Dachs Thoughts

This afternoon I made the harrowing trek down to Santa Cruz to see a rarely preformed non-canon Shakespeare play. This was Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s “fringe” production of The Two Noble Kinsmen. By fringe, they mean this is a production put on by the season’s acting interns. This play was not in the First Folio and hence is non-canon, but is considered to have been co-written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, a younger contemporary of Shakespeare’s who took over his role in the production company after he died.

The set was fairly sparse, and the play was set in the American west. As this was an apprentice play, all the parts were played by just five actors. Overall it was quite good. A few times it got confusing as an actor would switch roles and I wasn’t always following who was who. Also, there was a little bit of slipping into/out of western/southern accents. Even though the western setting was a little strange, the story was adequately conveyed. I guess technically this was a tragi-comedy as there was a death, but overall things worked out. I’m glad I got to see this play and now I can check it off my list.

I went down a bit early to avoid the rush hour traffic around San Jose, but I was again reminded why I hate driving down Hwy 17. Going down mid-afternoon was manageable, but coming back at night, there was major construction on the very windy and unseparated part of the road, and it was very much white-knuckle driving for me. The lights from the oncoming traffic nearly blocked my vision in certain points. Nevertheless I survived, but it reinforced my desire to limit my visitations to Santa Cruz.
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Tonight I saw the fourth play in as many days from the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s season, As You Like It. I’ve already seen it once this summer, and I’m scheduled to see it one more time. Interestingly, like the first one, this production featured a strong musical element. The music, a kind-of bluesy folky music, was arguably better in a stand-alone sense, but I still think the SF Shakespeare version was a little stronger. Nonetheless, this was still a funny and enjoyable play, particularly towards the end. One of the characters, who played the guitar, and did some of the singing, was very impressive. The key character of Rosalind wasn’t quite as forceful as in the first version, but it worked overall.

Part of my lack of enthusiasm may have had to do with the fact that this was a very warm day, and I somewhat cooked in my room all afternoon. So come play time, I wasn’t feeling great. Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable play, and and interesting contract to the prior production.
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Tonight I saw the third play in three days from the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s season, Romeo and Juliet. This is one of my favorite plays, and as such I have high expectations which sometimes aren’t met. That wasn’t the case tonight. It was a wonderful production full of energy, emotion, and pathos. The acting was stellar and the characterizations were spot-on. They were very faithful to the original text, so I got to hear my favorite speeches including the opening prologue and the prince’s epilogue. It was done in a traditional staging. At this point it always gets me in the end, and this one particularly so. A standing ovation! It annoys me somewhat how emotional I get at the end even though I know what’s coming.

This was a very warm day, and earlier I was really feeling the effects of the heat, the altitude, and my lack of sleep. I was really dragging. However, I had a rest in the afternoon, and it cooled off a bit in the evening so I was awake and energized for the play. I even wore just shorts to the evening performance, which I almost never do. So far the festival has been great with the three plays I’ve seen.
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Tonight I saw the first play in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s season, a wonderful production of Twelfth Night. It was a very warm night, and the play had a Caribbean tropical theme. They had a lot of action before the play actually started, pulling people up onto the stage for little bits, and I even got pulled up to “help them get their boat off the reef.” This was a really well done play, from the acted out dramatized wreck of the ship, to the broad comedy of the various scenes. The acting was very good, featuring some actors I’ve seen before.

The night before coming out I only got 3 hours of sleep, getting up early to come to the airport. On top of many short nights previously, and the high altitude and warm weather, I had to fight sleep during the first half of the play (no fault of the play). Fortunately with a cool night I could start to catch up on some much needed sleep. This play was a great way to start my week of Shakespeare, and I’m looking forward to the rest.
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Tonight I saw the second play of the Livermore Shakespeare Festival’s season, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised]. I again joined Bob and Blanca. This is a fast moving comedy featuring only three actors, that tries (sort-of) to spin through snippets of all of Shakespeare’s 37 plays in a little over an hour and a half. It has apparently been around for around 20 years. It was pretty much silly comedy. Some parts were funny, some parts were too silly (stupid) for me. One successful segment was when they brought two people up onto the stage (one of which was a little girl), then engaged the audience in three groups to call out lines ending with the little girl screaming. (It was all supposed to represent the mental turmoil that Ophelia was going through with Hamlet.) It was a fun, warm, evening, and I’m glad I went even if it wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.