Shakespeare's Globe

"Blimey mate, tis a strrrrrrrange building that one is! "

The captain and his classmates toured the Globe theater last week and attended the play Mid Summer Night's Dream last night. They learned that the building itself is completely reconstructed (recently!!) after hundreds of years and multiple rebuilding-from-fire. The columns on each side of the stage are made from a full oak tree each. And the roof remains open as artists and architects suppose it originally was -- "nice fer air but a near reach ta RAIN," worries the captain.

The captain enjoyed two particular ways the guide explained we continue to be influenced by this space. First, he noted that he and his friends' tickets said "standing," what the guide called "groundlings." "A theater wher' we go a wonderin' an standin' round wherever? (Me mother'd never a let me do that in me wee yrs." The guide explained that words we still use regarding social class -- such as "that's beneath me" or "has his nose in the air" are seen in the level of the theater a person could afford. The most expensive tickets are at the top and the least expensive are on the ground.

A second word the captain liked was window, what the guide said originated from "wind hole," a hole in the building on the proper side such that wind would pass through and cool or clean the air. He thought he could simply sit here in the wind hole for a very long time.

At the play last night, the captain found a soft place in his heart for theater. Puck had become "in dispose" and the actor told the audience the cast would "do the best we can" (said with a guffaw and a swagger that the captain rather appreciated). And indeed they did. So reminiscent of the captain's early days in theater, when performance was representational (rather than an attempt to closely imitate some reality), our replacement Puck appeared on stage carrying a script. Actors told each other where to go, where to stand, as needed, and the show went on. "Blimey, ah tis a strange buildin' but yer don't be seein' acters the likes of them no more." And the captain looked forward to going there again.