Week 2: A Summary

This past week was filled with learning. On Tuesday, our Shakespeare class discussed Thursday's performance of Hamlet, and we also discussed our interpretations from reading Much Ado About Nothing.

Wednesday's British Art & Architecture class took us to Chiswick House, which was built by Lord Burlington. He was a very wealthy landowner and built this estate in the Palladian style, but it was also one of the first examples of an extensive English picturesque garden. Explorers were making regular trips to the American colonies and were bringing back plants and other items. No one knew how these plants would react, so by creating gardens that were imperfectly shaped, as opposed to the French gardens that were very axially planned, there was more room for experimentation.



Thursday was filled with yet another train delay. Our Shakespeare class was supposed to meet at Waterloo train station, as we were scheduled for a tour and exhibition at the Globe Theatre. We got on the train, and then we found out there had been a fatality a either Vauxhall or Clapham Junction. So, we were forced to get off at Wimbledon and take the Underground District Line into the city. We made it to the Globe Theatre in time for our workshop, which was really an eye-opening experience for me. We talked about how acting on a stage in the round differs from a traditional stage; the former allows for different movements that are never in a direct path, and it is important to not stay in one place for too long because the actor will isolate their audience. We broke off into pairs and performed exercises with lines from Much Ado. It was a really great experience to be able to dig deeper into what makes a play different from a novel.

We hung around Southwark for the rest of the afternoon, and we saw a performance of Much Ado About Nothing that evening at the Globe. It was a wonderfully performed play, and the best part of all was that Leonato was played by Joseph Marcell (aka Geoffrey from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)! It was a traditional take on the play with how the costumes were handled, but it felt very modern in how the characters interacted. There was a lot more audience interaction with this play, and it really helped me stay engaged throughout the performance. It was absolutely terrific!