Today we went on two tours – one of the Globe and the other a walking tour of Shakespeare’s London – and the theme seemed to be that London has little appreciation for Shakespeare. Of course, we spent our first ten days in England in Stratford-upon-Avon, where the focus on Shakespeare is rather single-minded and almost religious, and that could have skewed my perception somewhat, but both of the tour leaders commented on how low of a priority Shakespeare is for London.
In the Globe I heard again what I’d learned about a week ago (to my great surprise) – that the replica of the Globe now standing was only completed in 1997, and only begun at the behest of American actor Sam Wanamaker, who was shocked during a visit to London when he discovered that only a plaque memorialized the spot where Shakespeare’s Globe once stood. He’s now known as “the man who built the Globe,” even though the process took so long that he died four years before it was finished. Apparently the citizens of London weren’t exactly gung-ho about the project – our tour guide told us that objections were raised because the area where the replica now stands used to hold a warehouse that stored carts for street cleaning, and some considered that more important.
For whatever reason, possibly due to London’s size, I had assumed that the Globe had been around for decades, and that it was the most respected, established Shakespearean theatre, while the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, although excellent nonetheless, was more of an underdog. According, to our tour guide, it’s actually the opposite! People were reluctant to support the Globe because the RSC already existed, and the RSC gets government support while the Globe gets none.
Later in the day when we went on a walking tour of Shakespeare’s area of London, we heard more along the same theme. We visited several locations very important to Shakespeare’s life, including another of his main theatres and two places where he actually lived, and only one or two of them had a plaque denoting their significance. Stratford, which has made a museum out of Shakespeare’s grandaughter’s house, would have made so much of it!
Is Shakespeare only so important to Stratford because they really don’t have anything else? Or on the flip side, does London have so much that it doesn’t think it needs Shakespeare?