Experiencing "The Merchant of Venice" at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

I was waiting for the moment when I'd fall in love with a Shakespeare play, and it finally happened with my experience watching "The Merchant of Venice" at the world-renowned Globe Theatre, a recreation of the theatre that was sadly burned down in 1913. I now consider it the only way to watch Shakespeare; in the exact location that it was meant to be played. 

We, as a group, stood on the yard location right in front of the stage where the groundlings, a.k.a the lower class would pay a very small amount to stand for hours just for the chance to be entertained by theatre. Standing where the groundlings stood and watching the play the way they would have was truly a memorable and unique experience. The level of intimacy that is achieved with viewing the play in this manner is simply un-matched. In Shakespeare's day, the plays were very much meant for the lower class, and many moments where found in the performances that included the audience as much as possible. This was no exception with the performance of "The Merchant of Venice" that we saw. The first moment of the play was a musical dance that involved plenty of interaction with the audience, including male characters asking for money to pay for a lap-dance from the female characters; a request which one member of my study abroad group happily obliged. Later on in the production, the comedic relief character of Lancelot brought a couple audience members on stage for a hilarious bit, and throughout the play the characters would enter the stage from among the audience, which I could imagine would've been an ecstatic moment for the historic groundlings, allowing them to be so close and even touch the actors that they envied.

As for the performances themselves, they were absolutely top-notch. I have never seen Shakespeare performed so flawlessly and I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that classically trained British actors were the performers. They were incredibly in-touch with the text, and that connection really helped make the production stand out. It truly felt like I was back in the 1600s watching  an authentic Shakespeare production, a feeling that couldn't be created anywhere else. The production also included the fantastic Johnathon Pryce, a well-known actor who has acted in many plays and films, including Pirates of the Caribbean. His rendition of Shylock perfectly balanced the villainy and greediness of the character with the humanity and sympathetic qualities of him. When I read the play, I felt hardly any sympathy towards the character, and confidently labeled him as the antagonist. However, the way Pryce portrayed the character really made you understand his struggles of being Jewish in a Christian society, which ended up making him a much more understandable character. Actors who can revolutionize a character and do it in a way that is not only well-done, but perfectly encapsulates the character are very rare. However, Pryce more than proved his capability of doing that very thing, and in the process created a performance that will always be remembered. We will be seeing "As You Like It" in the Globe Theatre in a few weeks, and I am more than excited to experience Shakespeare in that space again, which is something I honestly never thought I would say before, but that's the power of good theatre.