Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

Tonight I went to the play All’s Well That Ends Well which was preformed at the on the Olivier stage at the National Theater. Though I greatly enjoyed the performance of the play, I question Shakespeare’s choice for the title.

(spoiler alert) The play began with the main character, Helena (who loves Bertram), cures the King of France of his illness and is therefore granted the choice of any man she desires for her husband. So naturally she chooses Bertram, whom does not like Helena (mostly on account of her social standing) and is appalled by the thought of taking her hand in marriage. However, he cannot turn down Helena’s marriage proposal by the King’s decree, so instead he decides to become a soldier and leaves Helena before he beds her. After leaving he sends Helena a letter saying that he will have no wife in France until Helen is impregnated with his child and possesses his family ring. After reading this Helena leaves France in search of her husband. When she arrives in Florence (where the war is) she decides to stay with an old widow and her daughter, Diana (with whom Bertram is in infatuated). She then convinces Diana to seduce Bertram and to blind fold him before Helena comes in and makes love to him (Bertram still believing that he is with Diana). So, through Diana Helena comes to possess Bertram’s ring and becomes pregnant with his child. At the end of the play she confesses what she has done and Bertram vows to always love her, yeah right!

All is not well at the end, for Bertram is still a jerk and Helena is still married to him. This is the classic story of many present day teen pregnancies: boy does not like girl so girl decides to trap boy by forgetting to take her pill (opps!) and boy is stuck putting up with girl until the child is raised. In All’s Well That Ends Well is Shakespeare trying to suggest that this method of entrapment actually effective? Or is he poking fun at those who believe it to be effective? Neither of these options make the play contingent with the play’s fairytale motif. Also, both options make this comedy funny only in a very twisted way.

I can see why this play is considered one of Shakespeare’s problem plays. Like Troilus and Cressida, it seems to confuse and confound the audience. Why did Shakespeare choose to make a mockery of the Greek and Trojan heroes in Troilus and Cressida? And why did he choose to name a tale about a teen pregnancy All’s Well That Ends Well?

However, I can see the value in All’s Well That Ends Well as a social commentary. Though the King assures Bertram that he will personally boost Helena’s position in society, Bertram still does not want to marry her because she is the daughter of a poor physician and he is a count. This reflects the English society’s belief at the time that a person’s class is permanent and does not change from the day they are born to the day that they die. The fact that Bertram finally accepts Helena once she is pregnant also reflects the norm of the time: that if a man impregnates a woman then he is forever after responsible for her well-being. In All’s Well That Ends Well Shakespeare uses these two social to show the disjointed nature of the British upper-class’ social rules. In this way I feel that Shakespeare is trying to critique the contradictory nature of these social guidelines. I am very interested in how other people read this play.

I’ve always loved performing. I danced (mostly ballet) from age 5 until I graduated high school. I also participated in a theatre camp during the summers of middle school, my best role being Sinister the Prime Minister in The Emperor’s New Clothes. I had to stop acting in high school as the play season interfered with bowling season (though I did work on the stage crew one year), and I’ve found myself too busy at Dickinson to get involved with the theatre or dance scenes in college. I often miss being on stage; therefore, I greatly appreciated today’s activities: a talk with Rick Fisher and a backstage tour of the National Theatre.

I found Mr. Fisher to be an engaging speaker and one could easily tell he loves what he does. I had never really thought about the intricacies of stage lighting before this morning. Obviously, lighting is important to any show. The audience needs to be able to see the performers. I learned this morning, though, how carefully lighting must be designed in order to set particular scenes. Natural lighting can tell the audience the time or location of the scene: night or day, indoors or outside. Different colors of light can set the mood of a scene, and flashes of light can help the audience perceive characters’ emotions. I liked what Mr. Fisher said about lighting: that the best lighting isn’t noticed, it’s just right. I feel this is exactly the way to view lighting–it completes a performance.  This statement reminded me of a speech given by my high school band director. He told us that no section of a band is more important than another; without one of the sections a piece seems incomplete. He then proceeded to have us play our music without the low brass, then without the percussion. While these sections aren’t the melody of the piece, the song just doesn’t sound right without them. I feel like lighting serves the same purpose in a performance. Lighting isn’t something one might think of or notice when seeing a play, opera, or recital, but without the right lighting, a show is imperfect.

