I’ve spent this fall at a fabulous banquet, course after course of bodies on stages across London, Scotland, and France. Born with Teeth three times at the Wyndham with three different configurations of friends—you go back when something’s alive like that. Evita at the Palladium, Fat Ham at the RSC, Lifers in Southwark, Hamlet at the National Theatre with five students packed into a row. Twelfth Night at the Globe, My Neighbor Totoro at the Barbican where forest spirits materialized through puppeteers’ hands, Richard III crammed into a pub’s upstairs room, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in Soho, Ben Duke’s Juliet and Romeo in Aix-en-Provence. Othello at Theatre Royal Haymarket with Toby Jones as Iago and David Harewood as Othello. Hadestown at the Lyric Theatre (twice) with its folk-opera descent into the underworld. Nicola Walker in Unbelievers at Royal Court Theatre. Dave Neita’s one-person show followed by live music in Upper Clapton. A folk band in an Edinburgh pub. Each night I gave over my attention like currency, spent myself there in the dark.
You’d think it would empty you out, this much watching, but it’s the reverse; I’ve been fed like Elijah by ravens. The stories stack and stack: masculinity cracking open, Hamlet’s grief made new, Ben Duke’s Juliet & Romeo writing itself over Shakespeare’s bones like a palimpsest. Even the football matches—Queens Park Rangers against Oxford United at Loftus Road, Chelsea versus Liverpool at Stamford Bridge—bodies in space, plot and counter-plot, the roar.
And look at the fellow theatre-goers: Jessie, Casey, Louis, Andrew, Andres, Claire, Saanvi, Serena, Sophia, Victoria, Noelle, Rohan, Caleb, Chloe, Pablo, Shreya, Clarissa, Natalie, Valerie, Meg, Lewis, Sheila, Eva, Tommy, Joby, Daniel, John, Jonathan, Kate. All of our Shakespeare class at the RSC and Othello. All of the London students at Evita. The abundance isn’t just in the art—it’s in the people beside me in the dark, each time a different constellation. What is teaching but this? Sitting next to your students while we watch Richard scheme in the rafters of a pub, while we watch Hamlet break at the National Theatre, while we watch Toby dance at the Globe, while we watch Eva Perón captivate Argentina at the Palladium. You make a group of witnesses. You say: look, this matters, we’re here together.
London has given me this feast, theatre after theatre, friend after friend.
