A Tale of Two Festivals
Dunkirk NY – It’s going to be a very nice day here in western NY. Temperatures will climb to the upper 70s, the sun is out, and the humidity is low. Last night I sat on my back porch, listened to the Yankees drop a game to Tampa Bay, played with a new stargazing app on my iPad, and then went to bed. It’s these kinds of situations that keep me from getting on my computer and writing on this blog. But hey, I don’t do this for a living, and I really don’t have any deadlines to meet, so I figure perhaps you don’t mind so much. Besides, at least in my neck of the woods, nothing much is happening.
Last week, though, while I was on vacation visiting family in Massachusetts, I did manage to squeeze in two days taking in the three Shakespeare offerings at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox MA. In fact, I got to do a fairly quick buzz around the Berkshires, from Lenox down to Stockbridge, then up to North Adams, across to Williamstown and back down through Pittsfield to Lenox. It was interesting. I liked Pittsfield the best, because it seemed to preserve most if its working-class history, and there was much more diversity visible in the community.
Having completed my own Shakespearian stint at my hometown Shakespeare Festival, it was quite interesting to compare the two and see what a difference money and location can make. When we talk about class, culture and the arts in this country, to me it becomes readily apparent that theatre has become the domain of the white and the wealthy. Comparing the way the two festivals go about producing Shakespeare, as well as looking at the eventual product, makes this pretty clear. Continue Reading »
Something’s Gotta Give
Dunkirk, NY - Much Ado About Nothing has come to a conclusion, and right at the moment I am sitting in my backyard writing this post with my new iPad. My wife surprised me with this as a present for having attained “distinguished” status, and this week I am getting a chance to play around with it and see how it works. It is surprisingly good in terms of typing on the keyboard, and of course there will be a learning curve, but on the whole it is an interesting device that will no doubt take the place of one of my netbooks. I am forced in WordPress to use the HTML editor, as the visual editor probably has Flash elements to it, but that is no real hardship at the moment. Posts written on this device may end up being without pictures of any sort, but again, no real hardship.
But apart from the iPad itself, just the experience of sitting in the backyard doing what I choose to do is my central point. These next few days will entail undergoing some post-show decompression, but there is not really any depression that I can feel attached to ending the show. My body has been geared towards getting in the car in the late afternoon and driving up to Buffalo, and that physical state takes time to leave the system. But there is no real sadness to it; in fact, I am quite glad not to have to do a show. Continue Reading »
Shakespeare in the Dark
Dunkirk NY – This week has been a beautiful week weatherwise. The temperatures have been pleasantly warm by day and cool at night. It has made working at Shakespeare in Delaware Park very delightful. The numbers of people on the hill each night has been getting larger and larger, and it’s quite fun to see.
It’s also been the busiest week of the summer for me. This past week was the week that working summer orientation getting classes for incoming freshmen combined with working evenings at the park. I find this year I have not been as exhausted as I was last summer, and that has been a relief. I believe my protein shake regimen has made a significant difference, as well as the fact that Leonato is not as physical a role as Sebastian was last year. They have been pretty full, active days, however, and it’s fair to say I have been tired, but not so supremely exhausted that I cannot face the next day. Today is the last show of this week, as we do not perform on July 4th, so I have two days off from the show and only one orientation later in the week. Plenty of time to recover, and as this is the last week of the show it should not be as intense as this past week was.
The show itself has been pleasant to perform. One thing I am experiencing once again about working at the park is that it is about more than just the show. SDP is really a total experience, and in many ways the quality of the show is not the point at all. In this production of Much Ado the director has mixed popular tunes from the 40s into the fabric of the show, and so you have a pleasant little love comedy competently performed with the songs nicely sung. Mix that with a gentle summer evening, a picnic dinner and/or snacks, a bottle or two of wine, a park setting with a lake in the background, a beautiful sunset, and you have more than an evening at the theatre – you have an experience in which the show itself is only one of the many elements.
This is not to say that the show itself is not good; much of it is good. But it certainly does not break any significant artistic ground, and there is no attempt to do more with the show than it can handle. The comedy is there, along with the two or three dramatic scenes that comprise the heart of the Hero/Claudio subplot. Audiences are enjoying the show because it is entertaining, and the setting makes it all the more enjoyable. And that’s it.
Despite that, I find for myself personally that getting in the car, commuting the hour up there, doing the show, and commuting back home has that “been there done that” feel to it. I can’t call it an active dislike, and I think that if I lived ten minutes from the park I would feel completely different about the situation. But I have to say in all honestly that the idea of sitting on my back porch on these delightful evenings, sipping a beer or some lemonade, and listening to a ball game, sounds much more appealing. Right n0w I am in fact sitting on my back porch writing this while listening t0 the Yankees play the Blue Jays. That’s pleasant as well. I guess at the moment I should consider myself a very lucky guy, with so much pleasantry to choose from. -twl
