The World is a Stage

Months prior to departing for London from Bangalore, Helen purchased tickets to see The Producers at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

The Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the oldest English theater still in use. The first theater built under a royal charter from Charles II in 1663 prospered until destroyed by fire. Other theaters were built, demolished and burned down. In the 1790’s a new “fireproof” theatre was built. It burned down in 1809. The theater continued in up and down cycles and even diverted from staging “legit theater” when it screened two D.W. Griffith silent masterpiece films in 1915, Birth of the Nation and Intolerance. By the time we arrived, the theater was in splendid shape…but had no air conditioning.

The Producers by Mel Brooks is the story of a down-on-his-luck theatrical producer named Max Bialystock who develops a get-rich-quick scheme with his accountant Max Bloom. They connived to scam Broadway with a sure-fire flop, Springtime for Hitler: The Musical. A well managed flop would make millions! Add a long-legged, Swedish cheesecake named Ulla and one has a stage masterpiece. “Walk this way.”

London is awash in theater and theater history. England…theater…Shakespeare…Globe Theater. Shakespeare’s company erected the Globe Theater circa 1598. The open-air amphitheater rose three stories with a diameter of approximately 100 feet, seating up to 3,000 spectators. In 1613, the original Globe Theatre burned down when a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII ignited the thatched roof of the gallery. The company built a new Globe and continued operating until 1642. Then the Puritans closed it down as well as all the other theatres and other places where people might be entertained. The Globe would remain a ghost for the next 352 years. The latest incarnation of the Globe Theatre was completed in 1996.

On our walk along the Thames waterfront to the Globe, we had a more pressing problem than Puritanical repression of entertainment. We had no tickets. On a whim we decided to wait at the box office among the other hopelessly optimistic for a chance to purchase returned tickets. We were first in the line. Lady Luck smiled upon us. We purchased two tickets in the upper balcony and were regaled with a performance of Antony and Cleopatra.

Sitting in the Globe was a marvelous experience. We could see the groundlings milling about in the circle before the stage. Others sat on open benches or very square backed seats. Regardless of creature comforts, we felt we had been given a chance to partake in a bit of “reconstructed” history. Live actors were speaking words written by Will Shakespeare on a stage he would immediately recognize. “Where art thou, death? Come hither, come! Come, come, and take a queen…!”

Our next theater experience was initially a dilemma of choice in the beach front town of Brighton. Jerry Springer: The Opera or the musical Buddy, based on the short musical career of Buddy Holly. Hint: We toe tapped to rock-n-roll tunes and a re-staging of a musical gig at the Surf Ballroom at Clear Lake, Iowa on the snowy evening of February 2, 1959. Later that evening Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens were all tragically killed in an airplane crash… the day the music died.