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connielane at 09:07am on 26/07/2006
connielane at 09:07am on 26/07/2006Yesterday was pretty great. I woke up before everyone else (as always, and I have long been neurotic about it) and went through my daily ablutions. I got on the 'net for a bit while ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
susy_gwen, fellow early riser, was getting up and ready for the day. We strolled down to the continental breakfast and enjoyed a news story about how more young people are tuning into the Daily Show and Colbert Report (leading politicians to obey pressure to make appearances on these shows) and how it's making young people more cyncical about current events.
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adkjsf'aldsjf'aldkjf
lsadkfj'dslkfjs'dlk *ahem* Sorry. :)
After breakfast, we headed back to the room, where our roommates were still dead to the world, and read/wrote while waiting for them to join us in the land of the living. Eventually they did, and we then took a walk up Main Street and looked at some of the interesting small-town-touristy shops. We lingered especially (who'd have known?) at the two or three book shops we passed, and we all bought something at one of them. (Personally, I went for Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl.) We also unfortunately saw each bookstore stocked with that nightmare of "narrative" - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We refrained from spitting on the copies, but we made several cutting remarks about Rowling going off her game and "jumping the shark" for good measure. ;)
One of the pleasanter moments in our stroll came when we stepped inside Bulloch's - a real, old-fashioned drug store, complete with soda/ice cream shop. I felt like I'd walked into It's a Wonderful Life. We all sat down and had a classic fountain drink (mine was a Lime Rickey ... mmmmmmm) and Wahlee and Kat got bags of candy.
After lunch at Gandolfo's we headed back to the hotel for a minute to freshen up and decided to walk to the theater where we would be seeing H.M.S. Pinafore. It wasn't a long walk, but we decided on the way that we would drive from then on. :P
H.M.S. Pinafore was superb. There was a moment of confusion when we walked in the theater because there was a huge backdrop on the stage that said "Pirates of Penzance" and there was pirate paraphernalia scattered around the stage. We had a great deal of fun laughing at several teenagers in the audience who had come with a larger group and were trying to steal other people's seats. The idiots seemed genuinely surprised every time they had to move because of the seats' true owners coming to claim them.
Then the overture started, and we found out what all the Penzance stuff was about. It was basically a gag for the opening of the show where stage hands would come on and change the set around (it didn't take too much, and perhaps there was a joke there about how similar some of G&S's shows were thought by some to be) for Pinafore. The gag finished with the stage hands decorating a table with doilies they kept taking from one of those rolling vendor carts. They turned it around to take it off stage and it had a sign that said "Doilie Cart." Most everyone roared with laughter, and the teeny-boppers didn't get it at all. *vbg*
The show was OUTSTANDING. There were all kinds of little winks and gags that the company had added to the show. The singing was excellent - though I was a bit disappointed that Josephine didn't hit the high note in the run at the end of "Sorry Her Lot Who Loves Too Well." That is one of my favorite songs in the show, and I love to sing it. I teared up a couple of times - once during Rackstraw's first solo and of course during "He Is an Englishman" (that song ALWAYS gets me). OH! And the funniest bit in the whole show was during both times the company sings "Oh Joy! Oh Rapture Unforeseen" - the sailors in the chorus sit/lie on the stage and did some very Busby-Berkely-esque kaleidoscopic choreography. HI-larious!
After the show we returned to the hotel and rested a bit. We ordered pizza and watched the Shakespearean episode of Moonlighting before driving back to the festival and watching the other Greenshow. Then it was time for Antony and Cleopatra. I've always found it hard to follow those of Shakespeare's plays that have lots of soldiers and battles. You never see the battles; people just talk about them (zomg, "show don't tell" - Shakespeare was such a HACK!), and it's hard to keep all the soldiers and political figures straight.
The play was ... eh. First off, it was about half an hour too long. I found myself wanting to shout "Just DIE already!" Antony was just way off. He wasn't very appealing, and it was hard to see why Cleopatra was so in love with him. And the two of them had zero chemistry. Cleopatra is probably the most challenging female role in all of Shakespeare. She's like the female Hamlet - always acting - and you're never supposed to see the real her. The actress who played her last night occasionally touched on that, but mostly missed the mark. It was mostly kind of tiring, but I'm glad I went to see it nonetheless.
