All The World's A Stage

Tomorrow, I'm escaping my daily lessons - much to the chagrin of my Theology teacher - to hijack a trip to the Globe Theatre in London, to see an all-male cast do an authentic production of "Twelfth Night". Being the unashemed nerd and Shakespeare fangirl that I am, I'm beyond excited - not in the least because the brilliant Stephen Fry is playing Malvolio . . . I can only hope that the sight of him in tight yellow stockings doesn't send my brain into fits of disturbed hysteria.

However, as it's winter and the British weather is being true to form and blasting us with merry deluges if wind and rain every other second, the performance takes place in the Globe's indoor venue. I've seen the London Royal Shakespeare Company at work before, this summer, when my grandad took me to an open-air production of "Henry V".

It was one of the most brilliant evenings of my life. The actors were stunning, the costumes brilliant, the lines delivered with perfect pitch and timing. The audience, from the "groundlings" to the seats in the Gods, were invited to stamp along and cheer and roar as the combating armies of England and France. There was even a particularly amusing moment when "Henry" was busy lauding accolades on a "stout Englishman", only for the aforementioned to state quietly "but ... I'm German."

The look of false horror on the retreating monarch's face was a truly golden moment.

But it's not just the plays that bring millions of toursits flocking to Britain's most famous theatre every year. While I may be a devotee of The Bard, I was definitely the youngest person in the audience that night.

What makes the Globe special is its heritage, and what it means for people on the whole.


The Globe is a beautiful theatre, and the exhibitions in its cellar are among the most incredible I've seen anywhere - even though the audio guide had a horrible habit of loosing very loud trumpet noises at unexpected moments. Everything down there is authentic, and created with such an obvious passion and eye for emphasis and effect, that you can tell whoever set it up was positively barking mad about their job.

The displays aren't just about the plays themselves, either. They're about London, the London that Shakespeare and his companies lived and moved in, the people they met, the things they did and saw and smelt.

Every costume you see was once worn by someone.

Every rusty knife was once nestled in someone's pocket.

Every coin was once cursed over when it slipped from someone's purse.

And the Globe brings it all to life. You'll see replicas of those costumes, that knife, those coins, passing between the hands of the actors on stage just as they were a hundred years ago. And it makes it all so much more real.

It's not just men in tighst prancing about spouting colourful insults at each other. It's our past, acted out in front of us, complete with funny accents, even funnier swordplay, and jokes so lewd you wonder how people could ever call Shakespeare "sophisticated".

It's the present, bringing the past to life.

~ Charley R

Tragedy - a short story

“A tragedy”, they say. Then again, a lot of things seem to be called “tragedies” these days. People pretend the word means something important, something heart-wrenchingly sad, when in actual fact it was nothing but a vaguely interesting event in their mundane, mortal lives. They don’t know what a tragedy really is. They know the stories, they watch the curtain fall, then they dust off their hands and walk away feeling thoroughly righteous, knowing that such a thing will never happen to them.

They see the dead lying in the ripples on the surface, but never what waits in the deep for the survivors.

Remember Benvolio? He was never terribly auspicious, was he – only the proverbial third musketeer, trailing along in the wake of his two friends as they wrought the special brand of havoc that can only be wrought by boys who think themselves men. Of course, it’s the other two that people weep for. Poor Mercutio, spitted for his loyalty and dying with a laugh on his lips, and dear Romeo, dear romantic Romeo, lying eternally in the arms of the woman he never truly got a chance to love.

At least they died quickly.

What they don’t tell you is that Benvolio never reconciled himself to the deaths.  Every day, week after week, year after year, he’d sit by their graves for hours on end, talking to them. He repeated every joke they ever told one another, relived every drink- and daring-fuelled misadventure. He even drank himself stupid in the graveyard on their birthdays, and ran home screaming in the dark. If you listened, you could hear their names amidst his tears.

He didn’t so much die as fade away, like ashes in the wind. 

Remember Horatio? Yes, that strange friend of Prince Hamlet’s, the one who was never there when you expected him to be. The one who stood about and looked shocked as half the court died on each other’s swords, remarked upon only in the mad ravings of a dying prince. The sight of all that death burned itself so deep into his mind that it was impossible to gauge out. 

He tried, though.

It seems that fate wasn't in the mood to indulge, for the knife didn’t go deep enough, and only succeeded in taking his eyes. Or maybe he tried too hard. The madness wasn’t long in settling itself where his eyes used to be.

He died screaming.

I could go on. 

I could tell you about how newly-crowned King Malcolm burned a thousand of his subjects on pyres of green wood on charges of witchcraft. 

I could tell you how Don Pedro hung himself, three months after he watched his treacherous brother swing from the very same tree. 

