“How soon can the tests be run and results had?”
“We'll put it on first burner. Several days is the best we can do, but even then, without a matching-”
“Oh, I realize that. But if and when we determine who the Crucifier is, we'll have it on record to nail him-no pun intended.”
“If,” Raehael cautioned Jessica. “Big if, like you Americans say… If he's left any DNA on her.”
TEN
If evil were easily recognized, identified and managed, there would be no need of forensic medicine.
After dinner at the Savoy, Richard, with tickets in hand, announced that they were going to take in King Lear at the Globe Theatre.
They drove to the theater, located at a wide bend on the River Thames on the opposite shore to that of St. Paul's Cathedral between the Southwark Bridge and Blackfriar's Bridge.
The air felt thick with an electric intensity as the crowd grew and took on a rambling, monstrous life of its own. The madding crowd, Jessica thought. The public anticipation of the performance in the open-air, outdoor, Tudor theater had created an intensity in the impatient audience. Jessica took in the replica of the Globe Theatre, a painstakingly reconstructed edifice down to the oaken steps leading onto and off stage. Even the bard himself would recognize the theater as his home. The place did, in fact, represent an exact likeness of the theater in which Shakespeare's plays had been performed in his day. The only change Shakespeare would feel was that of time, for almost four hundred years had gone by.
“It's been a boondoggle, some say, reconstructing the great Globe,” Richard informed her. “Not everyone is happy with her.”
“Give me one reason why,” Jessica protested, staring at the beautiful stage, its circular shape and the two-story, surrounding building.
“It opened in 1997 at a cost of forty-six million of your American dollars. Having remained closed since 1613, purist and taxpayer alike didn't relish paying for it.”
“Then it came into being through government funding?”
“Matching funds for a wood and thatch construction on the south bank of the Thames, some two hundred yards from the site of the original? Imagine the fire insurance alone.”
Jessica's eye wandered to the concession stand where plastic pullover raincoats could be had for two pounds, about three dollars American.
“The original wooden O, as many call it, as Shakespeare himself called it in Henry V, was built in 1598 or '99 by a pair of well-to-do brothers, Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, using timbers from a failed theater in nearby Shoreditch. They wanted to place the O centrally, you see. Later, Shakespeare himself became a shareholder.”
“I suppose the original, being made of thatch and timber, rotted of old age?” she asked.
“Fate has never been too kind to the Globe, no. In 1613, the thatch was put alight by two cannons fired during a performance of Henry VIII. King Henry's ghost's revenge on Shakespeare for depicting him as he did, some say.”
Together they laughed at the jest.
Since there was no assigned seating at the Globe, further simulating Shakespeare's day, they made their way toward the stage, to locate seats as close to the action as possible. Richard now added, “History books say no one was hurt in the fire, except for one poor chap who, and I quote, 'Found his breeches afire so that it would have broiled him if he had not, with benefit of a provident wit, helped himself to some bottled ale to quench the flames.' “
Jessica laughed even harder at this image.
“The theater was rebuilt sometime after the fire, but again it came under destruction when in 1642 the Puritans, finding it offensive, demolished her as the breeding ground of the Devil that she is, you see.” Guiding her to her seat, he added, “If you look closely, the reconstruction is not entirely complete. There's still scaffolding at the rear and some finishing touches are being applied. Only last year did the plywood stage get replaced with the oaken one we now have. Still, even unfinished, the theater has enticed some 150,000 visitors annually, a figure that
is expected to triple by the year 2001.”
In a balcony built overlooking the stage, an actor began hurling insults at the audience, his own patrons. “Ya've paid full fair to sit on a wooden bench to hear buffoons wail out their sorrowful lives here? Are ya' daft, ya' citizens of London? 'Aven't ya' a telly for that, the telly and soap operas? Are ya' daft?” he venomously shouted and tossed confetti at the front rows.
A female, acting as his wife, came out on the balcony to scold him, telling him to leave the paying customers alone and to come away with her, to help her prepare for the show.
“Ya're all daft!” he called back. “Ya' could be sittin' at the Coat of Arms down the street having a pint!”
“Shut that big hole of yours!” replied the wife.
“I'll not be aggrieved by ya', woman, not in public and not in private!”
And off they went, arguing, only to be replaced by an aged man with a white, flowing beard who talked to himself about the alignment of the stars, the heavens, and the meaning of life there on the balcony.
“It's a tradition with the Globe, the stage balcony rows,” explained Richard. “Keeps the audience entertained and in a good mood before curtain rise.”
“How many people does the theater seat?” asked Jessica, curious.
'To cover the cost of an opening, ticket sellers have to fill the seats, some 1,394. Five pounds buys the rights to be a groundling.”
“A groundling?”
“See those people up front, all on their feet in the pit ahead of us?”
She nodded.
“Groundlings. They have a right to space on the floor, standing or sitting. We, by comparison, have tickets for a seat in the terraces, a bit more costly at sixteen pounds, but well worth it for these seats.”
They had found their seats and settled in. Richard said in her ear, “The season began in May with the Globe ensemble of actors performing four plays in repertory. Performances run till late September. Playwrights other than Shakespeare are performed here from time to time as well.”
“Such a splendid idea… to revive the Globe.”
“We Britons can't take all the credit in reviving the Globe,” Richard confessed. “One of your American actors, Sam Wanamaker, established a trust to raise funds for the project. Construction began in 1993, the year Wanamaker died at age seventy-four in fact.”
“I've seen Wanamaker on the screen and on TV.” Jessica pictured the ruddy-faced, tall Wanamaker.
“The project is still several million dollars short, and was ten million short when the Globe opened in '93.”
As if hearing Sharpe, and as if on cue, a new character atop the theater at the balcony yelled down to the patrons to open their pocketbooks. “You critics among you who said the theater would never survive! You dig the deepest and pay treble for those seats you now have! Come along, out with it! There are jars and wretched fellows milling about who will take your donations!”
“We're still paying for her, but she is grand, isn't she?” asked Richard. “Right down to her Norfolk reed roof, the oak beams, the hand-turned balustrades.”
“Yes, it's a fantastic recreation,” Jessica agreed when suddenly thunder roared all around them, yet the source could be traced to crude sounds being created behind the stage.
“Even the sound effects are authentic to their time,” he explained. “That's heavy metal shot, cannonballs, rolled about in a metal washtub to simulate the sound of an approaching storm.”
“So there's actually no sound equipment?”
“None but what human hands and minds can create. There's no electricity, no lights, actually. Look around you.”
“So that's why we're here so early.”
“The performance ends with nightfall, just as in Shakespeare's day.”