March 8th

Cambridge - night life

We had a lovely evening starting off with Evensong which is held in King's Chapel.  Evensong is different from any church service I have ever attended.  The main thing is that they sing the psalms.  Now I know they are songs/hymns but I have never heard them sung before.  The choir is made up of both boys and men, and it was beautiful.

The Chapel is every bit as beautiful on the inside as the out side.  They use a lot of candles and it makes the whole place look like a Christmas card even in spring.  We have been attending church each week but usually a different one, and this I must admit has to be the most beautiful yet.

After we attended Evensong we went on the hunt for a place to have dinner.  Not thinking ahead we hadn't made reservations anywhere and we quickly realized that having dinner out on a Saturday was a popular choice.  We finally found a Noodle House and we enjoyed a lovely Chinese dinner before attending the theatre.  Robb had bought tickets for us to see the "Scottish Play"as it is known to those in the acting world.  To us, it's Macbeth, not one of Shakespear's humorous plays to be sure.

A synopsis of the story:
The Tragedy of Macbeth (commonly called Macbeth) is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. The earliest account of a performance of what was likely Shakespeare's play is April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing such a play at the Globe Theatre. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book for a specific performance.
Shakespeare's sources for the tragedy are the accounts of King Macbeth of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. However, the story of Macbeth as told by Shakespeare bears no relation to real events in Scottish history as Macbeth was an admired and able monarch. In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead by such names as "the Scottish play". Over the centuries, the play has attracted some of the greatest actors in the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comic books, and other media."

The play was performed with no costumes and no props but was wonderfully performed and even though the story was sad, it was an enjoyable presentation.   

                            

As we walked out of theatre (British spelling) on our way back to the hotel and our bed (it was, after all, after 11:00p.m.), Robb thought that perhaps we had taken a turn down a wrong street into a wrong part of town.  We quickly realized that we had forgotten what a University town of over 20,000 students was like on a Saturday night.  More to the point, he hadn't realized that  mini, mini skirts were back in fashion.

He did enjoy the walk back to the hotel by the way!

Love to all from Cambridge,

Dawn