Merrymaking in the Middle

Ah, the Globe - a theater built and rebuilt by and for a somewhat well-known playwright called Mr. William Shakespeare. This purpose-built theater has stood on the banks of the Thames with a few extensive interruptions since 1599 Anno Domini, and was the center of today's adventures in London.

The early morning was spent touring the current Globe, placed down the road from the site of the original over three centuries following the destruction of Shakespeare's Globe by the Puritan government under Cromwell. That original (actually the second structure following the burning of the first in 1613) was a place where people of all classes could view plays written by Jonson, Marlowe, and, of course, the Bard himself, among others. Lords gathered in the stage-boxes, while others could stand at the foot of the stage for as little as one penny to watch plays such as the one we saw tonight, "The Merry Wives of Windsor".


In the panel preceding the performance, the work was described as a "play about the middle" because it centers around the middle class and the middle-aged. Between our morning tour and evening show, most of us experienced some more modern middle-class means of merrymaking as well, eating from the diverse stalls at Borough Market, and spending several hours in the Tate Modern.

My lunch of a corned beef ("salt beef") bagel.

Bronze cast of Degas' Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. 

Following an introductory panel of the life, times, and setting of the play, we found our "seats" at the foot of the stage, standing as "groundlings" in the middle of the Yard of the theater to watch a play that I can only describe as magical, even reimagined as it was in the setting of the 1930s rather than its original 1590s.

All in all? I can't complain about anything today being in the "middle;" in fact, the middle was the perfect place for us to be.