Finally Arrived--And Saw a Guy in a Kilt Climb a Freestanding Ladder

After traveling by car, plane, train, and underground, I have arrived at my hotel in London. The room is lovely, and I am road-weary. I had tea and a (stale) donut at Covent Garden this morning and watched a street performer who immediately reminded me why I am here. Like theatre in Elizabethan England, his performance required active audience participation, and as he attempted all sorts of silly feats, the performer called for cheers and applause, asking for encouragement as he dared climb a completely unsupported ladder--in a kilt--and blow up--with his nose--a rubber glove he had pulled over his head. This kind of spectator engagement, energy, and enjoyment would most definitely had been a part of Shakespeare's theatre, as Will Shakespeare himself explained to the Middle School when he visited our assembly this past spring.

In Shakespeare's time, theatre was major entertainment; there were no video games, facebook profiles, TV shows, or movies. Londoners would ferry across the Thames, leaving the city limits and thus the city laws behind them, to Bankside, site of theatres, bear baiting gardens, pubs, and brothels. Often theatre-goers would also visit these other establishments, meaning they made for pretty raucous crowds. Audience participation was not just encouraged but was expected. There was no sitting silently, intently watching the actors. Instead, audience members whooped, hollered, booed, and bullied. They would mightily cheer actors and characters they loved, and they would readily abuse those they didn't like.

I also sought out a Diet Coke at Tesco's, a grocery store, and was dismayed but not at all surprised to find it lukewarm at best, despite it being kept in a refrigerated case. Why bother with the pretense of refrigeration, I wonder? Still, Diet Coke is Diet Coke, right Mr. Taft?


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