Daisy Ointment

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

I woke up this morning to read email dialogue between Miranda  and Rebecca Johnson.

What could have seemed more natural?

I have listened to the women talk back and forth often through the summer.

I was hearing more talk about getting daisy-infused oil into a beeswax potion to be used during the winter for bruises.


Last nightBonnie and I had beren thinking about Miranda, how different the house seems with one of the adult voices gone.

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

Bonnie had been thinking of the game Arbortum, in particular, since she and Miranda had played it together.

Miranda had previously played that game with Bonnie, Bonnie saying that Miranda was beating her roundly.

There are similar strategies in p
I was doing the same thing to Bonnie last night, only with the board game Lost Cities.

I was also a good opponent, until I stopped to show her some of my strategies, after which the game playing became much harder for me.

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

We played card games last night, too tired to continue viewing the Stratford Festival On-line's production of Love's Labour's Lost.

"Have you seen this show," Bonnie had questioned.

"Well, of course," I idly answered.  I feel as though I must have, since I did know the title.  But the show was new to me, a show written around the time of a 1607 pandemic, which closed Shakespeare's theatre and so all he could do was write.  And well he did, writing King Lear during that time.  I wonder if his daughters had ever gathered daisies for folk medicine, specifically bruises, for in the show, he is destined to get many of them.

Arta

A Nod to Rebecca about The Taming of the Shrew

Photo Credit: David Hou
Deborah Hays as Katharina in the Stratford Festival Production
of The Taming of the Shrew

Rebecca responded to my work with the children on The Taming of the Shrew. 

You can find her post on her WordPress63 blog.  I don't need to go there to know what Rebecca thinks about this, and the why and the how of making changes, though I did go to her blog, to read these ideas again. 

Having spent many years in her company, what she says on the there is no surprise.  In fact, I know it only scratches the surface of her beliefs.

I guess the surprise is that any of this has to be said in this day and age.

One thing that is up during Covid times?

Intimate partner violence.

How long will it be until we treat each other with the respect due another human being?  A rhetorical question, I think, one that I will return to again, -- glad, at least, that it is made visible on the large screen where we can see our collective failings and open a discuss about societal change.

For another review of the play go to The National Post where Robert Cushman writes a review on the play.

~ Arta

Stratford’s Taming of the Shrew

Stratford's production of Shakespearee's The Taming of the Shrew

Last night Bonnie set up a projector in the living room, put a large fabric on the wall to simulate a screen and we watched the Stratford Production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.  This is not the first time I have seen The Taming of the Shrew, nor the first time I have seen it done by the Stratford Company. 

Indeed, its memory is recent in my mind for it is the production that I watched with Michael Johnson a few days ago.  I wondered how long I could keep him at the screen with me.  Too bad that I ran out of the last half of the large Cadbury Milk Chocolate Bar that I had been hiding in my blanket cupboard before the film ended. 

I was hiding the chocolate bar from myself, so I knew where it was. 

My desire to keep him at the screen was greater than my need to keep back some candy for myself for random snack attacks.  I had the closed captions for Michael, but mostly for me.  He was reading them out loud as the actors were speaking them, not a practise I would have allowed in a classroom setting, but a practise I fully believed in at that moment – anything to keep him at the screen. 

I backed the bed up against the door to lock it so that we would not be interrupted by his younger siblings.  

Together we watched the show.  He kept viewing all the way to where the wedding between Petruchio and Katharina was to occur.  In the passing of that amount of time, we had seen a lute smashed over a scholar’s head, a master and servant switch costumes, and seen a man wearing pumpkin pants who also suggested to the audience that wearing them was both comfortable and stylish.  We had seen a man dressed as a woman, to be presented later, to the character, Christopher Sly, as his wife.  We had observed the writing style of setting a play within a play.  We listened to a medieval band of travelling musicians, and we observed fight scenes, screaming matches, sleep deprivation, the handcuffing of siblings buy siblings, and shrewish behaviour to parents, … oh, the list is only half started.

The next day, Bonnie read the Lego Version of The Taming of the Shrew to Michael and Alice, both so wrapped in attention  at the story that they were either leaning their bodies on hers, or peering over her shoulder and even reaching over it to turn to the next page, not really a comfortable position for her. 

Last night, Bonnie and I were alone in the evening so we engaged in another practise – now watching the show as a 300 year old systemic practise of taking away autonomy, of taking away the right to free speech, of the practise of objectification of another person, all the while cloaking this in humour. We watched starvation, the enactment of homelessness – there are plenty of academic essays on all of these subject, for The Taming of the Shrew.  The show is still on festival bills, now seen through a modern lens. 

