Stratford. This post contains: mist, jokes, shopping & birds of prey

The B&B may be a long walk from city center but right now I'm not only eating a light lunch of cereal, yogurt, OJ, and chocolate poundcake supplied for free, my clothes are in the wash. @ 26 may not have the mega gourmet breakfasts Aspidistra used to give, but the amenities are well worth the walk. (And you can go right by the chocolate stores on your way back and pop 'em right into the fridge so they don't melt.)

Anyway.

NEXT PART CONTAINS AN OPENING SCENE SPOILER FOR CAMELOT. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED FOR THE FIRST 5 MINUTES OF THE SHOW, SKIP DOWN.

Mo came back burbling that she'd seen The. Best. Warning. Sign. Ever. You know how theaters put up the signs: Warning, this play contains strobe, this play contains gunfire, etc. Camelot's reads "This play contains mist, smoke, [blah blah], birds of prey."

"Ha, ha," says Mo to herself. "That's cute."

But even having read it, she wasn't expecting the play to start with Merlin calling a live hawk to his arm.

SPOILER END

In a little bit I have my first play, Merry Wives of Windsor. I adored it and considered it my favorite Shakespeare play when I first saw it in Regent's Park.

... in 1984.

So we'll see how it plays out now. Then tonight, it's The Misanthrope, with a break for fish and chips and chocolate tour sundaes between.

This morning was a Meet the vegetables Festival* with Seana McKenna & her husband/director Miles Potter. (*So called behind the scenes) Highlights:

On doing a one-woman play: SEANA: "The cast parties aren't as fun... but you never miss a cue."

On costuming: SEANA: "I wear two corsets this season. One pushes everything up; the other pushes everything down." She also discussed how she did Richard (no platforms or bindings lest she hurt herself over the run, and building up the costume over the "strong" arm to look masculine, while her own arm would look much weaker in comparison.)

On "Shakespeare's Will" MILES: "It may be a play about an unhappy marriage, but the strains of an acting marriage? Oh, yeah, we could relate."

On a female Richard:

SEANA: Richard's always an other anyway. I'm just taking that one step further.

MILES: He's always compared to animals - the toad, the hog. I think she's doing a bird of prey. (SEANA: "Skree!")

MILES: He's pretending throughout. The gender is one more pretense

SEANA: Although one guy didn't get it. He was complaining that Richard was too effeminate.

on the seduction scene: SEANA: "In Shakespeare's time it was a man to a boy; we're just flipping that dynamic. Also, what does he tell her? 'I did terrible things, but I love you, I won't do them anymore, and you're the only one who can change me.'" (Nods as women in the audience laugh appreciatively.)


Would you believe that I haven't seen any swans yet? I've been by the river.

R

Stratford: Friday

Today was pretty much shopping day, and I bought a lot, because every time I bought food for someone else (like the ice wine smoked salmon at Indigena) I bought some for me too. Good thing I have my entire car to fill up!

Plays:

Merry Wives was loads of fun, although maybe not my Ultimate Favorite Shakespeare Play anymore. Everyone was good, but Ger Wyn Davies was Falstaff, so you know he did his best to mop the floor with everyone else. "His favorite dish is the scenery," Mo said, and he dined well.

He also treated the fourth wall like three gibberish syllables, constantly breaking it in asides to the audience. On lust "making beasts of us all... yes, (pointing) you sir, you know what I mean, I know you do." On a joke that got only one tiny titter, it was just a point and "Thank you."

The audience ate it up.

The Misanthrope... I started out a little disappointed because the after show talk was cancelled "for unforseen circumstances." And then, during the first half... well, aside from thinking that Sara Topham is typecast as The Sprightly Ingenue and that everyone was riding roughshod over the poetry, I found myself profoundly indifferent. At intermission I asked myself if I was having fun (no), if I was comfortable (also no; how can an ass be so fat and so boney at the same time?) and if I wondered what would happen (not much; the playbill spoils the ending).

And so, blasphemously, I didn't go back in when the trumpets sounded.


On the other hand, I have seen swans and even cygnets and ducklings. And also -- there's an app for Stratford. Two, actually. One is more or less the festival visitor's guide in interactive form; the other is for the town and has tours and non-main-drag shopping, etc.