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This week was "As You Like It" week in Drama class, and that's what we did all week long. Mostly. We also visited Christ Church College where several Hogwarts scenes were filmed and the hall was the inspiration for the Great Hall set.

This is a hallway that was used for filming Hogwarts scenes -
there's a courtyard out the windows to the left.

This is the staircase where Professor McGonagall initially greets the students.

At one point we took a tour with the Brasenose College archivist as well, which was really fascinating. There are lots of dead people under everything here, and one of our stops on the tour was the anatomically correct unicorn in the dining hall. One of these days I'll remember to take my camera to breakfast and snap a picture so you guys can see - even I was shocked. I had thought that somebody was exaggerating. For now, here are some other photos from the tour.

Brasenose College library

Holly and I sitting in the cathedral.

The paw-prints of a 15th century puppy.

Now that Brasenose Lane is open again (it was closed for construction when we first got here) the guy who wears a top hat and gives Haunted Oxford tours has been stopping there to tell the story of a student-run cultist group at Brasenose called the Hellfire Club and the legend that a professor saw the devil himself dragging away one of the students, who was later found dead. (I had already read about this in the "Cheeky Guide to Oxford.") I don't remember when this was supposed to have happened, but I was passing through when he was telling the story the other day and now I want to go on the whole tour - he was really entertaining.

I wrote this whole paper on "As You Like It" being the inspiration for the sociologist Erving Goffman's theory of dramaturgy and the way that dramaturgy is demonstrated by the characters themselves. (e.g. Rosalind is playing the role of Ganymede when she is in disguise, but when she is "out of" disguise, she is still playing a role - that of Rosalind. Even further, Rosalind is playing the part of Ganymede, an actress is playing the part of Rosalind, and a person is playing the part of an actress.) Unfortunately I'm not anticipating a fantastic grade on it, even though I spent a really long time writing it. Whatever it is that the professor wants from me, I'm not getting it. I asked him very directly in class the other day what he wants from us, and I don't feel like I really got an answer. I would not be this frustrated, but the essays are the only graded assignments in the class - they'll basically determine the final grade.

We saw "As You Like It" performed in the Wadham College courtyard a few blocks away from Brasenose. We weren't allowed to take photos but, again, I found some online of the exact cast and location.

This is Jaques, the guy who gives the "All the world's a stage..." monologue.

Here's Orlando and Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede)

Personally, I loved it - the music was great, the costumes were beautiful and funny, the actors were very talented and the cuts that were made to the script improved the play, in my opinion. The shepherd characters that live in the Forest of Arden and are depicted differently in the script than the noble-born main characters were my favorite part, because they were basically dressed like me. One of them was wearing cargo shorts, crocs, a knit hat, and a tie-dyed tank top, and I was wearing everything but the tie-dyed tank top. They were played and dressed like hippies - I thought that was such a creative way to make the characters accessible to a modern audience, since not many of us probably know any shepherds. The old man shepherd, I couldn't help but notice, was dressed very similarly to Professor Connery. (Connery and I have many of the same wardrobe staples.) Anyway, I thought the whole play was great and hilarious but I'm going to write my essay about things I would have done differently because Professor Connery is not responding well to my positive reviews of shows. We'll see how that goes.