All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players
As You Like It was predictably wonderful.
I don’t know any other way to describe it. The theatre is quaint and intimate. Before coming, I didn’t understand why standing up cost more than actual seats, but it’s because you are so close to the stage if you stand. The audience becomes a part of the play…literally. Scenes took place off stage and the audience had to scoot back and make room. Players walked through the audience to get on stage.
Our seats were on wooden benches though, and my butt kept falling asleep.
In condensed terms, basically a women goes into hiding and becomes a man. So her boyfriend falls in love with her as a man and so does this other girl. Then she switches back to a woman and the girl and the guy still love her. Morale of the story, Shakespeare played with gender identity and homosexuality.
I don’t believe people really talked like this during Shakespeare’s times. Sure, it was similar, but his love for words and how they can affect people made him nothing less than a genious. I wish the written word was taken more seriously today. No lol, g2g, nvmd…those aren’t real words. People don’t think in terms of poetry and how the last word in a sentence should be the strongest. It’s sad.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
