¶My Globe Experience
By Isabel Ortiz, 1999.

 

"The Globe Theatre, the space that Shakespeare wanted us to meet him in." -Mark Rylance, 23 April 1997.

 

20th of July 1997. I arrived to Heathrow airport. I was going to make a dream come true: visiting London. Since I was a child, London had been my favourite city, although I had never visited it before. As a teenager I wanted to see the place where my favourite pop groups lived, people like Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet, whom I still adore.

 

But I am digressing... Since 1993 I became a Kenneth Branagh fan and that was the reason for that visit. Apart from doing some sightseeing all around the most famous places in the city, one of my main objectives was buying material related to Mr. Branagh. But I also wanted to have a live experience in a British theatre, having missed my favourite actor on stage, Shakespeare if possible.

 

I checked all the ticket agencies. My first choice was "King Lear" with Ian Holm in the main role. Unfortunately, there were no tickets available until September and the idea of spending my precious time queuing to find one was unacceptable to me.

 

Among all the places I wanted to visit in London was the Globe Theatre. The morning of the 25th, I went there, hoping to see the Globe's Exhibition. No luck, one of the Globe's workers told me it was closed but "you can see a play for the same quantity of money". I went into the New Globe building and ask which play it was. "The Winter's Tale", I was told. I had never read it, and, because of my poor English, I thought it was going to be hard to understand an Elizabethan play without reading it before. Surprisingly, the tickets were as cheap as 5 GB pounds. I made up my mind and I bought it.

 

I had to wait for a while until it started, so I ate my sandwich sat in front of the Globe. My eyes were so full of London by then! I was sitting by the Thames, with that beautiful neo-Elizabethan building in one side and St. Paul's Cathedral in the other shore. Besides, a group of actors began to play a comedy for a handful of coins... there was magic in the place, the magic of drama.

 

At 2 PM I entered on the Globe Theatre for the first time. Just the vision of that wooden O cheered me up. It is difficult to explain how I felt. It was like being transported to the XVII century. The cloudless blue sky, the smell of the wood, the colours on the stage's ceiling... all those sensations lived at the same time... my eyes were full of London, and then they were also full of Shakespeare.

 

I remained some minutes in the middle of the yard going round and round in circles trying to keep in my mind all the details of the galleries. I wanted to reach my arms and touch every corner of the theatre, wanted to embrace it.

 

I am not sure how long I was standing there, but when I came round I went to my seat in the lower gallery. Then the musicians appeared up in the stage and the trumpets announced that the play was going to begin.

 

I didn't understand the whole text, but just the magic of Shakespeare's words made me levitate for more than 3 hours. I was deeply moved, not only because of the performances, but also for the place itself. It was the Globe, Theatre with a capital T.

 

I went out of the wooden O so happy that I asked in the box office if there were tickets available for "The life of Henry V", the other Shakespearean play in the opening season. Thank God, there were a handful of tickets still for sale, but only for the yard. Enchanted by the place, I bought my second ticket.

 

That night I saw Mark Rylance for the first time, although not in person. In my hotel I read the brochures I had taken in the Globe. And there he was, going "around the Globe" in the very first page. I still didn't know he was Henry V himself. "I invite you to come and discover this unique place, where you can come and go as you please for as little as a fiver and where you can eat, drink, laugh and cry or just listen, look and imagine with a freedom unlike that of any other theatre", I read. Mark's words summed up my feelings. It was freedom what I had felt that day in the Globe.

 

The following day, after a smashing visit to Windsor Palace, I headed to the Globe again. It had been raining all day, but finally the clouds went and the stars appeared in the sky to salute Henry V, this star of England.

 

I approached myself to the stage. I wanted to be the nearest possible to the performance. Henry V is one of my favourite Shakespeare's plays since I saw Kenneth Branagh's version for the screen. I knew the film by heart and I expected to find something similar at the Globe.

 

The fanfares announced that the drama was going to begin. The theatre was crowded.

 

The Red Company appeared on stage, dressed in white clothes, each of them with a log in their hands. They began to hit the ground with them...  Then, Mark Rylance's voice was heard for the first time... O for a muse of fire...

 

Time flied. My mouth reflected with no sound each of the dialogues... we happy few, we band of brothers... Mark's performance arrived straight to my heart. There are not enough words to describe the spell of the moment. His particular tone of voice, his humble but impressing presence,... all was there to be seen. I was not alone, but it seemed that he was talking directly to me. I had had few experiences as a theatre-goer. That was the most important for me, and still is.

 

The atmosphere in the Globe was so friendly! In the intervals I soon found myself talking to one Scottish woman about the differences between this version and Branagh's, something unimaginable in other theatres. I laughed a lot in the wooing scene (Toby Cockerell was a discovering), accustomed as I was to Branagh's film. When the play finished I had the biggest smile on my face ever. Even in bed that night I know I was smiling. Returning to the hotel by tube, I noticed my hands were shaking. The Globe, and especially Mark, had absolutely impressed me.

 

On July 1998 I returned to London. Of course I visited my beloved Globe again. "Two tickets for the yard, please", I shouted to the clerk when my turn arrived. "As you like it" and "The Merchant of Venice" were waiting for me.

 

The morning of the 16th, before the first play, I visited the Southwark Cathedral and began to drown into Shakespeare's spirit. I was ready then to see my 3rd play in the Globe. Marcello Magni appeared masked on the stage singing "Gobbo il padre, gobba la madre, gobba la figlia e la sorella, era gobba pure quella, era gobba pure quella..." My "Globe smile" shone again on my face. Marcello wanted to pour some water over me (I didn't allow him to do it, so he revenged stealing the bag of the girl next to me). I had never laughed so loud. And Mark was again there, Bassanio in all his splendour. I also recognised most of the actors from the previous year. "The Merchant of Venice" was a total joy!

 

The following day I saw "As you like it". I was in the yard again, surrounded by children who laughed and shouted all the time. David Fielder, Touchstone, came to talk to them in the interval and I sat on the stairs next to the stage to listen to him, with my shirt stained of false blood from the performance. Boys and girls were absolutely excited to know what was going to happen next. Shakespeare was alive. Shakespeare had come back to the people.

 

That was the last time I ever visited the Globe Theatre. My intention was to see "Anthony and Cleopatra" in 1999, but I couldn't go. Of course, I look forward to enter the Globe again and feel the magic... the magic of drama.

 

Yours from a many-sided round place,

 

ISABEL ORTIZ.