Lay on, Macduff.

Well, I’ve survived a week of The Scottish Play, but just barely, having inadvertently invoked the curse just moments before exiting the Swan Theatre in Stratford after last night’s performance. Luckily, we didn’t die in a fiery collision on the bus ride home, and I haven’t read any news reports about heavy scenery falling on hapless actors. (Knock wood.) The first performance, Tuesday night in Chichester, cast Patrick Stewart as a Stalin-esque Macbeth who builds a reign of terror that inevitably collapses around him. (That’s in the play.) From the first moment—even before the heart-stoppingly thunderous gunfire that starts the performance—the play was seriously creepy, with the stage set like a psychiatric hospital or interrogation room. I’m surprised that I went through the whole performance without screaming (a la Pillowman). Thursday, we were at Stratford for a more traditional but higher octane production (kilts, swordfights) but being in the front row (my knees were touching the stage) in a very spare theatre, I found myself nearly in my classmate’s lap several times during the show—when I thought I was about to get swiped with a boot, sword, or gob of flying fake blood. Now, it’s off to a weekend of paper-writing and (boo!) reading Richard II in preparation for next week’s packed schedule. Sadly, we won’t be acting out Richard in Chrissy’s room, since none of us has yet read it.

We did manage to get some fun into our afternoon with a visit of Blenheim Palace, a nearby summer home of the Churchill family that was given in 1705 by the Queen to the Duke of Marlborough for fending off the French. It’s an impressive place, though full of, if I may quote our on-site director, “ghastly Empire French” décor (I thought we were trying to get rid of the French…?) and the best part is the *free* grounds and exterior. Unfortunately, we paid the £13.50, but frankly, it was worth it for the hedge maze, the butterfly house, and the adorably surly young man at the ticket kiosk who, when Kris’ money nearly flew away in the wind and she apologized, said, expressionless yet dismissive, “It's not your fault.” Everything is instantly funnier when it’s deadpan and British. We almost got locked in at 1800 hours, had to schlep around to find the other gate, caught a later bus than expected, and missed an apparently anticlimactic and late 4th of July picnic. But since there weren’t any fireworks here anyway, I wasn’t too upset about passing on a dining hall wurst of some kind.