Our tour of the National Theatre was eye-opening. Walking through the building, I couldn’t possibly imagine the creativity needed to design a building to house three stages, numerous workshops, storage, etc. I loved going backstage and seeing all of the work that goes into putting on a show. We don’t always appreciate stage crews, costume designers, or prop artists. They aren’t the people we see when we attend a performance.

Today’s discussion and being back stage gently reminded me that the actors aren’t the only people that make a great show.

I’m going to be perfectly honest: I’ve never been a big fan of the theater. I’m the sort of person who will go see anything and be able to appreciate it or be critical of it for seemingly valid reasons, but I’ve just never really enjoyed live theater the way I do films: the choice of only one or two settings has always felt extremely limited for my wild and vivid imagination, I’m a bit hard of hearing and can’t turn the volume up on live actors, people don’t suddenly break into coordinated song and dance routines in real life, there’s a huge margin of error for mistakes and unwelcome variation between performances, and it’s much harder to blow things up and create huge messes on a stage. I’m a fan of realism and authenticity, and sometimes I just can’t suspend my disbelief with plays the way I can with movies.

All of this being said, I’ve always been fascinated by the production aspect of live theater. I was heavily involved with the production and tech crews at my high school, and I used to enjoy nothing more than Hell Week before opening night, sitting in the black box theater in the wee hours of the morning, flicking lights on and off, organizing props, and putting finishing touches on the set. After hearing Rick Fisher speak about his experience with the theater and taking the tour of the National Theatre today, I’ve started longing to go back to stage managing and tech production. I’m attempting to see as many plays as I can during our time in London in order to try to condition myself into enjoying being an audience member, but I think I will always prefer being a part of the action rather than watching it. I kind of wonder if this is a problem: enjoying working very hard towards an end product you don’t really care for.

I’ve never been an avid play-goer before this trip, but I feel as though the West End has a bit less glitz and a bit more pride than Broadway. Perhaps pride is the wrong word, and perhaps I’ve been seeing and hearing of the wrong plays, but I often think of many Broadway plays as being a good and expensive night out, but the West End seems to treat the plays as more of an art form and something that everyone should be able to enjoy and appreciate. If the advertisements on the Tube are any judge, the West End has its fair share of mindless plays based on popular movies, but the simple fact that there are cheap seats, student discounts, overwhelming amounts of Shakespeare, government funding, and seemingly many more British film and television stars on the stage as well as the screen (working for meager amounts of money) makes me believe that in England, the theater is more of a cultural institution meant for everyone rather than deep appreciation for few, or simple entertainment.

I grew excited last night upon learning that Arcadia was written by Tom Stoppard, who also wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and co-wrote Shakespeare in Love. I seemed to have forgotten, however, that his work, while usually hysterical and thought-provoking, is also very dense and requires a fine-toothed comb to find all of the hidden jokes, references, and subject matters. This, coupled with the fact that I was inexplicably exhausted and that my hearing can be likened to that of a seventy-year-old man’s made me unable to completely follow much of the play, but apparently I wasn’t alone. I think reading it would make things clearer.

I’m foregoing the next performance at the Globe simply because I don’t know if my back could handle another few hours as a groundling, but I’m attending All’s Well That Ends Well tomorrow night in its stead in a valiant effort to see more plays, learn to appreciate the finished product rather than just the behind-the-scenes work, and learn to like Shakespeare.

As I continue to explore London more and more I realize just how vast and widespread this place is. Before our  class took a walk through Southwark on Friday morning I realized I had not even been close to where we were that day. There is so much to do here and it would take years and years to truly get a sense of what all London has to offer. Over the past few days i’ve been trying to conquer as much as London as possible. During Friday and Saturday I spent most of my time conquering museums and theaters. 

I’ll start with museums. On Friday after our walk of Southwark I headed out to lunch with a fairly large group of people. After our lunch I had a hard time shaking off a bout of sudden tiredness. I figured a trip to the Tate Modern would remedy this. I’m not afraid to admit that I was wrong. 

