midsummer night's dream in kingston.

yesterday, my shakespeare class went to kingston, a suburb of london, to go watch a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. I'd never read or seen the play, except a ballet performance of it in boston, so I was excited to go see this production.

our class went over to kingston together as a class. it took us an hour to get there via underground and overground. I enjoyed the train ride through southern london to get a feel of what 'real' london is outside zone 1, which is the tube-area with all the tourist attractions. It was rather monotone and dull, but i liked the authentic residential feel. our professor told us that the first time he and his wife from new zealand drove through southern london, she cried because it was so dismal!

after 45 minutes on the strawberry hill bound train, we arrived in kingston. it was a cute little town that retained a market-town feel to it. extremely pedestrian friendly and seemingly modest, but filled with posh shops. turns out, kingston, though an hour outside central london, is one of the most expensive suburbs of london because it's right on the river and relatively carless. it being a major suburb can be proven by its having its own performance theatre, which very few london suburbs/towns do.

our academic dean at nyu in london came with us and he and our professor created one of the most adorable scenes ever. we got slightly lost on our way from the station to the theatre, so our professor whips out his iphone and starts looking at the map. then the academic dean came over with his own iphone and started looking for restaurants. two old men in their late 60s, consulting their iphones, feeling accomplished and tech savvy was really endearing. I think our professor is slightly more adept because he started listing all these iphone apps that impressed our academic dean. oh technology.

based on the iphones' suggestion, we had a class dinner at a japanese restaurant called wagamama. I sat next to the professor, and had a really good time during the dinner. it reminded me that fun, engaging, and intimate class experiences outside the classroom are possible in college too. (maybe just in london, in a shakespeare class). we were all slightly taken aback when he offered us have a drink with our meals. drinking with our professor? slightly bizarre. well, everyone was hesitant at first, and he said "well, i'm having a beer!" and a few others joined in, and it was not a big deal at all. we all had fun watching our professor and each other struggle with chopsticks (except me haha i felt rather special). one of our classmate's food didn't come out for almost 20 minutes after everyone else's so our professor went up to the waiter and "used his charisma," and we all thought that was very sweet of him.

finally, we got to the rose theatre at kingston. only when I got there did I realize that this production was starring Judi Dench! (who I mostly associate as james bond's boss in the new 007 movies.)

I was both excited to see this mega star and shakespeare actor, but also worried that she'd be the only star of the show and everyone else mediocre. fortunately, the production was fantastic and most of the protagonists were all excellent actors. judi dench was titania and she wasn't on stage much, but when she was, she was great.

but for me, the real hero of the show was actor Oliver Chris, who played Bottom. He made the funny subplot, absolutely hilarious and had everyone in the theatre on the verge of tears due to so much laughing. it was a really great theatre experience, and got me excited for the remaining shakespeare plays i'll be going to this semester.