London: Day 7
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We had a much better day today. I went for breakfast while Geo showered, then we took the tube to Southwalk Bridge. We picked up a great coffee and croissant at Pret-A-Mange, then walked across the bridge to the Globe theater. We took pictures of the inside and outside of the theater and the waterfront gates. We toured the Globe with a guide who was a member of the Globe Players. He had an actor’s temperament, aloof, superior and condescending. He spent a great deal of his time bemoaring the attention span and the inability of people to listen for extended periods of time. Despite his tone, he was informative, and it was great to be in the Globe. The info center attached was very informative regarding the construction of the theater. I picked up some postcards, bookmarks and a poster for Sean and the drama department.
After the Globe, we walked next door to the Tate Gallery of Modern Art. The construction on it is not finished yet, so only four wings were open but that was enough. We saw some Jackson Pollock’s and Warhol’s. Geo was bored stupid, he doesn’t understand or appreciate modern art. I explained it to him, as we sat in Pret-A-Manger again, for lunch we hit the book stores and furniture stores again to browse. Geo picked up a few more books, and I dream’t of how I’d redecorate our bedroom and bathroom, given unlimited cash.
We headed back to the hotel to drop off our purchases, have a snooze and put on our raincoats before heading out again for supper and play.
We caught the tube to Piccadilly Circus where we found the Picadilly Tandoori for some Indian food. We had some good tandoori chicken, basmatic rice, pan bread and curry vegetables. It was much less expensive that the Mahal restaurant from a few nights ago. We killed ourselves laughing when the cheque was brought with an “After Curry Mint”, actually orange chocolate.
We wandered around a bit before heading to the Criterion Theater to see The Reduced Shakespeare Company perform all 37 plays in 90 min. The playhouse seemed to be in an old subway station, it was in the basement of Lillywhite’s Sports Store. It was a very small and intimate playhouse, where the actors needed no microphones and the audience was encouraged to participate in the play by the three actors who staged the whole thing. The staged all the histories as a football game, they combined all the comedies into one play, and they made all the tragedies into comedies. They staged the plays Troilus and Cressida as a nouveau art piece, and they put on their version of Hamlet during the second act. The props were simple it was fast paced and funny, the actors spoke to the audience when they were on stage. It was great. For the finally they did one short version of Hamlet, then one even shorter version, then they did it backwards. It was too funny.
Having had a full day, we headed back to the hotel after the play, a little leery about taking the tube (there was a near crash at Victoria Station yesterday, and a bomb scare in Picadilly today), but we made it back just fine. I’m off to bed!
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