Posted by Grace
A very different post today, about my weekend trip to Stratford upon Avon. Two teachers and 16 of us students went on an English trip. We explored the town and our English teacher told us many stories about Shakespeare and were he lived and stories about theatre companies having druken punch ups! For anyone unsure Stratford upon Avon was were Shakespeare lived and was born and the whole town is like a theme park dedicated to him and his plays.
We visited the church were he is buried and saw the model of him which as our English teacher rightly said it didn’t capture the romantic Shakespeare look but looked more like captain Mannering!
The first play we went to see was Henry IV part 1
The play was performed well by all the actors, it was funny and everything about it was well done – the staging, the costume, the direct address to the audience. The play is about a king who is in denial about the dethroning of the previous king (Richard II, also a side note I saw Richard II at the Barbican theatre earlier this year with David Tenant playing him) Richard promises the throne to his cousin Harry, him and his father are angry and want revenge against Henry, Henry has a son – Hal, or Harry he doesn’t take responsibilities as a prince and spends his days in brothels and pubs pick pocketing with his friends and with the protagonist and funniest character Faulstaff, a large, drunk old man who makes up great long stories to make him look like a brave and honourable man – a Shakespearean Rooster Byron! I didn’t enjoy Richard II because I didn’t engage with the characters and thought the plot was too heavy for my liking but Henry IV was a mix of heavy and serious moments with many funny and comical moments, the actors were able to adapt the Shakespearean comedy and make it funny to a modern day audience. As we all agreed on when coming out of the theatre, being able to spot and laugh at the jokes in the play made us feel very intelligent! Faulstaff’s direct address with the audience meant that throughout the play, although he wasn’t always loyal to Hal who was a likeable and good character throughout, meant we had a connection and had his trust as we knew the dramatic irony from his on stage actions. The actor playing Harry played him with moments of madness however he did have too many moments where he became too much of a likeable character I thought and the moments of madness should have been more continuous. Over all I really enjoyed the play and thought although the play is a long one it engaged everyone throughout and it left me wanting to see part 2!
The second play we went to see was called the Arden Of Faversham by anonymous
The Arden of Faversham is about a woman called Alice who is married to a man named Arden, Alice falls in love with another man, this other man tells Arden that whilst he is alive he will never be with Alice so Alice decides she must kill him so she hires someone who hires someone else to kill him, every time there is an opener unity to kill him the two hit men mess up and end up injuring themselves. The play is a dark comedy with lots and lots of blood! The adaptation I saw was set in the modern day, the set was full of lucky cats and everything was colourful but a complete vision of madness. I found the play very funny manly it’s shocking moments, there was one moment when Arden is finally killed and is suspended in a cardboard box hanging from the ceiling (I know madness) when his blood starts to drip onto the stage and one of the actors accidentally kicked it into the laps of two audience members! another moment was still when the blood was dripping onto the stage and Alice’s love tries to distract everyone by going to cheers and hold up his glass of champagne and a drop of blood falls in! The play was very dark and the twisted colourful and happy setting juxtaposed with the gruesome and tragic story made the production very effective, dark and very very funny!
muchadoaboutmascara 