Sunday after a beautiful Remembrance Sunday service at St. Paul's, Victoria, Jenna, and I visited Shakespeare's Globe Theater. During the initial part of the HUE program, our group visited The Globe together to attend a performance of The Taming of the Shrew. This second visit served a more educational purpose. The first part of the trip included a walk through various exhibits involving Shakespeare's world and work. There were some really cool interactive touch-screens that explained how the theater operated in Shakespeare's time.
In the play, Titus Andronicu, one of the characters has her arms cut off and her tongue cut out. When she presents herself, the audience doesn't yet know about her missing tongue, but as she goes to speak, blood spurts from her mouth. Gross, huh? It gets grosser! In Shakespeare's day the theater did not use fake blood. Instead, they would put a real sheep's intestine, with real sheep's blood inside of it, inside the actor's mouth, and as the actor started to speak, he would bite down on the organ, and out would come the blood!
The second half of the visit was a great guided tour through the actual theatre. Our guide, Stephanie, was an extra in Shakespeare in Love. We learned all sorts of cool information about the Globe, the plays, and Shakespeare's genius. We were shown trap doors, and directed to the best seats in the house, and encouraged to BYOB. (Ha!) I came away from the Globe tour feeling a lot more educated and with one more wonderful British experience under my belt.
The Globe tries to get its' productions as close as it possibly can to the way they would have been performed originally, but there are all sorts of strange adaptations out there. Below is one of my favorites!
By: Molly Goyne