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A day at the Pop Up Globe
In the end, I only went to see two shows at the Pop Up Globe, as the morning performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream was cancelled due to unfriendly weather. It would have been nice to see it, but having now been to two performances in one day I think three might have been overdoing it, and it meant that instead I got to spend a relaxed morning hanging out with relatives.
The mission of the Pop Up Globe is to demonstrate what Shakespeare's theatre looked like not only in the physical surroundings but in the presentation, as popular entertainment in a setting where the audience were clearly visible (and frequently audible) to the actors. This was reflected in the performance of Measure for Measure, which did a lot of broad humour, sight gags, and audience interaction, along with extra lines from time to time in modern vernacular, generally directed at the audience and involving topical gags. (Although some of them served dramatic purposes instead -- the last interpolated line in the play gave Isabella the final word.) Pompey's comic monologue about all the old friends he's met again since he was thrown in prison was completely rewritten to feature names familiar to the current audience. Anachronisms were gaily scattered through the show: the Duke set out for Poland lugging a suitcase on wheels, and when he disguised himself as a friar, it was as an American revivalist preacher (more audience interaction - "Can I get an amen?").
The production doesn't attempt to convince us that the Duke is a wise chessmaster who knows better than everyone else: this Duke is a young man, somewhat impulsive, sometimes enjoying himself a bit too much, sometimes making it up as he goes along, and at times not as aware as he should be of the effect he's having on the lives around him. He's a likeable bloke, and the audience ends up hoping things will work out between him and Isabella -- there are several moments showing Isabella and the disguised Duke developing feelings for each other -- but when, in the denouement, the Duke pivots directly from "so I've been lying to you about a bunch of stuff, including who I am and whether your brother was dead" to "anyway, wanna get married?", Isabella's reaction makes it very clear that he done hecked up. Isabella goes on being quietly appalled in the background while the Duke finishes tying up the loose ends, then he returns to the offer of marriage on the line about "what's mine is yours" -- delivered, this time, more as a question, from a man who's realised that the answer might be No. Isabella's answer, in fact, is to flee the stage, down through the audience and away toward the exit... but then she looks back at the stage, and the man who's watching her go with an expression that shows he knows how badly he's messed this up... and "Oh, bugger it", she says, in the tones of one who has decided to take a chance that she may live to regret, and back she goes, to cheers from the audience.
There were places where I would have liked more seriousness and less buffoonery, but it was appropriately serious in the moments that absolutely had to be, and in general the style of the show worked in the setting. I enjoyed it immensely, and even if it had been the only show I'd seen I would have counted the weekend well spent.
Which, if I haven't phrased it carefully enough, is going to make it sound like I didn't enjoy the performance of Hamlet. I did; it was well enough done, it just didn't wow me the way Measure for Measure did. Hamlet was always going to have to work harder to impress me; unlike Measure for Measure, I've seen a lot of productions of Hamlet already and have strong opinions about it. I also think that as a drama it's a trickier fit for the house style; you can't go all out with the gags and the audience-pumping the way they could with the comedy.
There were still places where they acknowledged the audience, and anachronistic touches. The comic gravedigger was in modern dress and sang "Like a Virgin" instead of the usual Elizabethan ditty. And Polonius, though otherwise dressed in period, had a mobile phone, with a running gag about it always ringing at inopportune moments -- which paid off dramatically when it rang while he was spying on Hamlet's conversation with Ophelia.
As is often the case with such a large collection of characters, many of the supporting actors played multiple roles. One interesting set was that the same actor was Old King Hamlet, the Player King, and Fortinbras. (With an extra note of interest to recall, every time someone talked about how great a ruler Old King Hamlet was, that earlier in the day the same actor had been the unrighteous ruler Antonio in Measure for Measure.)
It was an abridged script, to keep the performance under two-and-a-half hours. The main omission I noticed in the first half was that scene with Polonius and Reynaldo that everybody leaves out, while other scenes were trimmed down (Hamlet's encounter with the ghost, most of his conversations with the players, etc.). I really started noticing the edits after Hamlet is sent to England. We got Fortinbras talking to his captain, so we'd recognise him later, but not the rest of the scene where the captain meets Hamlet and Hamlet does a soliloquy. The account of how Hamlet dealt with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was cut to a bare minimum, or perhaps a bit less than that. (And, to save on characters, instead of having a sailor tell Horatio about it, we got Horatio telling Gertrude, which has implications I'm still thinking about.) The gadfly Osric is left out, replaced with a generic servant.
The duel at the end was very effectively staged, one place where they definitely hit the right note of crowd-pleasing spectacle, and featured what I presume were period-authentic blood effects.
Other notes:
- The stage had at least two trapdoors, a small one with a lift that the ghost used for entrances and exits, and a larger one with a lid that opened outward and steps going down, that acted as a dungeon in Measure for Measure and the open grave in Hamlet.
- There are two companies of actors touring with the theatre, each doing two plays. The two plays I saw were done by the same actors, with each actor having a large part in one play and smaller role(s) in the other: the leads from Measure for Measure appeared, appropriately, as the company of players in Hamlet. The actor playing Hamlet himself was Claudio in Measure for Measure, meaning he got both the speeches about fearing death and what might come after.
- Each company also includes a small group of musicians who accompany the performances on period instruments. Some of the music for Hamlet was very eerie.