When the show was over, we stayed up to talk about it for two hours – we didn’t get to bed until 3 am. 

Watching this show was a thrill in three parts.  One was to have an 8-year-old boy by my side, showing him Elizabethan English and a certain story form.  Secondly, I was reminded of how 300-year-old long systems of entanglement are still practised today. Third, I got to watch my daughter read Shakespeare to my grandchildren.

Now over to you, Rebecca.  I know you have some notes on this show.

~ Arta

Last Notes on a Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Fairies swinging above the audience:  beginning of Act II

While rewatching A Midsummer Night's Dream, I became interested in the Pyramus and Thisbee play-within-a -play this afternoon, wondering if we could stage it this summer with the kids out on the front lawn.  

I don’t know if this is true, if they would like to make this play, or one out of their own imaginations. 

At one point in the dialogue the play is touted to have only 10 words of dialogue.  The mini-play does have some fascinating parts:  the casting scene, the practise, and the performance.

And if that doesn’t interest the kids, maybe just the names of the fairies will delight them:  Peaseblossom, Mustard Seed, Cobweb and Moth.  The trick for me will be to remember the names when I want to pull them out of the air.  Not that I am unable to think of alternative fairy names.  Sometimes I just like to get it right.

Gurns, Immersive, Zoren

On watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I learned three new words: gurns, immersive theatre, zoren.

The first  is the word gurns.  

A review said that Puck “gurns and twists with distorted facial action”.  

I didn’t know what gurning was, so I had to find an online dictionary.  

Now I am going back to see if I can view the show again and catch that action in Puck’s face.

A second idea I had to fix in my mind is the technique of immersive theatre.

Off to the web to discover what that was again.

Much to my surprise, I have seen other plays using this technique.  I just didn’t have a name for it but of course I have seen it.

Zorb (with derivatives zorben and zorbing).  

I didn’t know what a zorb ball was.  

I don’t think I have seen one personally, though with all of this quarantining, I get mixed up with what is reality and what is my reality through a screen.  

For sure, I did see the zorben ball when

I first saw the play on the big scree.  I just didn’t have a name for it.  I noticed one critic was negative about the use of that ball.  I don’t know if I agree.  He argued, is this a play or a playground.  I was comfortable with it being both.

National Theatre - a 3rd look at Midsummer Night's Dream

Titania, Queen of the Fairies
also
Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazon

National Theatre continues to broadcast performances for us.  

Such a privilege. 

This week I am going to try to find a finer balance between watching and learning – though much of the learning is also watching, since there is so much delivered on the web about this play.  

First I was off to find some website that gives the 10 or 20 most famous quotes in the play.  That is always such a good place for me to start. I did find 10 famous sayings, read them, and now want to print them off and memorize some of them, though not the line, "What fools we mortals be."  

I already have personal experience.

Lurene asked me if I have had a chance to see this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I have seen it.  

Once at the Cineplex.

Twice already at home, and I am hoping for a few more viewings.  

This isn’t my most popular Shakespeare play, but it is the one most performed.  I think everything about the play is complicated:  the characters, the setting, the story line, the fantasy, the fact.

After my third viewing, which happened last night, I still hadn’t had enough and so stopped casting the play and went to my computer, where I can also get the subtitles.  They weren’t asking to my TV.   Now that I think of it, probably too late, I just needed to ask the hand controller to let there be subtitles. 

I am beginning to pick apart pieces of the play that interest me.  On the first viewings there is so much going on, I just have to stay with the forward motion of the play and resist stopping the flow to ask questions of google.  Why this?  Why that?  I ask those questions day and night, including when I am watching a play like this.

...the image captures humanity wrapped in nature ...

Why Titania’s dress?  

I noticed her carrying it over her arm in previous viewings.  

This time I took a good look at the dress while the conversation was going on:  a long train (of verdure), the act of picking it up and carrying it along (taking care of the environment), the train swinging from the sling she sit in, looking down at the action of the night (as is the right of the Fairy Queen).  

The extensive beading on the bodice is beautiful on the close shots where we really get to see it.  

There is braid hanging down, and I was wondering if those are stems or trailing vines.  

I loved the nakedness of Queen Titania’s (Gwendolyn Christie) arms, fully outstretch and our view is as though we are underneath, on the stage floor, looking up at her, even when she stands down from her hammock in the heavens.

