Blue Stockings - Globe Theatre

Set of Blue Stockings

My last visit to the Globe this season, I had high hopes for this play, and I wasn't disappointed. Well, actually, I was disappointed in one thing: the weather. It rained continuously. Continuously! It started raining while I was queuing outside the theatre.

I enjoyed the play very much despite the rain. It was excellent; witty, fast-paced, exuberant and uplifting. It followed four young women ("bluestockings") studying at Girton College, an all-female College at Cambridge University, in 1896-97. Having had to persuade their parents to allow them to go to university in the first place, the women faced ostracism and disparagement from male students and lecturers, not to mention society at large. Men who supported the women's right to study could face negative consequences themselves, in the form of (for example) being held back in their careers. The play showed the run-up to and the outcome of the vote that was held in 1897 in order to determine whether women should be allowed to graduate from the university. As it stood, women were allowed to study and attend (most) lectures, but could not graduate. No women were allowed to vote; it was open only to the University of Cambridge Senate and graduates.

Great performances by all; many members of the cast had been in A Midsummer Night's Dream, so it was good to see them again. Off topic, but this year's Globe version of AMND was probably the best I've ever seen. On topic, I liked the relationships between the four women students and the fact that, while they were all highly intelligent, passionate and determined people, their distinct personalities shone through. The tension between openly promoting women's rights and the fear of being seen to be too radical and harming the progress made thus far was shown to good effect.

A variety of male attitudes towards the higher education of women were touched upon, which I thought helped make the play realistic. There were men who were completely and utterly opposed to women's presence at university, men who supported it, and men who were somewhere in between - some respecting the women's determination to study while considering them ultimately misguided; others simply bemused at why the women would want to study when they were unable to graduate.

Set of Blue Stockings with banner informing
audience that women won the right to
graduate from Cambridge in 1948

There was more audience participation in this production than I have ever experienced before at the Globe. When Dr Henry Maudsley (Edward Peel), retrogressive psychiatrist, gave a speech right at the beginning about women not being suited to intellectual pursuits, there was a reasonable amount of booing, followed by cheering when Miss Welsh (Gabrielle Lloyd), a female lecturer/Mistress of Girton (?) had her say. I enjoyed the audience participation. It heightened the atmosphere and created a sense of community/common feeling among the groundlings without becoming pantomimic. I wish it could happen more often in plays at the Globe; I imagine it's people's reverence for Shakespeare that holds them back during his plays.

There's a lot more I could say about this play...music and costumes were good, 1890s jig was excellent...Highly enjoyable play about what is sadly still a pretty current, relevant issue.

Globe Theatre Groundling Etiquette

The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous
regiment of impolite groundlings

The one, cardinal rule of groundling* Globe etiquette is, as far as I am concerned, the following: 

If you would like a good stage-leaning position, you must be prepared to queue for it. 

Nothing annoys me more at the Globe than a person who didn't bother to queue, sidling up behind me as I stand in my excellent leaning position FOR WHICH I HAVE SPENT AT LEAST THE LAST HOUR AND A HALF QUEUING, and imploring me to squeeze up in order to grant them leaning space beside me. 

Usually the person who does this is short and thinks that they are entitled to a good leaning position by virtue of their height. But no, sorry, short people with entitlement issues - if  you would like a good leaning position you must queue for it just like anyone else. If you are capable of standing for two and a half hours to watch a play, you are capable of queuing. And if you can't be bothered to queue but still feel you desperately need to lean, you can generally obtain leaning positions at the less desirable sides of the stage. 

Another annoying thing is when groundlings try to save leaning positions at the stage for their fellows. This happened recently on the famous three-plays-in-a-day day for Henry VI Part 2. Someone tried to save leaning positions for two or three other people when we were actually inside the Globe, at the stage. I didn't know whether the people for whom she was saving places had even queued at all, or whether they had gone to the toilet at the critical juncture of groundling entry into the Globe, or what. But whatever the reason, it's not fair to expect groundlings who have unambiguously queued to have to pass up their long-awaited places for people who aren't there at the moment of entry into the Globe. 

Summary: Queue, queue, queue if you want a good stage-leaning position. And don't leave the queue (apart from at moments when the queue is not about to go into the Globe).

*audience member who stands rather than sits in an Elizabethan-style theatre