We were so lucky to be able to see not just one, but two shows in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre! Walking in and seeing the stage thrust out into the audience was amazing, although the lack of seats was something I had to get used to. Standing for the shows, while at first sounded like a nightmare (and for parts of them, it was), wasn’t terribly bad, just as long as you had something to lean on. For the first show, I was leaning on the stage, being extremely close to the actors and even connecting with them at certain points. The second show I was leaning against the back wall, which I preferred more than the stage, in terms of finding comfort for two and a half hours. Standing let us be more immersed in the shows that we saw, and it only got tiring every now and then so it was not bad!
Something that I loved about seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream there was their interactions with the audience and their energy throughout the entire show, from before the show even started to when the audience left, their energy was at a high that never went down! It felt like a festival, like all of the actors in the play knew that they were performing in a show and so they played into it, like Lysander hitting the Wicked riff at the end of a song or Puck inviting his true love (a random audience member named Simon) onto the stage with him. It felt so performative and the actors were so active in their performance that it made the show much more engaging (and it made standing for it not that unbearable.)
While it wasn’t the exact theatre that was first built and used in the 16th century, and as with all of the other famous historical landmarks we’ve visited, I loved envisioning the people from all different generations who gathered to enjoy art. It’s a testament to how art can be timeless and that we live for these stories, whether we’re the ones watching them or the ones telling them.
I will say, if standing for three hours doesn’t sound appealing to you, it might be worth bringing a lawn chair.
Theatre in London U of A 