David Morst as Puck
Gwendoline Christie as Titania, the Queen of the Fairies
Here you can see the length of the train the costumers have her carry.

I love these secondary and tertiary viewings since there is so much to see, so many events.  I want to keep my eye just on Puck, his eyes squinting, his quirky movements, the tattoos on his arm (are those dog footprints?), all of the colour on his arms, shirt and tights, his sass to the crowd, his obeisance to the Queen, his tantrum to her – I need to study all of that.

If I were talking to children about to watch the show I would want to point out all of the possible settings:  Athens, a night forest, the dream world of flying fairies, contagious fog, moonlight revels, and we are the roving audience moving in and out from the stage, both those physically present at the show ( standing in as audience for us in the performance), and the roving of the camera to bring to our eye, what they cannot see.

More later.

Arta

Branagh Theatre - A Winter's Tale

Truth-telling …
Judi Dench as Paulina and Kenneth Branagh as Leontes
in
The Winter’s Tale at the Garrick

Photograph: Johan Persson
Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company/Garrick

I like to keep just a little bit ahead of what I am going to see next.  I think this show comes Dec 4th.

So for others like me, here is a Guardian review of the upcoming Shakespeare play,  The Winter's Tale.

It seems like only yesterday that I read Janette Winterson's The Gap of Time, her cover of The Winter's Tale.

Such a rich culture that we live in.

I went to refresh my mind on some of the most famous lines from this play.

I wrote them in a notebook that I carry with me.

Perhaps I will have time to re-read them.

Perhaps not.

But just having them there makes me feel comfortably prepared for this new show.

NT Live Richard III - notes by Ian McKellan

I went out to the web to brush up on the story, and found the best site EVER.

OK.  

Sunday on NT Live is Richard III staring Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort, anyone?)

http://www.stageworkmckellen.com


Go here, for an Interactive Ian McKellan site!   Amongst other things, he explains the opening scene of Richard III line by line.  seriously.  Awesome!   

He then shows you three filmed versions of the same scene.  His is the best.  

:-)

Rebecca

Richard II - Shakespeare's Globe

Richard II is the next play I am looking forward to seeing in HD Live.

It runs Wednesday, October 26, 2016 in our city.

I can't find any reviews so I am going to have to use other ways to learn about this play which I have never seen.  I wish I lived at Rebecca's for I know that she would have aids for watching posted up on her walls.

One of them would be 10 Memorable Lines from Richard II.  I guess I can do that myself.  So here they are from the Royal Shakespeare Company's Favourite Quotes site.  I am not familiar with one of them:

Forget, forgive, conclude and be agreed:
Our doctors say this is no time to bleed.
(King Richard, Act 1 Scene 1)

We were not born to sue, but to command.
(King Richard, Act 1 Scene 1)

King Richard: Why uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Gaunt: But not a minute, king, that thou canst give.
(Act 1 Scene 3)

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars.
(Gaunt, Act 2 Scene 1)

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
(Gaunt, Act 2 Scene 1)

Landlord of England art thou and not king.
(Gaunt, Act 2 Scene 1)
(King Richard, Act 2 Scene 1)

Come, lords, away.
To fight with Glendower and his complices;
A while to work and after holiday.
(Bullingbrook, Act 3 Scene 1)

Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
(King Richard, Act 3 Scene 2)

For heaven’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
(King Richard, Act 3 Scene 2)

See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
As doth the blushing discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the east.
(Bullingbrook, Act 3 Scene 3)

What must the king do now? Must he submit?
The King shall do it.
(Richard, Act 3 Scene 3)

Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
To the possession of thy royal hand.
(York, Act 4 Scene 1)

With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown.
(Richard, Act 4 Scene 1)

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face.
(Bullingbrook, Act 4 Scene 1)

Doubly divorced? Bad men, ye violate
A twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me
And then betwixt me and my married wife.
(King Richard, Act 5 Scene 1)

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
(King Richard, Act 5 Scene 5)

For now the devil that told me I did well
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I'll bear. –
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.
(Exton, Act 5 Scene 5)

Though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murd’rer, love him murdered.
(King Henry, Act 5 Scene 6)

I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
(King Henry, Act 5 Scene 6)

HD Live Measure for Measure

Mariah Gale as Isabella and 
Kurt Egyiawan as Angelo in 
Measure for Measure at Shakespeare's Globe 
Photo: Marc Brenner

Measure for Measure is playing HD Live tomorrow.

