Progress!

Just finished working through the correspondence of Ellen Terry and Shaw - it takes longer than I'd expected to work through some texts - and very interesting material; will need to reflect.

I think with reading mid-to-late Victorian and mid-20c texts (Shakespeare plays w/cuts, criticisms, autobiographies) that I'll only be able to "sample" the literature - otherwise, for example, I could spend my whole time here just reading the writings of Shaw or Olivier!

Learning to balance my time here, though slowly. I really could spend all my time at the British Library digging through old docs! Trying to incorporate more "exploring time" especially. I'm out more at night (and not just at theatres) though I haven't taken the bus yet. Should take the bus and see more of the city aboveground in this way too but, for example, a bus to the British Library takes 120 minutes but the whole tube trip (walking too) takes just under 30. But I will take the bus anyway this week - even just to the BL - regardless of time because, darn it, I want to see more of this city! I think soon it will be easier to have a few afternoons during the week plus weekends to explore - mornings at the BL, most evenings at theatres.

Also trying to plan a weekender with Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford - yay! Once I've got the dates set too I can scoop up all the tickets to other shows here in London (knowing I'll be here) for those "free" weekend dates. Will have a good (well, better) schedule then.

Did have an interesting day walking around last Saturday through Leicster Square, Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and all the way down to Hyde Park - where I couldn't find Speakers Corner, but I will return! Thousands upon thousands of people bursting the sidewalks and streets along this route - it seemed mostly shoppers!

And was very suprised + happy too to discover today that Ellen Terry was stayed frequently at a hotel in a part of the city I walked recently – the Victoria Embankment. So much of this history is coming more alive in me – no longer abstract people living in abstract places in abstract times, but something much, much more concrete.

**Lost connection completely for a long while, then had stuff to do, so – later additions.

Ventured outside Central London to East Croydon and caught a wonderful one man show called Falstaff with Roger Forbes. The trip was relatively easy though some of these stations are mazes in themselves – my first overground trip! The sunset on the way back was beautiful. The show was interesting especially in that it was my first time seeing a one man show and I was surprised, even just one good actor really can hold you enthralled for 2 + hours. Falstaff being a Shakespearean character (perhaps my fave), there were obviously lots of references to the plays, pulling in ‘self-referentially’ as many productions (especially film) do of ‘the works’ many characters and quotes. ‘This brave old world!’ A cook named Macbeth who murders his sleep by demanding to be paid. A stepsister Ophelia whom he introduced to ‘mature subject matter.’ So many others + plus what I assume is more ‘real’ English history too. The play is based on a novel by Robert Fry, which I haven’t read, so it’s impossible to know what major alterations to the story ‘as Shakespeare wrote it’ (leaving the verse and, you know, the rest of the dramatis personae aside) are the play’s or the novel’s. I was not surprised so much by the play taking place long after the end of Henry V and its keeping Falstaff alive. More that it made the most significant alteration of an almost reconciliation with Hal and moving his knighting to a much later time – and by Hal! It created a ‘reformation’ for Falstaff (he was knighted for showing pity to another essentially), yet the knight didn’t seem to recognize this as what occurred. Interesting too that Falstaff, who so often ‘acted’ with Hal here acted alone for 2 + hours. More could have been done with this . . . Ah, I could go on forever!

Got some nice (relatively, some of the other IROPers are really good at this) photos to upload at the British Library tomorrow – one, of the Warehouse Theatre, has a guy ‘posing’ for the shot.

There was a bit of very amusing confusion over my ticket before the show started (I’d made the foolish error of booking two tickets at the same time this Sunday and had luckily switched this one to tonight) and the woman waiting behind me near the end of the bit said, quite amused herself, “You’re a bit like the Monty Python of theatre goers, aren’t you?”

!