Stratford '09, last post

[neadods]

The last play I saw was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It was supposed to star Bruce Dow, who has been playing the supporting character with the show-stopping song for several years now (for example, his Nicely Nicely Johnson rocked the house with "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat"). So Forum was supposed to finally be his star turn.

First he hurt himself, badly, then he got sick.

The new Pseudolis is one of the swing actors from West Side Story. It rather changes Forum to have Pseudolis be the same age as Hero, although as a piece of broad, crude farce it's impossible to get wrong - it was a total romp! Although if I were the director, I'd be switching roles - the actor playing Hero (my notes are still packed) was very much a young Rowan Atkinson, all charisma, dark curls, big nose, and impeccable sense of comic timing. He'd make a much more impressive lead; I look forward to seeing more plays with him.

M went to see The Importance of Being Earnest that night. She says it was a delightful production, but I was having an equally delightful time hanging out with wendymr.


And then to home. The border guard on the way up was a theater fan ("You're not seeing West Side Story? I shouldn't let you through!"); the one on the way back sort of grunted politely at us and sent us on our way. (It sucks to get up early to leave... until you fly over the Peace Bridge without a delay!)

On the way up, I'd gone by my notes of previous years' travel on the all-superhighway route. On the way back, we trusted the GPS, which has old maps and at one point was just showing a car in a blank expanse of white, repeating "recalculating... recalculating... recalculating..."

In the end, it gave us a route that wended through many stoplights and town centers (including one that was in the early stages of setting up a fun-looking Italian themed street fair). However, stoplights and all, this route had the triple advantages of showing off the scenery (Pennsylvania is a stunning state), cutting 90 minutes off the travel time, and cutting out all tolls. So I'm thinking I have a new route to Canada.

I've also learned the interesting facts that Cyrano de Bergerac was a real person (I've bought a book about him) and that Forum was based extremely loosely off of three Greek plays, which I will have to look up online.

And so, back to the real world. I have the notes for a 2.5-hour meeting to type up tomorrow...

Comments

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

Forum is mostly based on Juvenal's Pseudolus which is in Latin. It's a fun play-- it also features the one time a particular professor managed to get me to blush, see if you can guess where!-- and Terence's 'The Eunuch' has certain similarities, too (though it's a much darker play).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I will have to check those out. Apparently there's also a play about Miles Gloriosis, which I thought was a recently fictional name.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

You're home already? Wow! Good for you :) Sounds like it was a pretty good run, traffic-lights and all.

And, yes, I had an absolutely wonderful time yesterday. So nice to meet you in person; as I said to the spouse, after five minutes it felt as if I'd known you for years. Thanks so much for giving up one theatre-going evening to get together!

ETA: last time we travelled back from Pennsylvania we were coming from Hershey, and the GPS took us through a more central part of PA. For a good hundred miles or so, we were on local roads and the occasional dual carriageway, and through some small towns as well. It could be a bit frustrating, particularly when it was light after light, but you're absolutely right: beautiful scenery, including some spectacular mountain routes. It also took us into NY State around level with Rochester instead of our usual route through Binghamton and up to the Thruway, probably saving us around 90 minutes. GPS is good!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

We started at 6 a.m. - a horrible time to be up (esp. as M gets up an hour earlier, while I can be ready to walk out a door in 20 minutes) - but it meant that we could zoom over the bridge.

It almost made up for crawling through the fog... a good 40 minutes of the drive was simply because I was going at a cautious 25 with my flashers on.

GPS is good indeed! BTW, I looked at a map - I think your route 91 was 81. That heads up the other side of the state. This was mostly down 15, which is... provincial, but direct.

after five minutes it felt as if I'd known you for years

Arguably, we have!

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

Italian themed street fair - this time of year, could have been the San Gennaro festival.

And how does a nice Jewish girl know this?

Because the place* where The Hubby (tm) bought my engagement ring in early September was situated in a neighborhood that had a S.G. festival, already in full swing.


(*Hertz & deLuca - I highly recommend them)