Here is the review from The Telegraph by Dominic Cavendish. I trust in my reviewers to give me the flavour of what I will see.

I am due for a brush up on the characters and the plots, though I do remember seeing this show performed when I was a teen-ager.  It was done in our local chapel and I was pretty well amazed by it.  The next time I see Johnny Wilcox I will ask him if he was one of the actors.

In Susannah Clapp's review she says "order may have been restored, but happiness has been banished.

We shall see.

Here are famous quotes to look for:

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." (Act I, Scene IV) 

"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." (Act II, Scene I) 

"Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?" (Act II, Scene II) 

"O, it is excellent To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant." (Act II, Scene II) 

"The miserable have no other medicine but only hope." (Act III, Scene I) 

"If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee." (Act III, Scene I) 

"Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful." (Act III, Scene I) 

"O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side!" (Act III, Scene II) 

"Truth is truth To the end of reckoning." (Act V, Scene I) 

"What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine." (Act V, Scene I) 

"Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure." (Act V, Scene I)

I had to take a quick peek to see what the title means.  So here it is for you, Duncan and Alex: What's Up with the Title.

Arta

BBC Streaming a Mid Summer Night's Dream

Credit: Steve Tanner

A Mid Summer Night's Dream, Emma Rice’s inaugural production as Artistic Director at Shakespeare’s Globe, was broadcast live around the world for audiences to enjoy for free as part of Shakespeare Lives, the online digital festival co-curated by the BBC and the British Council.

I didn't know this was going to happen, but I got a phone call from Rebecca saying that A Mid Summer Night's Dream was already streaming.

She told me what I had to type in to catch up with what she was watching.

I got myself some snacks and settled down for a 3 1/2 hour watching fest. I was mesmerized. I would have only changed one thing. Had I known tis was happening I would have purchased more theatrical snacks. As it was I had to rely on kiwis, oranges and my new Envy apples -- all of which were just fine.

A natural sugar high is just as good as an artificial one.  Well, not quite, but they had to do.

Arta

Romeo and Juliet - Afterward

Romeo and Juliet
Photograph: Johan Persson

I ran like crazy for the LRT, fearing I would be late for tonight's performance of Romeo and Juliet.  I wasn't worried about the seating for we never have a full theatre -- I don't know if it was the warm summer night that kept people at home, but there were just 10 patrons there. Still, a wonderful evening for Shakespeare fans.

Not to do too many spoilers, but here were the highlights for me:

1. I didn't know if I would like the performance, once I was sitting there and Branagh explained to the audience that he had used some artistic license, ie setting the play in the 1950's in the style of the Italian movies of that era, even to having this shot in black and white.  When I was young, if a movie was in colour, it cost a little more and I wasn't sure I wanted to return to the days when most film was black and white -- especially my beloved Westerns -- B-movies, but there was a new one every week.  That being said, Branagh set up the Queen Mab speech so beautifully that I was sorry when it ended.

2. And Branagh pointing out that Mercutio's part was done by a seasoned and well respected actor (Derek Jacobi) made me pay more attention to it than I have ever paid before.  Just beautiful, the declamation of some of the lines.

3. At times, when other speakers were delivering their lines, the camera was on the face of Romeo (Richard Madden).  I was entranced by the look on his face as he was listening to the lines of others.  I couldn't get enough of those shots.

4. The scene where Juliet's father rages, insisting that she marry Paris was chilling in its violence and physicality.

5. This is the first time that Juliet's nurse has come out of the limelight and into the spotlight for me.  Quite the bit of character acting!  Just loved her.

6. The staging was quite a delight -- the change of scene was always around pillars ascending or descending and suddenly we had different rooms or plazzas.  Interesting -- everything in black and white and the shades of grey around the pillars.

7. I only know Lily James as Rose in Downton Abbey.  Now I will remember her as Juliet, with some of the loveliest interpretations of those famous lines.  I was thinking about Duncan as I was watching the performance, since this production will be the one he will hold up as the original model for Romeo and Juliet.  I was wondering what a more traditional interpretation will feel like when he sees one.

 ... Oxford full brogue  spectator shoes ...

8. One of the reviews calls Jacobi's shoes, corespondent shoes. Whatever else there is to say about them, I echo Jacobi's words at the ends of many sentences:  boom-boom.

9.  And what about when Juliet gets the hiccoups, or is drinking on her balcony.  And when Romeo is bawling his guts out?  Oh boy!  I want to see how Duncan reacted to all of those details!

