling chilly and a little miserable, but I was so excited that I didn’t really care. It felt incredible to be here, in this place where such a man of genius worked his magic with language. I have always loved Shakespeare’s work—he stands out to me as more than just a someone I know I am supposed to think is important because I am a literature nerd. It’s more: it’s how he makes language malleable, shapes it into art; makes the words more than just a combination of references, but instead invokes a sense of beauty and intricate order into his verse. In short, I like his style. I will try to stop being so moony about this.

The noisy theater quieted immediately when actors began to enter the stage, each carrying a huge drum and drumming ceremoniously to signal the start of the play. As You Like It begins with a solemn coronation, but it is definitely a comedy, and it actually is really funny. And not just in highbrow snobby way; Shakespeare knew that he had a bunch of rowdy drunk poor people in the crowd that he had to entertain as well. There is a lot of wit in the lines, but there are also penis jokes and a crucial boob grab (an important moment in the plot). The acting didn’t hurt either; one of the students was telling me that this acting company strives to keep the audience involved, so they look for moments in the play’s text when they can direct commentary to the audience. But besides this, the acting was so good that you wouldn’t have to be a reader of Shakespeare to be able to follow the plot or to enjoy the story.

One of my favorite characters was Jaques, a melancholy nobleman who wanders around in the woods in a bad mood all the time. He delivers some of the most famous lines of the play: a soliloquy that starts:

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts . . .

When I heard him speak those lines I instinctively smiled; I thought about how much of his language has survived hundreds of years and now we don’t think about how his words are now commonplace and we quote Shakespeare without even knowing it. This idea (that the world is a stage) wasn’t invented by Shakespeare, but it is his turn of phrase that we remember. At Cal State, there was a poster up in the English department office of all the commonplaces that we use in modern language that were written by Shakespeare. I think this is it: 

Have you "suffered from green-eyed jealousy"?

Do you ever remember being "tongue-tied" or "in a pickle"?

Have you ever been "a laughing stock"?

"If the truth were known" - You are quoting Shakespeare!

Have you "slept not one wink"?

Did you suspect "foul play" in an attempted "assassination"?

Were you waiting patiently as "the truth will out"?

Have you "stood on ceremony" and "insisted on fair play"?

"The more fool you"- You are quoting Shakespeare!"

How many have stubbornly "refused to budge an inch"?

Do you consider you are "more sinned against than sinning"?

Is it your habit to "act more in sorrow than in anger"?

Have you "knitted your brow" without "rhyme or reason"?

"For goodness sake"- You are quoting Shakespeare!

Can you be a "tower of strength" for your family?

Will you admit when it’s "too much of a good thing"?

Have you "seen better days"?

Did you ever consider something to be an "eyesore"?

"To give the devil his due" -You are quoting Shakespeare!

Reading this, did you "laugh yourself into stitches"?

Or wish you were "dead as a doornail"?

Is it "high time" to "send me packing"?

"To clear out bag and baggage" and "bid me good riddance"?

"Tut,tut", "the game is up" - You are quoting Shakespeare!

Anyways . . . sorry this post is getting a bit long and ridiculous . . . one more thing that stood out to me: One of the characters is in love with a woman, and spends his time writing love poems to her and pinning them to trees and bushes in the woods (I know, weird.). This opened the play right after the intermission, and the scene opened with him walking around and reading poems aloud . . . and then pieces of paper began falling from the rafters of the theater, hundreds of sheets, covered in handwritten poetry. It was amazing! Everyone in the crowd was smiling, completely caught up in the moment. The set designers make great use of the space to really transform and transport everyone in the theater to another world.

outside the theater

the stage