Before going to the Globe Theatre for the cowboy version of Romeo and Juliet (more on that later, but honestly, having seen it, the cowboy version really didn't add anything other than some country-esque music, cowboy hats, guns, and a bit of dancing) we had dinner at the historic pub, The Anchor -- Bankside.
Which turned out to be, as the great Marv Albert used to say while calling New York Rangers games on the radio, a "kick save and a beauty."
(Editor: Back up a paragraph. That was such a long parenthetical insert about the cowboy version that I've totally lost the thread. Writer re-reads that first paragraph: Ah, that's a fair point. Back to The Anchor).
I really have never spent much time on the Bankside of London. Heck, I've rarely been south of the Thames in London. I remember going over to the Greater London Council (GLC) when "Red Ken" Livingstone led it, and getting a bunch of free, cool posters, including my personal favorite:
"Don't be a human hedgehog, wear something bright at night." It featured a cartoon drawing of a dark hedgehog at night, fearful as he (or she, I don't think the poster showed gender) was about to get crushed by a car.
(Socialists don't understand how human nature works, but, as a broke college student, I did appreciate getting free posters from the GLC. They decorated my senior year apartment in Washington, DC.)
So we (Sandy, Carol, Rick, and I) got off the Tube in a part of London I had never been, the London Bridge station. (For the last time, London Bridge is somewhat underwhelming, and the very cool Tower Bridge is NOT London Bridge.)
We walked past the Southwark Cathedral (closed -- which means we couldn't see the Shakespeare Monument), the full-size replica of the Golden Hinde (Sir Francis Drake's ship which circumnavigated the globe from 1577-1580, raiding Spanish ships and towns in Chile, plundered more places, and sailed home with massive amounts of gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, pearls, spices, and more. It was a pretty successful business trip for Francis Drake. (Not so successful for the nearly two-thirds of the original 164 man crew who started out on the five ships but died along the way.)
We passed by the modest remains of medieval Winchester Palace, where the Bishops of Winchester lived from 1106 to 1626. Apparently Bishops supplemented their income by owning activities not often associated with the church, including prostitution, taverns, and gambling.
When we walked by The Clink Prison Museum, it dawned on all of us why jails/prisons are called "the clink." The expression comes from the sound of prisoners chains.
I had made reservations for dinner at The Anchor Pub -- Bankside, a sprawling tavern rebuilt in 1676 after the Great Fire. It's the last of the original 22 licensed "inns" of Bankside's red light district in the 1600s. Those inns served as taverns, brothels, restaurants, nightclubs, and casinos, and like today, tended to make bank for their owners.
A tavern has stood on the site of The Anchor for more than 800 years, and behind the inn was the Anchor brewery. Dinner was pretty tasty (I had the Scottish mussels, Carol had the fish and chips. I don't recall what Rick and Sandy ordered).
From there we decamped to Shakespeare's Globe for a great experience, a pretty good experience, and a pretty weird experience all at the same time.
In 1599, William Shakespeare was 35 and famous in the theater business. His acting company built the 3,000 seat Globe Theatre, and it is where his most famous plays premiered -- Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, in this open air theater.
In 1612 the theater burned down because King Henry VIII arrived to watch Shakespeare's All Is True. The stage cannon was fired as customary to announce the arrival of the king. Stray cannon wadding sparked a real fire offstage.
The throwback Globe, built in 1997, is near to where the original stage was. It's built as a round theater, with beautiful half-timbers, wooden pegs for nails, a thatched roof, but only holds half the audience of the original.
It was very cool being in the audience for the play -- we had seats on the second level (see photos below for a better idea), and took the advice of people who suggested renting the seat cushions.
As mentioned above, we saw the cowboy version of Romeo and Juliet, which apparently is the version you do when you are bored with staging the usual Romeo and Juliet. The cast was great, the play was great, but the cowboy theme neither enhanced or detracted from the play.
My favorite part was the swinging doors that the actors entered/departed through. One theater blog notes this:
Featuring a talented and diverse cast, the tragedy of two ‘star-crossed lovers’ unfolds in a violent world of cowboy, saloon brawls and shootouts. Behind the romanticized lore of frontier justice lies an incredibly rich and complex history.
Rick, with his back pain, felt like he couldn't make it through the play, so after dinner he headed back to the apartment. Apparently he was feeling better, because, lo and behold, Sandy spotted him down by the stage in the standing room section (thanks to his orange hat). He saw us waving, and the ushers brought him to us, so he unexpectedly joined us for much of the play. All's well that ends well.
(Editor: Hey, that "All's Well That Ends Well" line is pretty catchy. You just might have something there. Writer: Yeah, if Billy Shakespeare hadn't beaten me to it 402 years ago!)
Don't get me wrong, even with the weirdness of the cowboy staging, it was really a thrill to see a play at the Globe. Sandy had really wanted to go, and I'm glad, in planning this, that I took up her suggestion.
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