October 03, 2002 - 10:29 a.m.
Last night we went to see The Winter's Tale over at the Shakespeare Theatre. This is the first of our plays for the season and it was good to be back in the theatre enjoying one of the many benefits of living near a large cultural centre like DC. We have tickets with several others from this area and it makes for a lovely evening with friends and fun. Unfortunately, Roland (one of the usual crew) was not able to attend as he is beginning several weeks of travel for work. He as missed. I usually wait and let someone like Wendy or Gen provide the commentary for the play as a between the two of them they will invariably cover all the highlights, lowlights and the best of the costuming bits.
This time however I feel the need to add my own particular view. Mind you I will start with the statement that is was really quite well done and I did enjoy the play a great deal. That of course does not make it in my opinion as less odd thing to have attended. Luckily, I happen to like odd things. When asked this morning what I thought of the play last night my instant response was that "it was good, but I fear that the director did see Moulin Rouge (the movie) a bit too frequently and recently." The sets and the costumes were ... well just go see for yourselves.
I confess that I found myself thinking more than once that the poor actors were spending their entire time on a stage that was _so_ not flat that it must be murder on the knees, but it did make for some really interesting effects with the staging and perspective. Must have been a bear to block before the sets were put up.
The costuming was ... flamboyant. The fist act was (I think?) Napoleanic inspired, the first part of the second inspired by a swiss miss ad, then later it was Tom Petty meets Rocky Horror, finished off by something vaguely post-ante-bellum south. It all it made for a set of things that had continuity held together only by the fact that each was done well and boldly. There was nothing subtle in the works of this artistic director. Hats off.
Yes, Wendy ... I do have trauma from the spontaneous yodeling on stage, but can happily report that there was not a single Yo-de-la-he-ho in my dreams (for the small things I do thank the grace of our gracious lord). It is not so much the yodeling that was the startling bit for me ... it was the shakespeare play breaking into a full blown musical theatre number in act two (complete with accordion player). Things I was not braced for!! Ah but hell it was funny and I liked it.
Also funny was the phone call that we placed to Tricia,
well the voice mail on her cell phone anyway, during the intermission.
You see as they set the stage for the beginning of act two ... which takes
place at a sheep shearing festival they placed SHEEP on the stage.
(You can see them in one of the set sketches that I linked to above) They
were lovely sheep, they were adorable sheep ... and we were moved to tell
Padraiga about them. For her sake it is entirely likely that she
was better off not answering the phone after all ... it would likely have
been as confusing as this diary entry is to those of you reading and trying
to make heads or tales of what in the blazes I am talking about.
For that dear readers, I can only hope that for your sakes that Wendy does
post something about the play. It is sure to make more sense than
this.
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