It Ends Well

I have just returned from Shakespeare bliss .... Yes, we went to Stratford (Ontario, not England - it was bliss not heaven) for their amazing Shakespeare Festival - a yearly event showcasing plays and musicals by the Bard and others. This year we were particularly fortunate. The piece de resistance (I can't do diacritical marks; I can spell - well a little) was Simon Callow's There Reigns Love. In this remarkable piece, the character actor so many know from Four Weddings and a Funeral addresses himself to Shakespeare's sonnets, supporting a scholarly suggestion that the sonnets, when reordered in a certain way, tell a tragic tale of love and loss in Shakespeare's life. As a reader, I am not at all convinced by this theory, but as a theatre-goer, I was a complete believer for the length of Callow's rendition which alternated between casual narrative and recitation of the sonnets in character. Of course, the fact that the theatre seats fewer than 500 and that we secured front row seats certainly added to the magic.

We also had the opportunity to see Brian Dennehy perform two one act plays, Krapp's Last Tape and Hughie. The Studio Theatre was even smaller than Callow's venue, and the performance was sublime - however utterly depressing the matter of the two plays. Dennehy's amazing range was certainly showcased, particularly since we saw him later that evening as the King of France in All's Well. Unfortunately, that show was of mixed quality. Dennehy and the smaller characters were marvelous; however, the production elected to play the two principals, Helena and Bertram, as straight, sincere, and thus largely unlikeable, characters. If you don't know the plot, Helena arranges to marry Bertram, a man of superior birth, by obtaining him as a reward for curing the king. He's unimpressed - he feels she's beneath him - and deserts her, claiming he'll treat her as a wife only if she gets his ring from his finger and bears his child (he is not helping on this score). She engages in various stratagems to comply in which he unknowingly assists through his attempts to seduce and later deny a young virgin. In order to make this come off - there's a reason why it's referred to as a "problem" comedy - it really has to be presented as a battle of wits rather than earnest girl goes after slug of a man. Oh well ...

In a completely different vein, I completed two, yes two, FOs this week! The first is the mini-maiden Seraphim I have been working on for awhile, and the second is the Silk Romance Cape by BadCat Designs. I appear to be the only person on Ravelry to have attempted this piece - which I can understand given how hard the pattern was to obtain - but I must say it was entirely worth the effort. It took only a few days to complete, and it's beautiful. The pattern is very clear and the product amazing. I will put up pictures of both as soon as I have blocked them - by far the most aggravating part of any project!