The Joy of The Rose

You'll know I've been in a heck of a funk these last few days. Over that now. Two things helped. Firstly, had a talk with d, and came to properly appreciate we've had a Hell of a time since October - my heart wobbles, increasingly difficult financial situations (is it me, or is it a sonofabitch trying to make ends meet these days?), d's mom in February, d's mom a moth or so ago, and her subsequent passing away, now my folks and the health shadows on my dad and the carnage that's happening in their house...
Kinda worked out it was OK to feel a bit oppressed. And as soon as we agreed that much, it was like the funk lifted.

Hell and damnation helped too, I have to admit.
A couple of days ago, I got an email from the Rose. The Rose Theatre, that is - the one from Shakespeare In Love. The first theatre on London's Bankside - pre-cursor of the Globe. The place where Christopher Marlowe - forerunner and possible friend of Shakespeare, and absolutely kick-ass playwright in his own right - first saw his plays performed. We're doing Doctor Faustus at the minute, they said. Wanna come along?

That would be - in this case literally - a Hellyeah!

d wasn't keen (after all, Hell and damnation's not really her thing), so I went on my own after work. It was, quite frankly a bitch to find - It's on the street where the New Globe was built, and the Globe so outranks it these days in 'cultural icon' status, they don't even put the Rose on the map. Also, Blackfriars station has been closed for a good while, and the Thames Path that gets you there easily is under redevelopment. But walking through the doors of the Rose is magical. Old, and creaky and magical. They've got a display of artefacts they've unearthed during the excavation (the Rose, like most buildings from the 1500s, is substantially below modern street level, and they're excavating and redeveloping it bit by tortuously slow bit. To walk through a curtain into a space actually much higher than the original stage, and feel yourself in the space, makes your nerves tingle. The performance space at the moment is very small - like a reasonably-sized living room with three rows of chairs. But it gives it the sense of being a wonderful throwback to the days of strolling players setting up in a great hall - you're right there in the action. And to hear Marlowe's famous tale of a man who craved knowledge, and power, and all the world of wonders in exchange for his soul, performed extremely well by just a handful of players, in the theatre that first saw it performed over five hundred years ago, was a privilege that will stand in my memories alongside walking among the ruins of the Forum in Rome, and my first sight of the Pacific Ocean, as precious and perfect and exquisite and complete unto itself.

As it happened, d was having a crappy night - we had a power cut at home while I was revelling in Marlowe. I stopped off on the way home to get batteries for our torch, came through the door, went to pee...and the lights came back on. d says she's never letting me go out on my own again. I'm hoping she's joking - I have tickets for the Globe version of Faustus just a couple of days before our wedding anniversary this year...

So here's a note of thanks to d, and a salute to Marlowe, and to the army of people who are trying to rebuild the Rose. You gave me back the rest of my sense of self tonight.

In case you're wondering, bloods for the last three days have been 5.6, 5.8 and 6.2. Just in case you thought I'd stopped checking...Just haven't been myself these last few days, clearly.