We are back in London now and last night we had a real treat courtesy of my father-in-law, passing through en route to the USA. An avid reader of reviews, he had noticed that Howard Brenton's drama Anne Boleyn was playing at the Globe Theatre. He was only able to get tickets for the four of us (we and our wives) to stand and with an atrociously rainy day we were fearful of a soaking. As it turned out, there was hardly a drop. We really had two things for the price of one then - a positive experience of seeing a play in the interestingly reconstructed Globe as groundlings (something I've not done before although we have gone to the Globe itself more than once) and a very well acted and thought provoking play too.
Current day groundlings are thankfully much, much quieter than Shakespearean ones I guess but we got a real idea of what it might have been like to stand under an open sky and see a play in Shakespeare's time.
The play itself was of great interest to us featuring not only as it did Ann Boleyn and Henry VIII, etc, but also James I commissioning the AV and William Tyndale in unlikely but plausible scenes with Ann (the play takes place in two time periods - that of Boleyn and that of the early years of James I). Boleyn (Like Henry adn James) is an endlessly fascinating figure and although there was much speculation here the play cast an interesting light on her undoubted Protestantism and on Tyndale and the effect of the Bible on the English nation too. There were sadly some crudities that marred the beauty of the piece but many could enjoy it. For reviews see here.
No comments:
Post a Comment