It’s been 8 months since I’ve written any blog posts, which probably indicates a big drop in extracurricular fun. After a couple of months of marathon traveling for work, the summer theater season kind of snuck up on me. So I happily begin blogging again as I attended the first play in the 2017 CalShakes season, As You Like It.
After a couple of fairly cool days I feared we might be freezing on play night, but luckily it warmed up nicely and it was a very pleasant evening. I was joined by Jennifer, Bill and Andy. The play was very enjoyable although it didn’t blow my socks off. It picked up some good momentum as it got to the final act where all the confusions are resolved. They had one unusual twist. Whereas the original dukedom is usually fairly bland and people escape to the beautiful bucolic Arden Forest, this time the original setting was lush and green, and Arden was a stark urban landscape with the refugees eking out their new existence like homeless people. They were finding a new spiritual freedom, but the environment itself didn’t represent that on the surface. I thought it worked well. It was a nice evening to kick off the season, and a nice play to get back into the Shakespeare mood.
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