GlobeLink - Globe Education's Online Resource Centre

By Jo Saner on May 12, 2008

I saw King Lear a couple of weeks ago and thought it was amazing! I'd never been to the Globe before and am now already planning two more trips later on in the summer!

By dorinda on May 6, 2008

I am coming on my first trip to the globe, with my sister and my cousin in late June. We are making only a short trip to London, but I'm delighted to say that we'll be able to see Midsummer Nights' and hopefully also take a tour.
I can't tell you how excited I am about the trip after spending this semester studying Shakespeare at Uni, and having had a long romance with Shakespeare all my life. The website shows the effort and care put into the care and maintenance of this wonderful venue, and I'm sure I'll be like a little kid to see it in person. We're very lucky - thank you Sam Wanamaker!

By Jeff Moule on May 5, 2008

King Lear 03/05/08
I found it rather ironic that like tragedy itself, the very strengths of Dominic Dromgoole’s production exposed its weaknesses. Somehow the theatrical elements of the piece – the half-naked suffering peasants in choreographed misery, the stylised battle between English and French armies, and the denouement that saw bodies variously assembled on stage as was the custom in this Jacobean genre – seemed out of place, unnecessary, false theatrical conventions invading the intimacy of the ‘real’ theatre taking place on the stage.
David Calder’s Lear was for me the real theatre. He was an intensely real, personal figure portrayed in such human scale against the backdrop of kingdoms and the social order of centuries. I was absorbed far more by his own decline into the despair of Alzheimer’s with its sudden blinding flashes of coherence than the plot’s narrative of unfolding political intrigue, scheming, and treachery. Apart from the odd arresting episode – such as the infamous scene where Gloucester’s eyes are gouged out before us (made even more horrific in this production by the way that, having been wounded after removing the first eye, Cornwall stands back to allow his wife, Regan, to enthusistically gouge out the second – an act that heightened its barbarity) – I found that most of the events of the play became almost insignificant beside the moment when Lear’s cried, “I would not be mad!” His own realisation of his precarious condition and mortality in that sudden coherent moment was heart-rending and made the more intense by its apparent spontaneity and his disheveled physical decline.
There were, of course, other examples of what the Guardian’s Lyn Gardener has called “shared moments”. Lear’s question to Edgar as the deranged Tom O’Bedlam:
Didst thou give all to thy two daughters
And art thou come to this?
was delivered with such innocence that the audience responded immediately to its black humour. And perhaps it was not just the occasion of the election of a new Mayor of London that gave us equal amusement from Lear’s terse advice to the blind Gloucester:
“Get thee glass eyes
And like a scurvy politician seem
To see the things thou dost not."

Similarly, the extraordinary fixed attention and focused silence of spectators to Lear’s final speech delivered with such intense personal depth was ample evidence of our complete engagement. I was not alone with welling tears as the old King cradled the body of his youngest daughter. Amidst so much poetry the repetition of the single word “never” had such a devastating effect – expressing not just the pathos of that moment but the tragedy on life’s brief stage for all of us.

By Alex Cook on April 29, 2008

This is to Titania doing a "Midsummer Night's Dream." I feel the same way when you had to do two different things at the same time. I love to do so many activities, but I never have enough time to do them all. What are your favorite characters to act as? I also feel the same way about reading up on the character. I don't like, or think I would find, anything about other people doing my part. I don't want to copy off them by accident.
One thing about the dancing: have fun because you might as well while your doing it. What kind of dance(s) are you doing with Bottom and Theseus/Oberon?

By Jane on April 23, 2008

I have been reading Pippa's bulletin about her first readings of the play in adopt an actor. It is really interesting to hear about the approach of reading the parts of other actors because it allows us to see that the reactions and life of others impacts on our character and that is a worthwhile learning point.
I would like to be able to contact Pippa and send best wishes from all of us - pupils and teachers - but I am not sure how that part of the adopt an actor works. It is a really good scheme and I hope that lots of schools will take advantage of this type of insight. Keep up the good work Pippa.

By Massimo Romano on April 15, 2008

Last summer I fell in love with Shakespeare'Globe and the plays represented there. I graduated in English literature, so for me it is the maximum I could desire.
In the summer 2007 I saw standing: "Love's Labour's Lost", "The Merchant of Venice" and "Othello" and all were just gorgeus.
Next summer I'm coming from Italy to see other four plays and I regret I discovered the Shakespeare's Globe so late. I hope that another Romeo and Juliet play is included during my stay in London July 23th-August 3th.

By Neil Barton on March 10, 2008

I'm coming to see all three plays in June and I'm really looking forward to it. As Shakespeare goes I would consider myself a bit of a virgin, but I am racking them up. I've seen at the Globe Merchant of Venice, and the Globe touring Romeo and Juliet. And at the Royal Exchange in Manchester Henry V and Anthony & Cleopatra. So I'm still on a learning curve so anything i can find out about he plays will make my viewing even better.

By ROY INGHAM on February 1, 2008

I have never seen 'Timon of Athens', and since I wish to see as many Shakepeare plays as possible, I hope, either alone or with my wife, to be able to get tickets for a performance and make the 200 mile journey to your extraordinary theatre.