Modern art is an interesting beast. As much as I’ve tried still I have a hard time understanding it. Despite this statement in no way am I critical or judgemental of anyones work. As someone who has basically no experience/background with modern art I have no right to say anything negative about someone’s art, I simply just can’t grasp it. Walking around through the first few galleries of the Tate Modern I wandered, I sat, I stared, but still found nothing. I asked Brandon his opinion about some of the artwork and this helped. Talking to someone who has taken classes in the subject and is passionate about it was definitely a good choice and I learned a lot but after some more musings I still found nothing. Perhaps it was the drowsiness, perhaps it was the absurdly sexually explicit video I witnessed in one section of the museum but soon after entering I realized I had seen enough of the Tate Modern. 

Since many other people in our class had seen the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum earlier in the week I figured the afternoon would be a great time to see both of those. This time I was right. From the moment I entered the doors I had a feeling I would enjoy walking through this dungeon of secrets. Although I would never want to be stuck down there for long periods of time I was amazed at how well intact the war rooms were.  As I walked through the narrow hallways I had an eerie feeling that I was sent back in time to the early 1940’s when Churchill used the space frequently during the Blitz to hold meetings and conduct secret business. My favorite part of the war rooms was the tiny room that Churchill put 11 secretaries in. According to the audio tour despite the close proximity to each other he expected immaculate work from every single one of these women and did not hesitate to fire them if they were not pulling their weight. 

After the tour of the War Rooms I spent a bit of time in the Churchill museum before my fatigue caught back up to me. I decided it would behoove me to head back to my room and rest for a little bit before preparing for the performance of “Troilus and Cressida” that we would be attending that night at the Globe Theatre. 

After getting off at the St. Paul’s tube stop and scurrying across the Millennium Bridge Brandon, Aidan and I made it to the performance about ten minutes early. Just enough time to catch our breath and prepare for the real ordeal: standing for three hours. Despite my concerns going into the performance in retrospect being a “groundling” was not that bad at all. My feet were certainly a little uncomfortable by the end of the night but being so close to the action on the stage certainly made up for that. I really enjoyed the performance overall. Matthew Kelly’s portrayal of Pandarus was phenomenal and Paul Hunter (Thersites) left me in stitches for most of the night. While reading the play beforehand I did not enjoy it all that much. It’s amazing how easily and completely transformed a play can become however once performed versus just read. My experience at the globe was great and I hope to go back and see another show before I leave London. 

Walking back over the Millennium Bridge that night to the beautiful view of St. Paul’s across the Thames I concluded a few things. The first being that London is even more stunning at night than it is during the day. The second being that i’m not going to enjoy everything I see here in this city and I have to come to terms with that. I have been lucky so far on this trip that very few things have disappointed me. I realize I have to be ready to be surprised both negatively and positively with encounters I have, places I go and  things I learn. Like everything else in life London is not perfect nor should it be.

Normally I would leave it to the students to give first impressions of a group event, but I take the lead this time. On a chilly, windy night that threatened (and delivered) intermittent showers, few were likely looking forward to standing as groundlings for three hours to watch one of the great bard’s lesser known plays. How the cast of Troilus and Cressida changed our disposition. Although Wannamaker’s Disneyfied recreation of the Globe envelopes you and slowly makes you forget the forgery, the flight of helicopters above breaks the dream. But no harm when you see a performance like we did tonight. Such a wonderful adaptation of Shakespeare I have rarely seen. Witty and natural dialogue brought even greater life from the words on the page. The remarkably beautiful young men in the cast immediately caused a stir, but their acting was more beautiful still. The range of emotions of the young Cressida (Laura Pyper) was remarkable. The British stage has a bright future with this talented young stable of actors, especially Christopher Colquhoun as Hector, Paul Stocker as Troilus, Beru Tessema as Patroclus, and the stunning Ms. Pyper. Matthew Dunster must be commended for superb direction. Let us not forget the haunting vocals of Olivia  Chaney.

But the joy was not limited to a fantastic performance and an after-show stroll across Millennium Bridge to St. Paul’s Cathedral. I think I took most pleasure in watching the responses of the students, some who have never seen Shakespeare performed (and certainly not so close to the stage), who were drawn in to the action. Several commented that they quickly forgot that they were standing for three hours, that the rain had fallen upon us, and that their legs–already weary from a morning’s forced march across Southwark–ached from the week’s activity. This is why I teach…to see young minds gaining new insights and appreciation, growing each day with each new experience.

Twas a magical, dream-like night. This I for one will not soon forget.