Arta

Kenneth Branagh Theatre - Romeo and Juliet

Lily James as Juliet CREDIT: JOHAN PERSSON

Tonight is the showing of Kenneth Branagh's Romeo and Juliet.  

Looks like it is going to be fun and my first time seeing it set in the 1950's Italy.

I hope I can make the leap.

I have links to three reviews, below.  Enjoy the reading, even if you can't get to the show.

Arta

Romeo and Juliet review – Branagh gives tragedy a touch of la dolce, vita, Michael Billington, May 26, 2016, 

Romeo and Juliet review – Branagh’s star-crossed lovers fail to soar, Susannah Clapp, May 29th, 2016 

Romeo and Juliet, Garrick, review: 'Lily James's Juliet saves the night', The Telegraph

The Adventures of Pericles - in retrospect

I liked relying on Rebecca to do all of the pre-show work for me. In Victoria, she used to teach us the connections between all of the characters, have 10 famous quotes from the show taped to the door between the living room and the dining room and she would do a synopsis of the show as we were eating our meals together.

Now I have to do all of that on my own.  I went to the work to do it, even printing out a list of the characters and taking it with my on my early morning walk, memorizing their names and functions from my who is who in Pericles.

Since one of the reviews said that this was a mediocre play, well acted, I had the bar set low.  I wasn't expecting much -- just thinking I was putting in time by seeing some acting from Stratford.

When I got to the theatre 15 minutes early, only one patron was sitting there.  I went over to her to speak to her.  Tonia told me that if I am looking for friends to go with me on these adventures, perhaps it would just be easier to find those friends among people who are already there, since their presence would already tell me they are interested.

So I looked the person in the eye, and instead of saying "How many people do you think will be here today", I said, "How lovely to find you here today.  Do you remember me from the library?"

"Happy Birthday to you
You are 400 years old
I still like to see your work
37 and that's just the plays."

"Of course, Arta", she said, "I know you.  I am here, alone.  It is Shakespeare's 400th birthday, so in honour of that, I decided to see how many of his 37 plays I can see.  That is my new bucket list."

Why didn't I think of doing that?  I could make a list of how many of the plays I have seen, and how many I have yet to see.

Last year's The Winter's Tale and now The Adventures of Pericles are surely among the plays less performed and harder to access.

And Hamlet?  Now really, I can't count the number of times I have seen Hamlet:  for sure twice last year and once this year.

When I get a moment, I am going make my own list.  It will be short.  I will  probably have about 27 more to see.

I forgot to take this selfie with Kelvin at the theatre.
I only remembered after he left.
Perhaps at Butterfly I will get both of us in.

I was pleasantly surprised, enjoying this play much more than I had anticipated.

I don't know if it is the fact that the unusual conventions now seem common -- is it that familiarity that makes me comfortable?

The Greek chorus is a less used form in modern plays (though it is a delightful trop in the musical, Legally Blonde).  The careful wrapping up of all of the threads in the conclusion seems heavy-handed nowadays.   But I enjoyed it yesterday.  Relished it, really.   And the miraculous events:  a waterproof coffin making it to shore, people who should be dead, found living, a riddle which when solved would cause death to the person who solved it.  All of that is perfectly acceptable to me now.  I think my willing suspension of disbelief may be out of control.

Rebecca called me about an hour after the play was over for me.  Alex and she had gone to see it in Victoria.  She had felt too sick to go, but he is the one who didn't want to miss it.  I laughed when he reported that the shipwreck scene almost made him feel sea sick.  I had the a similar engaged feeling when Marina ran at one point to the end of the stage and looked far ahead.  There was the sound of sea gulls and on cue, my mind added the sound of the water, the smell of the salt, the long shore to either side of her.

The play's the thing.  Whoops.  Too much Hamlet.

Arta

The Gap of Time

We attended Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, armed with ideas of what we would buy for snacks.  Our tickets has been pre-purchased.  That doesn't mean that Alex, Duncan or I knew how to get those tickets out of the kiosk where we were to pick them up.  I tried first.  When things didn't go smoothly for me, I felt one of those older grandchildren grab Rebecca's credit card from my hand and begin the process without my expertise.  That worked much better.

What is it with these people in Victoria.  Again, a full house of old people at the theatre.  We found seats high up on the right side and then I saved them while the boys went back for their snacks.

Some things went wrong with the production.  I tried to remember,  this is a new company and they don't have all of the sophisticated equipment and personnel that we usually enjoy.

