On Friday, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre unveiled their new sculpture, hanging over the staircase of the former Library and Picture Gallery of the old Memorial Theatre. It is made up of 2000 metal stars and creates a deliberately androgynous and non-race specific human face, inspired by the famous quote from the Balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. See it here . I'd rather like to think that each of those stars is waiting to be endowed with the memory of an actor or actress who helped to make that theatre what it has become. Benson and the Bensonians, of course, would be the chief amongst them.
One hundred years ago, Benson was in the midst of what would prove to be his last real Stratford season, running for three weeks even though country was in the midst of war. It was thirty years since his first appearance at the SMT and change was in the air. Festivities in Stratford were somewhat muted as this blog entry from the Birthplace Trust relates and the big London celebrations would not occur until May 2nd - but that's next week's post!
Don't miss the celebrations on the BBC! And Happy Shakespeare Day!
