EUROPE & DC '23 • Day 24: London, UK

Bob Aron
Sep 23, 2023
2 min read

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

Hotel is one minute from Sarah's flat! Quick meet up for coffee with Sarah's friend and flat mate from Edinburgh, then into central London for some Shakespeare. First the Borrow market, to grab some great Indian street food to eat on the walk over to The Globe. Whew, so tasty.

THE GLOBE

Last year, when we were here for Sarah's delayed graduation from Edinburgh, we went to The Globe to see King Lear. It was the hottest recorded day in London, muggy, and we were sitting upstairs in a packed box. The play was great, but it was STICKY! It actually started to rain during the storm scenes of the play which was great. The breeze felt nice, but overall it just made things more humid. This time, the weather was much kinder.

As You Like It was the play. A Shakespeare comedy and the one that contains "All the World's a Stage...". We've seen a few Shakespeare plays over the years, but I am by no means, well educated on his work. These days I do like to read the play before going to see it performed, just so I don't miss some subtle dialog that I may not be able to understand, especially when there might be some thick Scottish or northern English accents involved. So this was the first time I'd seen one of Shakespeare's comedies. I liked it for sure. Less dying, more jokes. It's kind of amazing that humor from so many centuries ago can still be funny to our modern ears.

Today's production featured 2 actors doing sign throughout the performance and they were both detached and involved in the acting. I actually really liked it. In addition, the performance featured the dialog on prompters, like they do at the opera for translation. This also made it easier to check on any unintelligible dialog every now and then.