I’d start this post with a witty Shakespeare quote/pun but that would require me to do more research than I am currently willing to do to make the joke any good. Instead I will just say that the best part of the Shakespeare tour was seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company. They have several different buildings and a fantastic park in between them. Knowing that so many of my idols from my acting days have performed there made it very special. Maybe better than all of, though, was the fact that I got to pet a lot of dogs.
Stratford really is a gorgeous town. Much of the architecture has been preserved from the sixteenth century. I found the river and the graveyard both to be extremely peaceful. The only thing I wasn’t loving about the day was the fact that we were traveling in our large group. I would much prefer to be left to my own devices in such a neat town.
I like to think I know a good amount about Shakespeare, but our tour guide made me realize that I actually know nothing and neither does anyone else. The group all seemed really negative about the fact that nothing could be solidly verified, but I enjoy the mystery. What I don’t enjoy however is long, slow moving lines. Seeing the building in which Shakespeare was born meant nothing to me and I couldn’t wait to get out to see the actors perform. I asked them to do a monologue from Othello and they did it. I was very impressed by their ability to pull scenes and monologues from memory. One thing that bothered me was that everyone was asking to see scenes from Romeo and Juliet, which is pretty surface level compared to other Shakespeare plays. I don’t dislike Romeo and Juliet but seeing a scene that can be summed up with “I love you, I love you, I love you” is pretty weak compared to other roles. I thought it was also really cool to see that one of the actors was disabled.
After making my way through the gift shop I was finally able to do the one thing I had wanted to do all day, sit and watch live music. I could have stayed there all day but unfortunately we had a bus to catch. The road to Liverpool was and uncomfortable until we started jamming out to some music, which made it a really memorable part of the trip.
The streets of Liverpool reminded me a lot of Pittsburgh, full of bars and restaurants but not as lively as London. As we made the trek to our restaurant I could feel myself getting sicker and sicker…