Much Ado about Nothing

Monday evening I saw Much Ado about Nothing at the rebuilt Globe Theatre! As you may know, or can guess from the title, in this particular comedy, quite a lot of things happen that should have been simple and straightforward, but instead are made as complicated as possible. My day, which should have been simple and straightforward, was made as complicated as possible when I missed the bus in the morning. In my defense, I was following the printed schedule which said the bus departed at 8:45. When I appeared at the meeting place at 8:40 and there was no one around, I remembered three announcements and an email that had changed the departure time to 8:30. Monday was our field trip to Middle Temple, which I was interested in seeing, but after I missed the bus I would have just stayed home, except that I had a ticket to see Much Ado at the Globe that evening. So I resigned myself to the fact that I had to get to London somehow, and set about doing it as fast as I could. I left my house around 8:50, walked twenty-five minutes to the train station, spent £23.50 on a train ticket, took the 9:31 train arriving at London Paddington at 10:30, took the tube 11 stops to Temple and arrived at 11:09, ten minutes before the bus I’d missed. I think that’s pretty impressive!

After all that, I still missed the inside of the Temple Church, because it took about ten minutes for me to meet up with the group after their bus dropped them off. This church was featured in one of the Dan Brown books, because it was one of the churches of the Knights Templar.

I still got to see Middle Temple, which was pretty cool. The English legal practitioners are divided into Solicitors and Barristers, and the Barristers all belong to one of the four Inns of Court, and Middle Temple is one of these Inns of Court. The dining hall is ancient and impressive. Seeing this history of the English legal practice makes the American law profession look brand new and barely established.

After Middle Temple, we were able to observe a criminal trial at the Old Bailey. I felt very strange, watching someone’s trial. To me, it was just something to observe, but to the poor man, it was one of the turning points of his life. His family was sitting in the gallery next to me. I think it’s important that the legal system be transparent and that trials should be public, but I felt very awkward actually watching someone’s punishment be decided. I did appreciate the barristers’ wigs and gowns. At Middle Temple I got to try on one of the wigs:

After the Old Bailey, I walked to St. Pauls, and then across the river to the Globe to pick up my ticket.

I met up with Maria for dinner, and then I got to see Much Ado about Nothing at the Globe. It was awesome! I believe every Shakespeare play I’ve seen previously, I’ve known the ending before the show started, either because I’ve studied the show, or because I’ve read a synopsis to make sure I didn’t miss the plot. I deliberately did not read any synopsis of Much Ado about Nothing, so I knew nothing about the play except that it was one of Shakespeare’s comedies. I was not disappointed. The plot was incredibly easy to follow, a fact I attribute more to the skill of the actors than to Shakespeare’s clarity in writing. Seeing a show at the Globe was a very different experience than seeing a show in a traditional theatre. The audience laughs, boos, hisses, claps and cheers during the show. The show made me laugh out loud often, and I am usually a quiet spectator. I was very glad that I got a seat, as the groundlings who stand in front of the stage were under the open part of the roof, and they got soaked by the continuous drizzle.

The inside of the Globe (not my photo)

There are a number of lines from this play that I particularly liked:

Right at the beginning, Don Pedro says to Leonato: I think this is your daughter.

Leonato replies: Her mother hath many times told me so. I couldn’t help laughing.

I also noticed Shakespeare wrote in two fishing metaphors, which I think my Dad will appreciate:

Claudio [aside]: Bait the hook well! This fish will bite.

 Ursula: The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
    Cut with her golden oars the silver stream
    And greedily devour the treacherous bait.

My favorite characters by far were Beatrice and Benedick. These two have such spirit and such wit! Benedick’s greeting to Beatrice at the beginning of the play was hilarious:

“What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?”

The absolute best line of the play, in my opinion, comes from Beatrice’s frustration that she cannot challenge a man to a duel. She is so angry that she says,

“O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market place.”

Beatrice was awesome!

Finally, just to make my complicated day more complicated, I missed my pre-booked train home by three minutes. I even ran through the tube tunnels and up an escalator, but in vain. The train had left by the time I arrived at the platform. I couldn’t believe that I had missed two things in the same day! I was ready to scream, but luckily there was another train to Oxford very soon. It only left nine minutes after the train I’d missed, but it was a slow train. The fast train only takes an hour to go from Paddington to Oxford, but the slow train takes nearly an hour and forty-five minutes. So I got home very late and woke up Tuesday morning still exhausted, and with the beginnings of a very bad sore throat and nasty cold. Despite everything, it was worth it. I saw a Shakespeare play at the Globe! Life is good!