Timeless

Our "Space, Place and Text" class at LDA uses the city of London as a tool for showing us the historical contexts of the works we are studying.  We'll be venturing on a number of trips throughout the semester to places like Stratford and Middle Temple to give us a close look at some of the essential spaces in the history of British theatre. This past Friday we went on an early morning excursion south of the river to The Rose Theatre, where Shakespeare's earliest plays were performed.
We left our Kensington dorm building around 7:30 so we could reach the Mansion House tube stop by 8:30 to meet our professor.  Once we reached Mansion House we got some americanos and ventured over the Southwark Bridge.  This was about the time that I realized that when you're crossing the Thames in January its probably a good idea to blow-dry your hair beforehand.  Anyway, despite my freezing head, it was pretty incredible crossing the river and suddenly seeing the replica of Shakespeare's Globe peeking through the slew of modern buildings that now cover Bankside. 
Once we reached South Bank we traveled through an alley or two to find the original Rose Theatre site.  Inside the space we were given a tour and lecture on the history of the Rose and the other theatres of it's time--The Globe, The Swan and The Theatre. 
What stands of the original Rose is the foundation which shows the shape of the stage and interier and exterior walls of the space.  This foundation is covered with dripping water to preserve it.  Red rope lights line the foundation so you can see the dimensions of the space and how intimate it actually was.   It was rather remarkable being in the same space where some of the greatest plays ever written were first performed.  Though the actual building no longer remains, standing in the space where some of Shakespeare's first great characters were inhabited in front of an audience was truly remarkable.
After our tour of the space was over we were given a irrefutable offer.  The tourguide and our professor said we had time for a few of us to do monologues in the space.  I was the first one to hop up, I didn't want to miss this opportunity!  I decided to do one of Margaret's monologues from Henry VI Part II because I had been working on it with my audition tutor and wanted to play with it in the space.  It was such a joyous and memorable experience speaking Margaret's fierce text in the presence of so much history; I had goosebumps the whole time. A number of us went up and performed monologues penned by Mr. Shakespeare some 400 years earlier.  The space was old, the actors were young and the words were completely timeless.

-Shea