To sleep: perchance to dream. - Stratford-upon-Avon

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, rounded with a little sleep"
The Shakespeare Hosterie

In my teens, like so many other english literature lovers out there, after having thoroughly read the Jane Austen novels (see respective blog here), my eyes gleamed at the idea of living in an age of eternal teatimes and long flowing dresses.
Not long after, I picked up a tatty old copy of the entire works of Will Shakespeare, expecting to find more or less the same effect.

"These violent delights have violent ends"

Disappointed, I quickly shelved the 4 inch bible. This wasn't the English to make me swoon. The jokes were lost, if humour was what he was even going for.
Romeo and Juliet seemed so much better with Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes than on paper, and "Ten Things I Hate About You" with Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger was a more relatable story just given the title.

"I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers in their sum could not,
with all their quantity of love, make up my sum."
River Avon, with rowboats named for the female characters

But in the following two years I played character (minor, awkward, and generally there for comedic purpose) roles in college productions of "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Comedy of Errors", giving me not only historical lessons in my first language, but also a personal understanding of the clever bard.

I could thereafter giggle at subtleties and didn't wrinkle my brow on hearing words like 'ere' 'lest' and 'avaunt'.

If someone bit their thumb at me, I was royally offended.

"Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love."

Shakespeare in Love

Plus during slow rehearsals I even learned how to fence a little bit. I'd include photos, but that was before most phones had cameras, and quite frankly the 16th c. costumes didn't quite have the same flattering effect for me as for Gwyneth Paltrow...

The clocktower installed for Queen Victoria
in her jubilee year, on the other side it reads,
"Ten thousand honours and blessings for the bard
who has gilded the dull realities of life
with innocent illusions" - Washington Irving

More outdated Shakespeare terms
or a Shakespeare insult generator


Shakespeare was a theatrical catharsis meant to be seen and heard and lived, not a comfort read, curled up with a cuppa and a chocolate hobnob. So when I saw my favorite play was being performed at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, I couldn't put off seeing his hometown any longer. My MSU English Lit-loving friend Phebe was currently living in London studying her MA, so we soon met up at the train station to embrace our inner literary nerd and see "Hamlet" performed by Jonathan Slinger, directed by David Farr.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
Snacking on sandwiches before going
into the RSC (behind the adorable Phebe)

We were agape, walking from the birthplace, a charming little wooden cottage on Henley Street, to the baptismal font and the grave in the Holy Trinity church.
Every street was a picturesque vision of the 1600s or before. Thatched roof pubs announced their histories of lodging kings. Mortared white houses with black timber surrounded by trimmed hedges calmly declared Shakespeare's granddaughter had grown up there.

"I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space,
were it not that I have bad dreams."
Shakespeare's home

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horacio,
than are dreamt in your philosophy."
Town Hall

"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
Garrick Inn, now a pub, dating back to the 15th c.

"To be, or not to be...that is the question."
And there he rests.
And I have no inclination to move those bones.

"This, above all: to thine own self be true."
Mel Gibson as Hamlet

I was flouncing around like my 7 year old self at the "Honey I shrunk the Kids" exhibition at Disneyworld. But this was the REAL thing, plastic figurines and giant lollypops aside, pure genius born here changed this world, certainly my world.



And how was Hamlet?
Well, I'm not sure many dry eyes left that theatre.