Boy, do I love England! Saturday evening my family and I went to Cambridge to see Measure for Measure at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival. What a magical evening! The kids and I saw Romeo and Juliet at the festival a few weeks ago, but this time we were ALL able to go. I'm telling you, these two evenings will definitely be on my "Favorite Things I've Done In England" list!
I love the atmosphere at this event. The plays are performed in the gardens of various colleges. Families, couples, and groups of friends arrive about an hour before the play begins, spread their picnic blankets on the garden grounds, and enjoy a leisurely meal. I enjoy seeing what the different groups bring to eat and drink; some are quite posh, and others are not quite so fancy, but everyone seems to have a wonderful time. A few minutes before the play begins, the groups make their way to their seats and settle in for the show.
I've never had the opportunity to see Shakespeare's works performed before, and I'm amazed at the actors in these shows! They do a fantastic job. Even though the language is hard to understand sometimes, we've had no problem following the stories. My daughter, C, said that watching the shows is more exciting than reading the books. I agree! I think when we wrestle with the difficult (for us) language in which Shakespeare wrote, we forget about the emotions the characters display. Watching these two plays has made us want to read more Shakespeare...and that is a cool thing!
No comments:
Post a Comment