To Blackfriar’s, for laughter amid a good jest

If bus-engines responded to recitations, we would have been fine. Instead, our motley crew of Belmont students and faculty were grounded, surveying a pumpkin patch in the middle of Virginia. What was I doing the week before fall break seeing Shakespeare performed in a town I’ve never heard of and wasn’t sure how to pronounce? My fears and I were quickly ushered into a singing taxi-driver’s cab. What could be next?

Staunton, pronounced “Stanton,” is a charming town where New England meets Appalachia. We discovered the Darjeeling Tea Room, unique shops like the Once Upon a Time Clock Work, the Trinity Episcopal Church, and no shortage of coffee shops on corners. The Shenandoah Valley blushed with fall foliage, the Blue Ridge Mountains hemmed us in, and the light rain only served to cool the air and our humors for the exciting day-full of theatre to come.

The theatre itself is beautiful, a faithful recreation of the original Blackfriar’s Theatre in London. The troupe keeps to original Shakespearean traditions including, as their slogan goes, “doing it with the lights on.” The players perform in universal lighting, lights set equally on the audience and the players. This allows the players to direct their comments directly to audience members, or even to call them to interact. Imagine the experience – King Henry IV looked around the room and boomed “So shaken as we are, so wan with care,/Find we a time for frightened peace to pant,” looking person after person directly in the eye.

Furthermore, another tradition upheld, they allow audience members to sit onstage. It was like a 3d movie, only – real! “I had never seen a fight sequence quite like that on stage before,” senior English education major Crystal Gimesh said of the punches thrown, the tackles made, and the sword Prince Hal drove into rival Hotspur. They might even touch or interact with nearby onlookers.

Callie Compton gushed, “when [Falstaff] made his entrance, he touched my face!” speaking of the all too lovable, doomed, and rotund Sir Falstaff. This guy gets all the wittiest lines, some sneaky and scathing insults, and even some wise insights. During the final battle he ran up to me and asked to borrow my seat cushion to fake his death upon. How could I refuse?

We were also treated with a Restoration drama, George Villiers’s  The Rehearsal, a meta-theatrical circus fully-equipped with a slow-motion battle sequence and a performance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

And finally, the comedic Much Ado About Nothing. The troupe’s production of the play was lighthearted and even slapstick at times. I had never matched Jeff Tweedy’s verse with Shakespeare’s, but the players’ performance of the Wilco song “I’m Always in Love” in the interlude proved a fun and appropriate match for the comedy.

Writing from the bus ride home, saying goodbye to Virginia’s fall foliage and trusting that this new bus will be a more formidable vehicle than its former, we reflected on our experience together: “It was actually like a miniature vacation,” said freshman English major Melanie Bond, and to any considering the trip next year, Callie said, “You don’t have to be a Shakespeare connoisseur, or even to have been to many plays before to enjoy the experience.”

So there you have it: plays, a lovely town, some stops at McDonalds to stay college kosher, and to top it off you might even get face to face interaction with Sir Falstaff.