Dream On

This week was one of the highlights of ASE. Why, you ask? We went to Stratford-upon-Avon! (Apparently, it's not called Stratford-upon-Avon because it is on the river Avon. The town got its name because it was built on top of the ancient city of Avon. Or, not.) Now I had already been to Stratford for the day with my Shakespeare class, but it was so exciting to be there again. And extra fun to be there with all of my friends that aren't in the class so we could be Shnerd together. (Our staff member Jonathan, who also made up that story about Stratford, decided to call us Shakespeare nerds, or Shnerds for short.)
We left Bath early in the morning (alright, 9, but that's still early) and got to Stratford-upon-Avon around 11, 11:30. While in Stratford we stayed in a couple of bed and breakfasts which were all on the same street, so when we arrived we went to our individual B&Bs and got settled in. My B&B ( Adelphi, for those of you who are planning a trip to Stratford any time soon) was adorable! The owners were so sweet, the rooms were super cute (mine was even decorated in turquoise - my favourite colour), and we got a really excellent free breakfast. I ended up rooming with two girls that I didn't know very well, but it actually was nice to have the opportunity to get to know some other people in the program better (slash be forced to?).
After we got settled in to our B&Bs, we took a tour of the town. It was more of a refresher for me, since my class did a tour when we were there, but it was still really exciting to walk around and see everything. And I also got to see all of these sights with my friends who were seeing it all for the first time, so we could Shnerd out together. For lunch, we went to 'The Food of Love' which I had been waiting to go to since I first went to Stratford. It made me smile. (Plus, the food was good and pretty cheap, which was also a bonus.) It was also really cute because they had pictures and prints from old productions of Twelfth Night on the wall since, you know, that's where the line's from. Then we headed off to Town Hall. Since this was a school trip and all, we had a lecture we had to go to every day. It actually made a lot of sense to have these lectures to give people background on the shows we were going to see and then to have an opportunity to talk about the productions afterwards. I just wish they had been shorter. But at least the Town Hall had a list on the wall of all of the old mayors of the town, so there was something to read if we got bored.
When the lecture finished around 4, I raced over to the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archives. Why, you might ask. Well, the short story is I'm a giant nerd. The longer version is that two summers ago, my friend got me obessed with Carrie, the musical. Yes, that Stephen King Carrie. For whatever reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to turn Carrie into a musical. It wasn't. It turned out to be one of the most infamous Broadway flops ever. And I find it utterly hysterical and really fascinating. I could go on and on about all of the horrific details, but the show's basically one bad decision after another that you simply can't help but laugh. And the Stratford connection is that the show premiered in Stratford for its out-of-town tryout. The RSC keeps really great archives of all of its shows, so I was able to look at the program, the reviews (which are incredibly amusing in their bashing of the show), and best of all, a recording of the show itself, in all of its ridiculous glory. I was in Carrie heaven.
Of course, I had some problems getting into the archives. I got there a little after 4, but faced a challenge. The Library and Archives share a door with Shakespeare's Birthplace, which closes its doors at 4. I figured the library had to be open until at least 5, so I kept frantically trying door after door, in hopes that one of them would work. Thankfully, the doors were made of glass, so the security guard opened one of the doors to see what I want. I was able to convince him that I wasn't a crazy person and that I was there for the archives. He took me upstairs to talk with the very nice librarians. I had a little less than an hour before the library closed, but I was able to come back Wednesday as well. And even that brief amount of time was really exciting because I was watching Carrie.
After I left the library, I met back up with my friends, went to dinner, and then went to the RSC Courtyard Theatre. I was super excited because we were seeing Twelfth Night, which is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays! And I loved this production. First of all, it was absolutely gorgeous. It was set in 19th century Illyria - the real Illyria (which is modern day Albania, so Mediterranean). The set had this stunning bright blue sky and a wave made out of wooden planks. My favourite set piece was a literal box-tree that flew down for the 'box-tree scene', naturally. And the costumes were amazing. There was a great mix of brightly coloured Mediterranean clothing and English, Edwardian clothing. The actors were also amazing. My favourite was Viola. There was just something about her - this sense of playfulness throughout her performance that I really loved. My least favourite part of the show was the Malvolio, who was some famous British TV actor. He was alright, but I didn't really feel for him and the Malvolio plotline has the potential to be really unnerving, but it didn't feel like that big of a deal, mostly because of his performance. But that's alright, but Viola's really my favourite anyways.
We hung out in front of the theatre for a bit after the show, being Shnerds and discussing the production. As we were outside, we saw the actors who played Orsino, Feste, and Viola (all of which were amazing) and we spent a long time trying to decide if we should go up and talk to them. We probably should have, but we didn't want to be 'those awkward kids'. Plus, we were freaking out a little too much just standing there looking at them, so it might have been for the best. Maybe. Then we headed over to the Dirty Duck, the after show hang out spot for the RSC. We didn't get to meet any actors here either, though, because the pub is divided into two rooms so that the actors can have a place to hang out without getting bothered all of the time, which makes sense. At least we were able to see into the other room across the bar. The rest of the pub was mostly filled with ASE people, so we hung out with other kids and the staff members who were on the trip (who are all quite funny and fun people).
