A Visit to the Folger

I took some time out yesterday evening to travel down to DC to visit the Folger Shakespeare Library and check out a play in the Folger Elizabethan Theater. Let me just start by saying that this is very cool place, nestled unobtrusively behind the United States Capitol Building. Although the main exhibition hall was closed for renovation, it was still quite an experience (about the closure: apparently the windows in the great hall let in too much natural light, making this space inappropriate for housing fragile, ancient materials, a need that naturally comes up quite often when you are interested in publicly displaying the Bard’s stuff. In the past, they just covered all the windows with linoleum, which made the place feel like a crypt, and it did, because I poked my head into the great hall and was stunned by the darkness within. To fix this, they are replacing the windows with special glass to filter out the damaging rays of the sun so as to display, in as safe an environment as possible, all of the interesting accoutrements surrounding our favorite 16/17th century poet).

One of the more interesting exhibits at the library was the so-called Robbin Island Shakespeare. This is a copy of the Alexander edition of the complete works of Shakespeare that was circulated in the famous Robbin Island prison during the age of apartheid in South Africa. The book was circulated in secret, and was signed and annotated by a small number of the South African Robben Island political prisoners of the 1970’s (including Nelson Mandela). Pretty powerful stuff, but to the credit of the museum, they did not over-romanticize it. In fact, they tended to steer away from romantic notions of these guys gaining their “freedom” through the glorious prose of The Bard, or other such nonsense. Rather, the exhibit goes to great pains to point out that many of the prisoners admitted slim to no connection to the work. Indeed, when Sonny Venkatrathnam (the individual that smuggled in the book) was asked why he chose it, it’s suggested that its mere familiarity was the reason. To quote the exhibit write-up:

 “When interviewed in 2008, some thirty years after they recorded their names in the book, some did not recall which passage they had signed, nor why they might have chosen it.”

I like this bit of honesty, this recognition that not everything has to be so grand and brilliantly aesthetic. It just is. It must be noted, however, that in Mandela’s case something more seems to be going on, an event of some depth and intrigue. Here’s the actual annotation he picked (from Julius Caesar, shown below in his own hand):

Well said, and well chosen. I guess if your rotting away for decades in a bleak island prison, those words could be of some solace. Also, the exhibition placard next to the display points out some interesting points. In their (more eloquent than my) terms:

Those are nice sentiments, aren’t they? And, they are nice to consider as part of a commentary on the man, the (terrible) times, and the small but significant role of the Bard in those times.

Another cool part of this visit was the Reading Room, where they have (under protective glass), one of their many First Folio copies, available for visual inspection. What was inspiring to me (at least to the computer user interface geek in me) was the electronic reader they had stationed below this sealed copy, an electronic reader that enabled you to “virtually” page through the edition. The software and hardware set up for this reader was excellent, with intuitive controls, abundant functionality (zoom in was especially cool, as was the paging feature done with finger swipes), and overall great usability. They even thought to make the tactile experience of touching the thing more like paper and less like an iPad/iPhone. The cover to the reader was rough like paper, not smooth like glass, and felt like a book when you swished your finger over its surface to “turn” the “page.” A good call, such attention to detail, and it deserves mention.

After bumping around the place for a while (but not very long…with the main hall closed, there’s actually not much for the general public to see. Most of the real fun is in the basement, where they have the largest collection of original First Folio’s anywhere on earth. Predictably, they don’t let Groundlings like me into that area), I moved onto the theater to pick up my tickets for the play (Twelfth Night) that I was seeing that night. I was able to check out the theater space (an endearing but not so convincing attempt at reproducing the Globe) and even saw a bit of rehearsal, which was like free entertainment, so I can’t complain. It was actually rehearsal for the understudies, so I got to see lots of flubbed lines and stage directions shouted to these most excellent backups. They indeed were great, and to see such expertise in the understudys made me realize that I had chosen (or rather not chosen) the right profession.

It was a great time, and I recommend this visit for anyone interested in such things. It was great to “geek out” on Shakespeare for a bit with others, as opposed to singly (the greeter to the place was especially helpful in this respect and I spoke with him for a while on the topic…a very knowledgeable and excited man, tending the entrance to this place…a good choice for gatekeeper). I’ll spare you the details, though, as I’m sure you've tired of this post by now. So, suffice it to say that it was time well spent, if you are into that sort of thing.