Day 4: Workshops and Cymbeline

Since being in Stratford, our visit has been composed of mainly tours and informational sessions. However, today we had the opportunity to experience a day in the life of the Royal Shakespeare Company. One of the actors led us through a two hour workshop all abut Doctor Faustus, which we will be seeing tomorrow evening. For those who don't know anything about this play, it was published in 1604 by Christopher Marlowe and is the story of the scholarly Doctor Faustus who is tired of the confines of human knowledge regarding science, religion, and law. He starts to dabble in black magic and eventually conjures the demon Mephistophilis and asks him to strike a deal with the Lucifer. Faustus is guaranteed 24 years of unlimited power, knowledge, and essentially anything he wants in exchange for his soul. Over the course of the workshop, we were led through many different exercises that helped us understand the stories of each character in addition to making us feel super goofy. Now that I have a better appreciation for the story, I'm excited to see how my new found knowledge affects my view of the characters and overall story (To be continued...)

Later in the evening, we ventured back to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and watched the Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation of Cymbeline. I had virtually no knowledge of this story going in and it provided for an interesting experience. The original story is old English, but this version had slightly modern characteristics. The story follows Queen Cymbeline as she rules over a divided Britain. Her only living heir, her daughter Imogen, marries her lover Posthumus in secret and an angered Cymbeline banishes him. While Posthumus is in exile, his is tricked into believing that his wife has been unfaithful and, in an act of impulsive jealousy, plans to have her murdered. Imogen finds out about this plan and runs away disguised as a man where she eventually helps reunite Cymbeline with her long-lost heirs in addition to reconciling with Posthumus. The show had a couple unexpected musical numbers, including an R&B style song along with a Gatsby-esque party song, which provided further confusion in addition to the old English language, but were super entertaining. In addition, I think the director took some creative liberties when it came to the psychological aspects of the show, but I would highly recommend it if your planning on stopping by England any time soon.

Fun Fact of the day: England has its own version of Dollar General called Poundland and visiting it was a magical experience. It is truly amazing how many things you can buy for one pound.

(I didn't take any pictures of the things we did today cause there wasn't really an opportunity, so here are some random pictures I've take over the last few days.)

My first tea in England!

We ran into some trouble at Shakespeare's birthplace...

Obligatory OHIO photo 

The Queen's Privy Garden at Kenilworth Castle ft. Me

Us in front of one of a thousand statues dedicated to Shakespeare