Wednesday we had our delicious free B&B breakfasts and headed off to Town Hall to talk about the show. Then, we had some free play time. We decided we would go first to Anne Hathaway's Cottage, the old family home of Shakespeare's wife and one of the offical 'Shakespeare properties'. Claire, one of our staff members, said she would walk us there since it was kind of a long and slightly confusing walk. It was such a gorgeous walk and we had a lot of fun just joking around. We even found mistletoe and a bunch of ducks (many of them were quite dirty). And Anne Hathaway's cottage is just adorable. It just looks so picturesque. And it's so Tudor. The house was filled with lots of cool things from its history and the people working there were quite talkative and full of little stories about the house and the family. The grounds of the house were also incredible. I wish we had more time to explore and see more of the garden, but because of our short time in Stratford, we had to cram a lot into our free time. But, we did get to see the Willow Cabin! The 'willow cabin' speech is one of my all time favourites (from Twelfth Night, naturally) and the garden has a its own Willow Cabin where actors will perform Shakespeare passages. But in the summer, not autumn. Still, it made me smile lots.
We left the Cottage and make the trek back to the center of town. Our next stop was Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare used to go to church as a boy and where he's buried. I was really Shnerdily excited about this because last year I did a paper about whether William Shakespeare of Stratford actually wrote all of the plays and poems. One of the big pieces of evidence that those who believe Shakespeare didn't write the plays use is his grave, because it has a really crude and sloppy poem on the gravestone. So it was really neat to get to see this poem and grave that I had heard so much about. Plus, you know, it was Shakespeare's grave.
I branched off again to head to the Library and finish up my Carrie time. When I was finished, I picked up a quick sandwich at the 'As You Like It Cafe' (another place I had been waiting to go to) and headed off to meet the rest of ASE to get on our bus to Birmingham. Usually during the Stratford trip, ASE sees two or three RSC shows. But since two of the three theatres are currently under construction, it worked out that only Twelfth Night was playing in Stratford while we were there. So, they decided we should go see Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray ballet in Birmingham. It kinda sucked to go to another city and have less time to spend in Stratford, but I was grateful to see another free show. It was also kinda awkward once we got to Birmingham because we had two hours to spend in a brand new city before the show started. We ended up getting dinner and then reading aloud Shakespeare's sonnets (two of my friends had just bought pocket copies of the sonnets), because really, why not. So we got to keep being Shnerds even though we had left Stratford for the night.
Now, you may be really confused by the idea of Dorian Gray - the ballet. And it was incredibly interesting, to say the least. Probably the best way to describe it is to call it a Matthew Bourne production (he choreographed the famous all male Swan Lake Swan Lake.) It was a modern take on the story, so Dorian was a model and the 'picture' was a billboard, so it had a lot to say about fame and celebrity. There was also lots of half-naked-ness and sex scenes (especially with the boys - I think Oscar Wilde would have approved), so there were a couple of people in our group that were offended or bothered. It was a modern ballet, more a ballet in terms of dance telling a story instead of classical ballet steps, but the technique and dancing was incredible. There were some changes they made to the story that I felt weakened it a little, but overall I really loved it and it certainly was interesting.
Thursday was the last day of our trip. After one more delicious free breakfast, we packed up and went to one more lecture/discussion. We only had a little free time after the lecture so we headed over to a park on th Avon, right next to the main RSC buildings (which are under construction). It was nice to just wander and relax, plus play with Shakespeare statues and torment all of the ducks, geese, and swans. Then, no visit is ever complete without that last trip to the gift shop. It felt like a very appropriate way to end our Stratford trip.
On our way back to Bath, we made a short trip to Warwick Castle. In a way, the trip was really cool because it was the first castle I've seen since I've been here. But, it was also kinda lame because it was a very commericalized castle. They had a scary dungeon tour that you had to pay to go on, there were gift shops everywhere, and one of the towers had been converted into the 'Princess Tower'. (I might have been more okay with that part except they wouldn't let any of us into the 'Princess Tower', just the gift shop. Plus, the tower they used is the one that's supposed to be haunted. And I wanted to see the haunted tower.) It was neat to walk along the walls and such, but it would have been nicer if we had been there for a shorter amount of time. And if it hadn't started getting rainy. Thankfully, we got into the bus just a few minutes before it really started coming down, but we still had a decent amount of misty water to walk through.
Still, our Stratford trip was amazing. In the words of Reefer Madness, 'Shakespeare!'