"The best one is the Globe, which is just across the Thames from London, in the Bankside edge of Southwark, near the bridge. It was built by some merchants and by an actor from Stratford-up-on-Avon, who also writes their plays. It's three stories high and circular, with high balconies. And there's a covered stage at one side, where the players perform."
"Do the women in these plays dance, like our devadasis?"
"Actually the players are all men. Sometimes they take the roles of women, but I've never seen them dance all that much. There are plays about famous English kings, and sometimes there are stories of thwarted love, usually set in Italy. Plays are a new thing in England, and there's nothing like them anywhere else."
Shirin settled against a boulder and watched the shadows cast by the rising sun stretch out across the valley. She sat thoughtfully for a moment and then she laughed. "What would you say if I told you India had dramas about kings and thwarted love over a thousand years ago? They were in Sanskrit, and they were written by men named Bhavabhuti and Bhasa and Kalidasa, whose lives are legends now. A pandit, that's the title Hindus give their scholars, once told me about a play called The Clay Cart. It was about a poor king who fell in love with a rich courtesan. But there are no plays here now, unless you count the dance dramas they have in the south. Sanskrit is a dead language, and Muslims don't really care for plays."
"I'll wager you'd like the plays in London. They're exciting, and sometimes the poetry can be very moving."
"What's it like to go to see one?"
"First, on the day a play is performed they fly a big white banner of silk from a staff atop the Globe, and you can see it all over London. The admission is only a penny for old plays and two pence for new ones. That's all you ever have to pay if you're willing to stand in the pit. If you want to pay a little more, you can get a seat in the galleries around the side, up out of the dust and chips, and for a little extra you can get a cushion for the seat. Or for sixpence you can enter directly through the stage door and sit in a stall at the side of the stage. Just before the play begins there's a trumpet fanfare— like Arangbar has when he enters the Diwan-i-Am—and the doorkeepers pass through the galleries to collect the money."
"What do they do with it?"
"They put it into a locked box," Hawksworth grinned, "which wags have taken to calling the box office, because they're so officious about it. But the money's perfectly safe. Plays are in the afternoon, while there's daylight."
"But aren't they performed inside this building?" Shirin seemed to be only half listening.