The mission of the Pop Up Globe is to demonstrate what Shakespeare's theatre looked like not only in the physical surroundings but in the presentation, as popular entertainment in a setting where the audience were clearly visible (and frequently audible) to the actors. This was reflected in the performance of Measure for Measure, which did a lot of broad humour, sight gags, and audience interaction, along with extra lines from time to time in modern vernacular, generally directed at the audience and involving topical gags. (Although some of them served dramatic purposes instead -- the last interpolated line in the play gave Isabella the final word.) Pompey's comic monologue about all the old friends he's met again since he was thrown in prison was completely rewritten to feature names familiar to the current audience. Anachronisms were gaily scattered through the show: the Duke set out for Poland lugging a suitcase on wheels, and when he disguised himself as a friar, it was as an American revivalist preacher (more audience interaction - "Can I get an amen?").
The production doesn't attempt to convince us that the Duke is a wise chessmaster who knows better than everyone else: this Duke is a young man, somewhat impulsive, sometimes enjoying himself a bit too much, sometimes making it up as he goes along, and at times not as aware as he should be of the effect he's having on the lives around him. He's a likeable bloke, and the audience ends up hoping things will work out between him and Isabella -- there are several moments showing Isabella and the disguised Duke developing feelings for each other -- but when, in the denouement, the Duke pivots directly from "so I've been lying to you about a bunch of stuff, including who I am and whether your brother was dead" to "anyway, wanna get married?", Isabella's reaction makes it very clear that he done hecked up. Isabella goes on being quietly appalled in the background while the Duke finishes tying up the loose ends, then he returns to the offer of marriage on the line about "what's mine is yours" -- delivered, this time, more as a question, from a man who's realised that the answer might be No. Isabella's answer, in fact, is to flee the stage, down through the audience and away toward the exit... but then she looks back at the stage, and the man who's watching her go with an expression that shows he knows how badly he's messed this up... and "Oh, bugger it", she says, in the tones of one who has decided to take a chance that she may live to regret, and back she goes, to cheers from the audience.
There were places where I would have liked more seriousness and less buffoonery, but it was appropriately serious in the moments that absolutely had to be, and in general the style of the show worked in the setting. I enjoyed it immensely, and even if it had been the only show I'd seen I would have counted the weekend well spent.
Which, if I haven't phrased it carefully enough, is going to make it sound like I didn't enjoy the performance of Hamlet. I did; it was well enough done, it just didn't wow me the way Measure for Measure did. Hamlet was always going to have to work harder to impress me; unlike Measure for Measure, I've seen a lot of productions of Hamlet already and have strong opinions about it. I also think that as a drama it's a trickier fit for the house style; you can't go all out with the gags and the audience-pumping the way they could with the comedy.
There were still places where they acknowledged the audience, and anachronistic touches. The comic gravedigger was in modern dress and sang "Like a Virgin" instead of the usual Elizabethan ditty. And Polonius, though otherwise dressed in period, had a mobile phone, with a running gag about it always ringing at inopportune moments -- which paid off dramatically when it rang while he was spying on Hamlet's conversation with Ophelia.
As is often the case with such a large collection of characters, many of the supporting actors played multiple roles. One interesting set was that the same actor was Old King Hamlet, the Player King, and Fortinbras. (With an extra note of interest to recall, every time someone talked about how great a ruler Old King Hamlet was, that earlier in the day the same actor had been the unrighteous ruler Antonio in Measure for Measure.)
It was an abridged script, to keep the performance under two-and-a-half hours. The main omission I noticed in the first half was that scene with Polonius and Reynaldo that everybody leaves out, while other scenes were trimmed down (Hamlet's encounter with the ghost, most of his conversations with the players, etc.). I really started noticing the edits after Hamlet is sent to England. We got Fortinbras talking to his captain, so we'd recognise him later, but not the rest of the scene where the captain meets Hamlet and Hamlet does a soliloquy. The account of how Hamlet dealt with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was cut to a bare minimum, or perhaps a bit less than that. (And, to save on characters, instead of having a sailor tell Horatio about it, we got Horatio telling Gertrude, which has implications I'm still thinking about.) The gadfly Osric is left out, replaced with a generic servant.
The duel at the end was very effectively staged, one place where they definitely hit the right note of crowd-pleasing spectacle, and featured what I presume were period-authentic blood effects.
Other notes:
- The stage had at least two trapdoors, a small one with a lift that the ghost used for entrances and exits, and a larger one with a lid that opened outward and steps going down, that acted as a dungeon in Measure for Measure and the open grave in Hamlet.
- There are two companies of actors touring with the theatre, each doing two plays. The two plays I saw were done by the same actors, with each actor having a large part in one play and smaller role(s) in the other: the leads from Measure for Measure appeared, appropriately, as the company of players in Hamlet. The actor playing Hamlet himself was Claudio in Measure for Measure, meaning he got both the speeches about fearing death and what might come after.
- Each company also includes a small group of musicians who accompany the performances on period instruments. Some of the music for Hamlet was very eerie.
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What I meant to say was that "Much Ado About Nothing" is the only one of the shows I can think of that I've seen at the Globe that did have any tragic content -- the others have been pretty much straight comedies. But then the tragic element did work very well. (They had Hero's 'tomb' at the end of the thrust stage extended into the audience, and a long silent sequence when the mourners processed through the audience to make penance there -- I was literally close enough to the actors to have touched them. They also used this space for Juana to do her plotting and have secret rendezvous.) And as you mentioned the period music can be very eerie.
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So it turns out that both of the big edits I found striking in the second half of the play -- the second half of the Fortinbras scene, and the compression of Hamlet's return (including the scene with Horatio and Gertrude) -- are actually taken straight from one or other of the early editions, and may actually have been edits used to get the play down to playable length in Shakespeare's own lifetime.