In Which I Apologize, and talk Theatre

    Hello beautiful, loyal friends, who I have yet again abandoned. I apologize most profusely for my absence. To say that life has been crazy would be an understatement, and between switching to public school this year, and life, there has been so much for me to learn to manage and unfortunately I forgot about blogging. But I dreadfully miss it, and I miss writing and talking to all of you lovelies, so I will be trying to start blogging a bit more regularly.  And since I'm currently on Christmas Break, and am school and homework free for another six glorious days, there's no better time then now to start!

 First of all: MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, AND HAPPY CHRISTMAS BREAK!!! I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's and that you are  enjoying Christmas Break, because it is wonderful.

There is an overload of winter and christmas pictures coming so be prepared. 

  I feel like I've done Life Updates for the past few posts, so I'm going to skip that for now, and talk about Shakespeare and Narnia. If you don't mind. Which I'm sure you won't. ;)



    Ok. I love the theatre. Musical, classical, anything. I love live performances soooo much, but I don't often get to go see professional theatre performances, since they are sooo flipping expensive. But this past year  I got to see two professional plays, *rejoice my soul* which were put on by The Stratford Festival. I've been dying to tell you about them, and they were both so amazing that they deserve their own blog post. (The Stratford Festival is a world famous theatre company that's about 15 minutes away from my house. They put on fantastic productions.)

    The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first one, and GUYS GUYS GUYS OH MY SOUL IT WAS BRILLIANT!!!!!

Before I say anything else, here is the trailer for the show:

  How do I begin to describe this? C. S. Lewis would be proud. It did his book justice. More than that, it brought it to life, in a way that the movies, or audio dramas never could. I cried three consecutive times in that theatre, because what I saw was not just a play, it was my Narnia. They had brought Narnia to life, and I got to see all of my friends again; the Pevensies, Mr. Tumnus, the Beavers. The characters were the characters as I knew them from the book: Aslan was kind and wise, the Witch was cruel and cold, the Beavers were adorable and dysfunctional, Mr. Tumnus was so sincere. Lucy was innocent, Edmund was changed, Peter was a king, and Susan a motherly queen.
 
   They captured the spirit of Narnia perfectly. About half of the lines were direct quotations from the book, the character's were spot on, the true message of Narnia shone through. It was witty, it was magical, it was everything Narnia is. Not to mention the genius sets, and effects, and costumes.

   I feel like that description still doesn't describe it well enough. And I can't really describe how wonderful it was seeing Narnia truly come to life. But I'll never forget seeing it, and I still get all fangirly and teary when I think of it and I hope someday everyone can go see that play.



   Now comes the Shakespeare talk. First let me just say that I realized this past year that Shakespeare is amazing. And now I love Shakespeare so flipping much. Seriously, that man is a genius and it makes me so mad when people say they hate him. ( A common public school occurrence. Anywho.)

  The second Stratford Festival play I saw was Macbeth. Again, the trailer is below:

    WOAH. This was the first time I ever have seen a full Shakespeare performance live, and it was fantastic. I went with my school, since it was a field trip for all the Grade 11's who were studying Macbeth in English. There was extra slots for people to come, so of course I did because I wanted to see a Shakespeare play live. It was the perfect group to go with, because before the show we got to meet with one of the actresses, and the artistic director and they played some games with us that explained the storyline. That was perfect for me because I didn't really know the basis of the storyline. It also meant that in one of the games I got to go up on the stage, *which was epic* and read some of the lines. *cue the fangirling*

   Then came the actual show. And oh my soul, it was sooooo good. It was epic and dark and spooky and passionate and tragic. The acting was so good, the sets fantastic, and just seeing a Shakespeare play come to life in such an undeniably epic way was amazing. I would have to say that Macbeth is now one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I also know I want desperately to play Lady Macbeth someday.

  All in all it was epic and amazing, and I had a crush on Macbeth/Macbeth's actor for days after. Not bloodthirsty crazy Macbeth, but the good Macbeth we see briefly at the beginning. And the actor was also rather attractive, which is also why. ;) (I find whenever I go to see live performances like this I always have a massive crush on the male lead after. It's the weirdest thing and I can't try to explain it...)



  I'm convinced the theatre is magical, because every time I go see a production, I come back completely awestruck. It's amazing. And I know you all understand.

   That's all I have for you today! It feels so good to be blogging again, and I have so many post ideas, including a story about how I got to perform at The Stratford Festival. But that's for another time. ;)

 Did any of you go to see any plays this past year? 
What's your favourite Shakespeare play?