It was day four of the
trip and my body was now accustomed to walking about eight miles a day so I was
ready to get moving. Our first stop was Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. To be
honest I wasn’t looking forward to seeing this at all. I would have rather been
spending that time exploring the city or talking to more of the people; however
the only option was to suck it up and go. Our tour guide’s name was Stephanie
and thankfully she was extremely passionate about what she was talking about so
her excitement transferred to me as well.
Before we could enter the theater Stephanie
gave us a brief synopsis of the construction of it. The original theatre was
built in 1599 by Lord Chamberlain’s Men—the playing company for which
Shakespeare wrote most of his works for—which is why the globe is associated
with Shakespeare. However, the theatre was burned down due to a cannon firing
mishap when the cannon set fire to the roof of the theatre. Since there were no
“sprinkler systems” and the Globe Theatre was made completely of wood, the
theatre was consequently destroyed. She went on to inform us about how this new
theatre was made in 1997 and was modeled exactly after the original one! The
only true difference was that this new theatre had a sprinkler system in case
of fires-- for obvious reasons.
After
the little history lesson we were finally able to enter the theatre. Upon
entering it I was actually amazed at how beautiful everything was. I didn’t
picture the theatre to look the way it did at all. I pictured some dark room
with a creaky old wooden stage at the front and rows of seats facing toward it,
like all the other theatres I’ve been in. But to my surprise there was no
ceiling, so it wasn’t a dark room at all with the natural sunlight casting over
the stage and seats. Also, the theatre was arranged in a circle which I also
didn’t expect as well. As you can see I didn’t really spend much time thinking
about the Globe Theatre for I didn’t make any of the simple connections (like a
globe being circular as well as the theatre) beforehand. The reason the theatre
is arranged in a circle is because no matter where the sun is, it always shines
on the audience. That way when the actors are performing they don’t have the
sun in their eyes; which is quite a clever idea if you ask me. The part of the
theatre that really shocked me though was the “marble” pillars. They held up
the stage covering and they looked like they were completely made up of marble
when in reality it was just a painting technique. Stephanie told us how the
people who would visit the theatre would actually have to go up and touch the
pillars to see for themselves if it was marble or not. She said how when they
felt the rough wood instead of smooth cold marble they were taken aback because
it just appeared so real.
When
we were finished with the tour inside we were led outside to the pavement where
people’s names are printed into the cement. This was how the Globe Theatre
reconstruction was funded—when people donated at least 300 pounds their name
would be printed into their own cement block. John Cleese-- who I know from the
second Shrek movie-- donated 600 pounds to have his name, and the name of his
friend Michael Palin engraved in the cement. The catch was for him to donate
this amount of money, the engravers had to spell Palin’s name wrong. As a
result one stone outside of the Globe Theatre reads “John Cleese” while the neighboring
one reads “Michael Pallin.”
All in all I was
pleasantly surprised with attending Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. I don’t
believe I would have chosen to go there on my own, but I’m glad I was able to
have the experience of visiting it.
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