The sound was too soft for the first 1/4 of the play.  Then bang, they corrected that.

We didn't get enough of those beautiful close-ups that I enjoy.  Still, it was much better than sitting at home and missing the whole thing.

What went right is that at the end of the night, the boys "knew" the play, and some good lines (the most famous being ... Exit, chased by a bear).

We might use that line out at the lake in the summer.

... also available as an e-book ...

The serendipitous moment from the event happened in the book store the next day.  Rebecca saw Jeanette Winterson's new book called The Gap of Time.

It is William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale retold.  I am about half way through.  This might be the first time I am ahead of Mary on reading Winterson.

Having just seen the original Shakespear makes the cover story really interesting.  Here is the Oct 2015 review of the book from The New York Times or read the review from The Guardian if you choose.

Arta

King John - HD Live

Shakespeare's King John is being shown tonight on HD Live at some theatres. The title of the review in the Globe and Mail Reveiw says  of King John: "Cheeky lead performance enlivens Shakespeare’s justly obscure play".

If that isn't enough, you can read what the Toronto Star has to say.

Here is a plot synopsis from the promotional material:

War is the inevitable result when the King of France demands that John relinquish his crown in favour of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion and assassination all contribute to a political and personal turmoil that finds devastating expression in an anguished mother’s grief for her son.

Enjoy the show.  I am sure I will.

Arta

Comedy of Errors

Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of Shakespeare,
containing scenes and characters from
several of William Shakespeare's plays.
Photo: Wickipedia

Makmiller and two of his friends drew to my attention that watching Shakespeare is hard, so hard that it is possible to come away without having understood enough of the play to have enjoyed it.

 I have been thinking about that point – that the 17th century language is hard to understand.

So hard to understand and still thirty-eight plays have been translated into every modern language.

Why do we keep seeing them, still today?

Since my ear was tuned into the difficulty of the language, given Makmiller’s point, I was noticing as well, how the original English language was getting in the way of my own fluency for the first part of the play.

Given all of the above, by the end of the first act I was laughing so hard that my shoulders were shaking.

Transferring the stage into a modern day setting – London, in fact -- was a brilliant move: the ambulance with its sirens, the street violence,  the troubadours now seen as a band, the Shakespearean traditional theatre now in the form of an three flour apartment.

And at the end? Was that #10 Downing Street that the actors were pouring in and out of?

I called Rebecca in London on other matters today, and Alex said that she had taken 10-year old Duncan and gone to the show.

Did he make it to the second act? And if he did, was he rolling on the ground with laughter as the rest of us were in our theatre.

We had something special happen in the last 5 minutes of the show. Our screen went blank and a computer pop-up said, the screen will now go blank in the next two minutes. Press yes, no or cancel. People in the theatre were yelling out, “Press cancel. Press cancel.” But someone in the screen room was too far away to hear us.

I had skimmed the plot summary before I left to go to the movies, and had also run my eye over a goggle search on “Comedy of Errors famous quotes”. I glanced through them and didn’t recognize any of them.

But the pre-show fast read must have helped, for I kept hearing the quotes pop up during the play.

Here are the ones I looked at:
• "The pleasing punishment that women bear."
- William Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors, 1.1

• "A wretched soul, bruised with adversity."
- William Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors, 2.1

• "Every why hath a wherefore."
- William Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors, 2.2

• "Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast."
- William Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors, 3.1

• "They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,
A needy, hollow.eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living-dead man."
- William Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors, 5.1

• "Let's go hand in hand, not one before another."
- William Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors, 5.1

Wasn’t that a great line to finish with!

 “Let’s go hand in hand, not one before the another.”

So sweet.

And now, dear reader, if you are still with me and were there at your own theatre tonight, you will know that I fell off of my seat in the previews to read that Love Never Dies is coming April 10th and 11th. That is my all-time favorite musical. I am going both nights. I paid regular price to get to that show in London so many times, and I can't be kept back from going at the greatly reduced price offered by the cinemas, as compared to the live stage.

Love Never Dies is playing in Australia now, but not in London or New York.  So we get to see it.

As well, Frankenstein is being rebroadcast in June – both versions, so how exciting is that.

And I didn’t know about Christopher Plummer’s Barrymore , a one-man show that was done in Toronto, let alone that it is also going to be broadcast. Apparently that is going to be run HD Live. Oh, life is sooo good if a person loves the theatre. My Google search didn’t line me up with the dates for that show and I didn’t catch it in the screen tonight.

Arta