Monday, August 4, 2014

The Lightening Child…(Sept. 14th)

Disclaimer: this post is going to be a bit of a rant/exposing some PTSD.  Some of this is what I wrote for my class reflection, so please keep that in mind.  

Since we had £5 left in our play/musical fund, Haley, Rachel and I decided that we would go back to The Globe (because we LOVED it the first time!) and see the newest play.  We bought groundling tickets for opening night (crazy Saturday night, hay!) and we were pretty intrigued to say the least.  

I'm just going to put it out there that the main reason we bought these tickets, was because we saw it being rehearsed during our Globe tour a few days back, and there was a man wearing a gold bikini on stage.  HOW can you just ignore that??  

You don't.  You take a leap of faith, buy the tickets, and see some shocking, disturbing things take place on stage five feet from your face.  


the only photo (blurry, sorry) that I took while we were there was of the stage…so that should tell you something.


(this is from my class work now)
As soon as I left (a bit early, I might add), I wrote down my immediate reaction, stream-of-consciousness style on my phone (tube rides are great for this!) so I could come back and process my thoughts after stepping away and thinking for a while.  I was hoping to come to a bit of a conclusion, but I am still so confused and disturbed.  From the mutilation, tyranny, drugs and mental instability that were rampant throughout the play, I found myself just staring at the stage in horror for the majority of the performance and wondering what Shakespeare would think of this performance being shown in his theater were his still alive today.  Personally, I think he was rolling over in his grave Saturday night.    
Probably most shocking part of the performance was when the Lightening Child ordered his followers to kill one of the main characters.  They starting biting him, then cut out his heart, and threw chunks of his flesh across the stage while their mouths became stained with blood.  Even more disturbing, his mother cradled his bloody head after it had been chopped off and spoke to it.  If that isn’t mad I don’t know what is.  The scenes of cannibalism and severe mutilation were very distracting from the rest of the play because then they were all I could think about for the remainder of the performance. 
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So essentially, I am glad I went to the play because it was SO different from what I'd usually pick, but I would NOT recommend it to anyone-unless you like witnessing whirlwind escapades that resemble how I imagine an acid trip would be.there is a reason I only took one photo at the show!! I don't even know if I could explain what the play was about if someone asked me.  Something new and different, that is for sure!  Definitely a "When in London" moment. 
xx

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