Black Friar


My oldest daughter received a graduation gift from my sister's family last June when she graduated college. It was tickets to the American Shakespeare Blackfrairs Theatre in Staunton VA. Her work schedule has been heavy and things kept getting delayed until, almost a year later, the season was nearing its end and she had not used them. With only 5 days to spare, she made reservations for Henry V and invited us to join her. We did the 3 hour drive to Staunton last night, and it was an amazing time.

Although we decided not to spend the night, we started looking at it like a road trip and snooped around on http://TripAdvisor.com to locate restaurants. It was a road trip without a hotel. My mom offered to watch Reid during the 3 hours in the evening when we don't have a nurse and I took vacation days for Thursday and today (knowing we would be home in the wee hours of the morning).

We drove down Route 340 through West Virginia (passing just a couple of miles past my sister's house) on one of the most beautiful drives on the East coast. It reminded me of Vermont only lusher. As usual, I had trouble keeping my eyes off the scenery, but the traffic was light so it wasn't too dangerous to sneak a peak. We arrived in Staunton at 5 PM and headed right for the Mill Street Grill. This was the http://TripAdvisor.com top rated restaurant and with good reason. We had a great meal and discovered we had an hour and a half to kill. We drove over to check out Wright's Dairy-Rite Drive In for a planned after-show ice-cream and then parked by the theatre to explore the town.

The stores and shops were all closed up about 5 PM except for the occasional pizza joint. It was a very quaint, old town, but everyone apparently goes to bed really early. We walked up to the top of Mary Baldwin College which is no small feat. MBC is built on a steep hill and it was a hard climb to make it to the President's house for the sweeping view of the town and surrounding mountains. We finally got back just as the show began.

Blackfriars Theatre is a stunningly beautiful re-creation of the other theatre used Shakespeare's company (beside's the Globe). Check out their website above and do the "Virtual Tour" to get an idea. As soon as we sat down we knew things would be different from other shows. A group of the actors sang from the musician's balcony over the stage while one of the staff sold drinks from a cart on-stage. When the singing was done, one of the actors introduced some of the differences with Blackfriar and what we were to expect. They did not use stage lights, all the light was from ambient chandeliers - as was done in Shakespeare's time. They had seats on the stage and offered anyone to come sit on stage to watch the show. At first this violation of norms had few takers, but soon my youngest daughter went up and joined the others and was soon part of the show. They include the audience as part of the show and would be utilizing the entire theatre as the stage. It was one of the most entertaining introductions I've ever seen in a show.

We didn't know what to expect since this strange little theatre seemed to be in an odd and remote location. We didn't know if it would be retired plumbers or skilled actors. The show began with the actors in street clothes and random, occasionally odd, costume pieces to signify roles, but the moment they began to deliver the lines we knew we were in for a treat. I won't go into the details of the show but it was stunning. The performances were outstanding. It was one of the best performances of any show I had ever seen. The stage was simple with various black boxes. The costumes were odd and very simple. There were no special lighting effects or sets. It rested on the power of the script (how can you do better then Henry V) and performances by the actors and it was mesmerizing.

It is hard to see Henry V without comparing it to Kenneth Branagh's version (a movie that I love). I liked the Blackfriars Theatre version significantly better. The wooing scene between Henry and Kate, which is my favorite in the movie, was done so much better at the Blackfriar show that I think they have ruined the movie for me. One thing they did in their version was bring out the humor that was lost in the movie version. The rustics really were comic relief rather than simply tragic side stories. I wish we had seen it earlier so I could recommend it to more people, but Sunday is their last performance of the season. We will definitely return - the 6 hour round trip was small price to pay. After staggering in about 2 AM, we thought we might spend the night next time.

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