I could tell you how Sebastian wept when he discovered that the pirate Antonio, his many-time champion and saviour, had been executed on Duke Orsino’s orders the very day after the duke’s wedding to Sebastian’s own sister. 

I could tell you how pale Cassio turns at the mention of Cyprus, how he posts guards at every door and lies awake in the night, haunted by whispers and visions of handkerchiefs.

And I can tell you exactly why you'll believe me. Things are not always what they seem . . . and who knows it better than I?

I’m Iago. 

Honest.

Roderigo: The Forgotten Tragedy

I've had a bit of a tough patch recently - as in, I made some spectacular bums-ups, and they made people I care about angry at me, and I felt awful because it wasn't me that was suffering for my own idiocy. Being the over-emotional critter that I am, I've not been feeling too great, so I decided to turn to a surefire solution to cheer me up.

Catharsis, and Shakespeare. Othello to be exact.

Of all Shakespeare's plays, I think Othello is my favourite - not in the least because I have a sick fascination with watching the inner weaknesses of the characters destroy them. The inexorable unfolding of the tragedy, the cunning deceits, the horrifying misunderstandings, the heart-wrenching suffering . . . I love it all. The fact that I have a massive crush on Iago rather helps too.

But this time around, my emotional state brought a facet of the play to my attention that I'd never much noticed before - which is surprising, given how many times I've read and performed in the play.

Roderigo. And why, in a way, his is the saddest story of all.

A moneyed man, and presumably somehow involved with Othello's army, Roderigo is an outsider among the other characters. We never see him interact with many of them beyond testimonies in court scenes, and when he's being made to explain something. From this, coupled with the fact that he's a complete dimwit, we can guess that he's probably not very popular. We don't know where he comes from, or anything about his personal background or history, so, from the outset, he's just there for schadenfreude - for us to laugh at his misfortunes.

But, thinking about it, I don't see what's all that funny. Roderigo is in an unfamiliar place, with people who regard him with indifference at best (and scorn at worst), with no clear job or plan. And worst of all, the woman he loves has just run off with someone he can never hope to compare to; the brave, dashing, eloquent, general Othello. And she adores him. 

The fact of this hurts Roderigo so much that he talks about drowning himself for his misery. Even though he's roaring drunk and overemotional when he says it, it doesn't change the fact that he has contemplated suicide because of how miserable he feels.

Fear not, however, there is one bright speck in the darkness! Roderigo is not alone. He has a friend, a bright, ambitious, sympathetic friend who, if a little caustic, is firmly on Roderigo's side. Sure, he borrows a lot of money and seems to be a little slow in getting it back to him, but he's always there to talk him down and tell him that everything is going to be okay in the end. And, best of all in this world of double-entendres and hidden snarky remarks, Roderigo's friend is simply, beautifully, honest.

Roderigo doesn't know where he would be without Iago.

It's this that tears me apart. Although watching Roderigo pine after Desdemona is rather sad, it's the fact that he is willing to trust his money, his future, and his heart to Iago that really compounds how sad his life is. Everyone likes Iago well enough, certainly, but he is Roderigo's only friend in the entire world. And even when Iago's plan starts getting funny, and Roderigo contemplates pulling out and going home, he lets Iago talk him back into it. 

Why? Because he cares about Iago, and he believes Iago feels the same. Why else would he goad a drunken Lieutenant Cassio into a fight? Why else would he make slanderous allegations against Othello? Why else would he sit with Iago all night and listen to him vent his anger at being overlooked for the lieutenancy? 

Why else would he let Iago string him along, like the pawn he is?

None of Iago's lies, for me, show his sheer coldheartedness as those he tells Roderigo. Although he concentrates most of his venom on Othello, you can't help but think that this strong, independent general should know better - there are hundreds of people he could turn to! His loving wife, his loyal lieutenant, his allies at home . . . anyone! 

Roderigo doesn't have those alternatives. Even if he does feel some apprehension over what Iago's planning, he doesn't let it show because he doesn't want to lose him. Because Iago is all he has. 

Roderigo's end is agonising. Stabbed in a duel, bleeding to death on the street, in agony, while everyone fusses around Cassio and accuses him of attempted murder. But wait, there's Iago with a lantern! He'll know what to do, this was his idea after all. Wait? What is he saying? Roderigo attacked Cassio out of spite? No, no, that's not true, he never did that! Why is Iago saying this? This wasn't part of the plan, was it? . . . What's he doing with that knife?

And it is only as the  all-too-literal dagger plunges into his back that Roderigo realises the truth.

Iago never cared. Iago only used him as a pawn in his twisted game, and now he has no further use for him. Iago betrayed him. Iago lied.

"O thou damned Iago. O thou damned dog."

~ Charley R