I love Shakespeare, and I love Hamlet, compound that with the fact that they had Aziraphale and Crowley at the Globe Theater while they were playing Hamlet put me over the moon.
What I find most amusing, is that both Michael Sheen and David Tennant have both played the part of the Danish prince.
So we have our favorite angel and demon, meeting at the Globe because of their new "arrangement" to do miracles or temptations that are just plain and simple, a pain in the ass to do, but management wants them to do anyway.
They also discuss the fact that if either one of their sides knew about the "arrangement" it would be abysmal for them. We know what eventually happens to Crowley later on in the future, when he saves Elspeth from attempting to take her life.
I think the one thing that is key with this part of their history, is how much concern Aziraphale has started to show for Crowley. Even though he denies ever knowing Crowley, he is nonetheless worried about his wellbeing. These are the early stages of their relationship, with Aziraphale voicing his distress at the possibility of Crowley being destroyed if caught by his superiors.
During their conversation, Hamlet is playing on stage, and Aziraphale loves this play. Unfortunately, it's not that popular and it concerns him very much. They then have their coin toss to see who get to do the good and bad thing in Edinburgh.
Poor Aziraphale loses that toss and get stuck having to go there. At this point, Aziphale hears Shakespeare bemoan the fact that no likes Hamlet. This is where Aziraphale gives Crowley the, what has been called, his "heart eyes" looks. I call it the, "oh please my dear, can you do this for me?" look and Crowley just can't say no to him.
It doesn't even take him a second to agree to his angel's request, so much for putting up a fight. He never has a chance, Crowley already has it bad and doesn't even know it.
I will say, that to me, Crowley fell in love first with Aziraphale. The debate is, when, at Eden or during Job minisode? We can debate that forever, but in the end, he is already in love.
I adore how happy it makes Aziraphale, when his demon capitulates to his wishes. Look at him, he is beaming with happiness, how can anyone not love him.
Crowley makes it like, yea, whatever, but you can't tell me he wasn't smiling as he walked away, knowing that he made his angel happy.
Anyway, I love this whole minisode as I said earlier. It is adorable in their interactions over one of my favorite plays. Plus, Elizabethan Crowley is just gorgeous!
While Shakespeare is still trending, he and his group The Lord Chamberlain’s Men pulled the best revenge on their landlord in 1598.
In 1598, their lease on their theater- The Theatre- expired and their landlord- Giles Allen- was a Puritan and decided he didn’t want a theater on his land anymore. So while Giles Allen was out of town during the Christmas holiday, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men dismantled The Theatre in the middle of the night, moved it down The Thames, and rebuilt it in a new location. And that theater was named The Globe.
So when people say Shakespeare is boring, remember: he and he friends literally stole a theater to get back at their landlord.
So I went to a talk/demonstration about stage sword fighting in Shakespeare at The Globe today and they were talking about how it was likely that in the duel between and Laertes they would have used rapier and dagger in the original productions - as in, they, as well as having the swords, one of which is poisoned, they would both have had smaller daggers and I'm still sort of...thinking about how that would work in staging but my instinct is that makes a lot of sense? Because when Laertes drops his sword/Hamlet grabs it, he would be left unarmed which seems...odd...or they just have to drop their swords at the same time which also seems odd; basically them both having two weapons potentially gives more room for playing around with how and why the sword switches hands twice (could also potentially mean Hamlet drops his dagger in order to have Laertes sword as well as his own for a moment but that's the kind of nonsense he would do).
A playful explosive row at dinner," reads Mark Rylance's personally annotated working script from 1999: "Rushes skipping onto the stage".
This is one of those rare 'you really can't get this sort of thing anywhere else' lots (it actually applies to all 55 of them in this auction, but this one especially!). A historical, annotated-at-the-time working script of "The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra" from 1999, by the Academy-, BAFTA-, Olivier- and Tony-award winning Mark Rylance, when he famously played Cleopatra.
The play Mark Rylance performed in was an Original Practices Production, directed by Giles Block at Shakespeares Globe, running 30 July-26 September 1999. ‘Original Practices’ refers to a unique and radical experiment that was generated at the Globe and used historical performance to transform modern theatre practice. The reconstruction of a Shakespearean amphitheatre was premised on the idea that it would provide the ideal context for testing out what academics knew of early modern playing conditions. This led to an exceptional partnership between research and creative practice during Mark Rylance’s Artistic Directorship (1995-2005) in an attempt to discover and recreate Shakespeare’s company’s working practice. The acting script was the property of Mark Rylance (Cleopatra) who donated the script to a benefit auction for Shakespeare's Globe following his last season (autumn 2005); since then the script has been in the hands of a Private Collection and we are now so very lucky to be able to offer it as part of this auction.
Mark Rylance's annotated script and 'plat' of Anthony and Cleopatra (1999) places a great emphasis on the motivation of his character throughout, summarising and specifing the neccessary stage-business required: "Be present, playful, infinite variety, don't cloy, connect with him" and "Let him win me, seduce me". There are contextual reminders ("Very unusual for a messenger to bust in like this, we usually ignore them") and you can almost hear the conversation in the rehearsal room, as in this comment on Anthony's Roman duty from Cleopatra's point of view, in Mark Rylance's handwriting: "His boring side. His suburban side. Mowing the lawn of Rome". The script, and additional pages of notes on his character ("What Cleopatra says about herself", "What others say about Cleopatra", "Costume plot and cues"), comes in a beautiful protective oak box.
Does anyone have a link or torrent or whatever to the Globe Theatre production of Twelfth Night with Stephen Fry as Malvolio? I would hate to accidentally pirate this production and if you could alert and warn me against stumbling across such links I would very much appreciate it.
one thing i love about the 2011 globe production of ‘much ado about nothing’ is how obsessed benedick is with beatrice. there’s one scene where beatrice drops the black fabric she had in her hand (a prop used for the ‘re-marriage’ scene of claudio and hero - for the ladies to cover their heads) and benedick, who is on the other side of the stage talking to antonio, IMMEDIATELY notices and runs over to pick it up for her, whilst constantly giving her looks of longing. i can’t get over it and it makes me want to munch on glass