Are you ready for some Shakespeare?
If you're like my father (a high school English teacher and devoted student of Shakespeare), you can't get enough of William Shakespeare. So here's an unprecedented opportunity: The esteemed Royal Shakespeare Company is performing the Bard's entire, eight-play History Cycle in order.
The Histories cover 100 years of English history and nearly 1,400 minutes of viewing time. That's more than 23 hours to you and me. The RSC is performing all eight plays in the order that Shakespeare wrote them (and his audiences would have seen them): Henry VI Parts I, II & III, followed by Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV Parts I & II and finishing with Henry V.
The epic undertaking is believed to be the first time one theater company has staged the entire History Cycle. It has taken more than two-and-a-half years to produce.
There's a lot of good information at the Royal Shakespeare Company site. But Globespotters has some impressive figures: 34 actors play 264 parts, each part is understudied, which means a total of 528 parts have been rehearsed. The production also includes 210,000 spoken words, 800 costumes, 40 wigs and hairpieces and—get this—more than 15 liters of stage blood.
The Histories are running through Sunday at the RSC's Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and then the performances will run from April 1 to May 25 at The Roundhouse in London.
It's been awhile since our last installment of Travel Tidbits, so here it goes ...
• Spain's first high-speed link between Barcelona and Madrid opened last month. The first AVE covered the 342 miles from Barcelona to Madrid in about two-and-a-half hours, hitting speeds of 186 mph. You can get more numbers in the Los Angeles Times Daily Travel & Deal Blog, and you can even see the promotional video on YouTube.
• Speaking of high-speed transportation, Gadling has details on plans to build a monorail in Delhi by 2010.
• Kosovo, which declared its independence last month, unveiled its new flag (left). The very interesting (and very focused) blog Cartophilia: Maps and Map Memorabilia, though, points out that it violates a key flag design rule: "Do not put a map of your country on your flag." Cartophilia has more about maps on flags, and you can find letter grades for all of the world's flags at a site by Josh Parsons.
• The Musée du Louvre—home to Mona Lisa and about a million other pieces of art—was named the world's top art museum by Reuters. Gadling also wrote about the top 10 list, which includes the Vatican Museums, Paris' Musée d'Orsay, Florence's Uffizi Gallery, London's Tate Modern, Madrid's Prado Museum. The other four are all in the United States.
• Did you hear about the transatlantic flight from Chicago to London that had just five passengers? The environmental groups sure did. And they were not happy. I presume that the passengers were pretty ecstatic, though, considering that they all flew business class and each had two flight attendants at his or her service. You can find details at World Hum, Gadling, CNN.com and London's Telegraph and Daily Mail.
• The London Traveler wrote about a new map of London's Underground by Max Roberts. It's certainly more eye-catching than the traditional Tube map.
• Starbucks just opened in Prague, its first location in the Czech Republic, according to Gadling.
• World Hum reports that Tokyo was named "The Premier City in the World for Food," besting the likes of Paris and New York.
• World Hum also introduces Tenzing Hillary Airport, Nepal's closest airport to Mount Everest and which was renamed in honor of the first people to climb the highest point on earth.
• Looking for an Internet cafe? Gadling points us to Cybercafes.com, which has a database of 4,208 Internet cafes in 141 countries.
• According to a recent Gallup survey, Americans' most favored nations are Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Japan. All four are favored by more than 80 percent of the respondents. The least favored nations? Not surprisingly, Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq.
• The Perrin Post wrote about Great Cities for Green Travelers. They cite the environmental site Grist, which listed 15 environmentally friendly cities. The three U.S. cities on the list: San Francisco; Portland, Oregon; and Austin, Texas.
• During my recent trip to Paris, I realized once again that I could live in Paris. Well, the Los Angeles Times must have read my mind because it just posted "How to become an American in Paris" with tips on extended living abroad. I'll have to look into it.
• And, finally, speaking of Paris, the New York Times last month profiled the bell ringer at Notre Dame Cathedral. As the headline says, "He's no Quasimodo."