Today we head for St. George to do some shopping and tonight we see what is perhaps Bill's greatest play and definitely (IMO) his greatest character ... Hamlet. It's going to be verrah verrah long, but I can't. Wait.
susy_gwen, fellow early riser, was getting up and ready for the day. We strolled down to the continental breakfast and enjoyed a news story about how more young people are tuning into the Daily Show and Colbert Report (leading politicians to obey pressure to make appearances on these shows) and how it's making young people more cyncical about current events.adfjdkljf'adskfj
adkjsf'aldsjf'aldkjf
lsadkfj'dslkfjs'dlk *ahem* Sorry. :)
After breakfast, we headed back to the room, where our roommates were still dead to the world, and read/wrote while waiting for them to join us in the land of the living. Eventually they did, and we then took a walk up Main Street and looked at some of the interesting small-town-touristy shops. We lingered especially (who'd have known?) at the two or three book shops we passed, and we all bought something at one of them. (Personally, I went for Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl.) We also unfortunately saw each bookstore stocked with that nightmare of "narrative" - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We refrained from spitting on the copies, but we made several cutting remarks about Rowling going off her game and "jumping the shark" for good measure. ;)
One of the pleasanter moments in our stroll came when we stepped inside Bulloch's - a real, old-fashioned drug store, complete with soda/ice cream shop. I felt like I'd walked into It's a Wonderful Life. We all sat down and had a classic fountain drink (mine was a Lime Rickey ... mmmmmmm) and Wahlee and Kat got bags of candy.
After lunch at Gandolfo's we headed back to the hotel for a minute to freshen up and decided to walk to the theater where we would be seeing H.M.S. Pinafore. It wasn't a long walk, but we decided on the way that we would drive from then on. :P
H.M.S. Pinafore was superb. There was a moment of confusion when we walked in the theater because there was a huge backdrop on the stage that said "Pirates of Penzance" and there was pirate paraphernalia scattered around the stage. We had a great deal of fun laughing at several teenagers in the audience who had come with a larger group and were trying to steal other people's seats. The idiots seemed genuinely surprised every time they had to move because of the seats' true owners coming to claim them.
Then the overture started, and we found out what all the Penzance stuff was about. It was basically a gag for the opening of the show where stage hands would come on and change the set around (it didn't take too much, and perhaps there was a joke there about how similar some of G&S's shows were thought by some to be) for Pinafore. The gag finished with the stage hands decorating a table with doilies they kept taking from one of those rolling vendor carts. They turned it around to take it off stage and it had a sign that said "Doilie Cart." Most everyone roared with laughter, and the teeny-boppers didn't get it at all. *vbg*
The show was OUTSTANDING. There were all kinds of little winks and gags that the company had added to the show. The singing was excellent - though I was a bit disappointed that Josephine didn't hit the high note in the run at the end of "Sorry Her Lot Who Loves Too Well." That is one of my favorite songs in the show, and I love to sing it. I teared up a couple of times - once during Rackstraw's first solo and of course during "He Is an Englishman" (that song ALWAYS gets me). OH! And the funniest bit in the whole show was during both times the company sings "Oh Joy! Oh Rapture Unforeseen" - the sailors in the chorus sit/lie on the stage and did some very Busby-Berkely-esque kaleidoscopic choreography. HI-larious!
After the show we returned to the hotel and rested a bit. We ordered pizza and watched the Shakespearean episode of Moonlighting before driving back to the festival and watching the other Greenshow. Then it was time for Antony and Cleopatra. I've always found it hard to follow those of Shakespeare's plays that have lots of soldiers and battles. You never see the battles; people just talk about them (zomg, "show don't tell" - Shakespeare was such a HACK!), and it's hard to keep all the soldiers and political figures straight.
The play was ... eh. First off, it was about half an hour too long. I found myself wanting to shout "Just DIE already!" Antony was just way off. He wasn't very appealing, and it was hard to see why Cleopatra was so in love with him. And the two of them had zero chemistry. Cleopatra is probably the most challenging female role in all of Shakespeare. She's like the female Hamlet - always acting - and you're never supposed to see the real her. The actress who played her last night occasionally touched on that, but mostly missed the mark. It was mostly kind of tiring, but I'm glad I went to see it nonetheless.
Today we head for St. George to do some shopping and tonight we see what is perhaps Bill's greatest play and definitely (IMO) his greatest character ... Hamlet. It's going to be verrah verrah long, but I can't. Wait.