(V, i., l.184)
And so all good things come thus to an end. The girls - Jia Min, Cuifen, Ailin - and I took a trip down to Stratford on Monday (2nd) to watch Sir Ian McKellen in King Lear. It was fabulous, fabulous, everything! Heaven blessed us with good sun, just enough to illuminate the pastoral stage of Shakespeare's idyllic home. Having lunch on a bench, all 4 of us together; four girls on a bench. Then the traipse (limp) around; Mr Whippy, pastry and sandwich shops, PC Shakespearean souvenirs, a paid ticket into Mr Shakespeare's abode, a stroll around his renovated garden... It was a nice break, a nice holiday. And to top it up, King Lear was such a fantastic experience in itself. Admittedly I don't know the text well at all, and on several occasions I find myself just lost in the language, but the dynamics and emotions relayed were true and real enough to leave tears in my eyes and a lingering pang in the heart. Lear's madness was rather eccentric and amusing in the beginning, but I guess the amusement rendered his later acceleration of madness even more tragic, even more painful. Never imagined anyone to be able to repeat four same words so perfectly and so tragically; the right pauses, the right quiver, the right prolonging of vowels, the right everything!
Edmund the Bastard was really quite good-looking, Cordelia (or rather the interpretation of her) was quite annoying, the Fool was absolutely delightful (my favourite character!) and Edgar was brilliant, brilliant, brilliantly versatile. Ah wells. Shamelessly docked the armour and weapons of a fangirl and stood outside the stage door after the performance. Yup, got Gandalf's autograph on two bite-size King Lear books I bought; intending to mail one back to Harris since he taught me the Shakespeare paper in JC. The sire was incredibly gentle and acommodating!
I like this picture tonnes. :) We saw boats named after various Shakespearean heroines; Ailin and I picked our favourite and climbed right into Beatrice. Good ol' days of Much Ado!
y'know, I'm really glad I ended up reading Literature instead of Economics... Good ol' Daddy God :)
