Just remember, we have to watch Shakespeare tonight…
Yes, our Mousket beach urchin is acting in Henry V with the Brass Tacks Ensemble tonight. This is the last performance. We will be there. I have no idea what role she’s playing. In fact, I do not even know what roles are *in* Henry V. (If you clicked the link, Mouse is currently the Brass Tacks profile pic, looks like they’re rotating cast members.) Anyway. I love to watch my Mouse on stage (I feel a bit of deja vu, I must’ve said that in the recent past but too lazy to look…) but I am not the best at understanding Shakespearean plays. Especially not the historical plays, well plus, I do not SIT!
When I was in 10th grade, our lovely English teacher, Mrs. Ewing, enthusiastically led us through A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it was going to be on TV. She did a bang-up job and I understood the play when I did watch it on TV! Can’t remember much about it now — fairies and things, roight? YAG did it in the summer academy but I was too busy with making the “trains run on time” (programs and tickets and informational crap for families, and taking out the garbage, etc., etc., ad nauseam) to spend time re-learning the play.
Historical Shakespeare? Zzzzzz… Once back in the Jurassic Age, I went to one of the Richard plays. It was at the Power Center and I *think* it was the Royal Shakespeare Company in town. They do come here sometimes. All my Planet Ann Arbor Fin relatives were excited and I think Radical Betty (and Duke!) came down from the Yooperland to attend. Of course I went. But I didn’t understand it and I was, you know, *sitting*… So… I started to nod off… Until… A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Oooohhhhh… That’s where that came from.
My Mouse has been crazy about Shakespeare since about middle school and I can remember her spending much of a summer reading through The Commander’s copy of the complete works. If I remember right, The Comm ended up gifting Mouse with her own personal copy. The other beach urchin takes after KW a bit more although that beach urchin has acted in a few Shakespearean plays herself. That was back in high school. Although she has a BA with a theatre arts major and knows her way around a stage, her career is more in the administrative side of the arts. (And BTW I hope no one out there is inclined to dis people with theatre arts degrees. Most of them have a heckuva lot more going on than the stereotypical starstruck actress waitress “I wanna be in the Hollywood pitchers” type thing.)
She has already seen her sister’s play. She saw it last Sunday while her wayward parents were slogging along various goat tracks trying to get back to the freeway and skedaddle home. Our whole family is so busy this month that we can’t seem to do much of anything together but that’s not a bad thing and we did all meet up for a Mother’s Garbage Woman’s Day dinner! I asked her how the play was and she said something like, “Oh it was fine but it was Shakespeare.” I started reminiscing about how hard it was sitting in the audience watching her play Hermione in The Winter’s Tale back in high school and my successful adult child matter-of-factly reminded me, “that’s because it was pretty bad, Moom.” Bad? I dunno about bad but quite ambitious for our group maybe. Even with all the 22-year-old college theatre-major guys acting in it but we’ll talk about that some other time (or prob’ly not). 🐸
I worked hard at one thing or another all day today. I hope I don’t nod off during Henry V… Wish me luck!
The photoooo? Boy oh boy, I got to the farmer’s market at 0-skunk-30 as usual and it was in Full Tilt Boogie mode! Flowers and starter plants everywhere and all kinds of veggies and eggs and meat and fish and kimchee 🐗 (but Wan Oo also has gorgeous little packs of bean sprouts!) We couldn’t find Uncle Peter and his pasties. Oh well, he’ll be back. Did I say veggies? You might be thinking it is early for the squashes in the pic here in the southern Great Lake State and you would be right. But. Hoop Houses! Yes. No tomatoes or cukes or eggplant or sweet corn yet. Not until mid-summer. That’s okay. We’re happy with our haul today. I hope we can eat it all!
May 16th, 2015 at 8:06 pm
LOTS of veggies! I like Shakespeare but am not a good sitter either. I mainly prefer the comedies.
May 17th, 2015 at 3:32 am
Thanks for anticipating my question about the “out-of-season” squash…. I’m with you about finding Shakespeare oblique. For our one-and-only visit to Stratford ONT, I got the Cliff’s Notes for the plays we saw; I got more of the plays as a result, but still floundered (aka felt out of my depth—because I was!).
May 17th, 2015 at 4:07 pm
I saw the RSC do Julius Cesar probably 10 years ago. it was SO good. SO GOOD! I was never a huge fan – hard to get all the proper meanings and such. but after seeing that play I thought they should video the RSC doing all the plays and show that to high school kids – it is so much better watching an excellent production than trying to read it without context and ‘acting!’ to get the points across.