Like an imperfect actor on the stage

It's funny, I don't recall Shakespeare going on very much about imperfect audiences, except for those comments in Hamlet about most people's not having the good sense to appreciate "The Mousetrap." There's the bit about Troilus and Cressida's not having been clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar, but he didn't write that.

Anyway, I've been to two theatrical productions recently and not appreciated them as I ought to have. I'm still glad I went, and had some very fine moments, but I was in a picky, cranky mood for both.

I'm not sure what the reason was for that when Eric and I, provided with very good seats by the extremely kind auspices of clindau, saw Macbeth at the Guthrie. The opening montage -- I can't think of a better word for it -- was very clever and arresting; and it's completely standard to open the play with a bloody and often much more protracted battle scene. They swapped Scene i and Scene ii, so it flowed more naturally than when you get a huge battle scene and then suddenly the witches, but I like things to start with the witches LIKE GOD INTENDED. There, you know I am becoming irrational when I employ such phrases.

In any case, I did like the witches, who were played by some very venerable long-time actors at the Guthrie and were quite different from one another; except that for the first time I was forcibly struck with how goofy the entire idea was. Sheesh, Master Will. This has nothing to do with the acting or costuming, which were very good indeed. The rest of the costuming, though, started to annoy me soon. The nadir of it came when I decided that there was simply no way that anybody clad in a silky ivory pantsuit and high heels would ever say, "Come, you spirits of the air, unsex me now." I did not believe it. I don't know why. I doubt there was anything wrong with the actor, since her subsequent scenes were riveting. She was especially good during the banquet and during the sleepwalking scenes. I think I was just cranky. I also refused to believe in how kingly Duncan was when he turned up in a general's uniform. Just no. Lady MacDuff's twin-set and pearls and high heels -- if I never see another pair of high heels in any production of anything, it will be too soon -- upset my gravity, though the kids were good enough in that scene that it was still frightening and horrible.

Isabel Monk as the Doctor, however, was superb, even in a suit.

The second production was the BFA Actor's performance of Love's Labour's Lost. I had never seen a live performance of that at all, and had avoided the Branagh movie because it sounded more likely to appeal to people who had seen a mort of them. Eric and I were both under the weather -- he very short on sleep and I with a migraine -- which didn't help. The show was set in the 1920's -- more high heels; totally gorgeous beaded clothing that made it impossible to suspend disbelief in the scene where the women wear masks and exchange tokens so that their suitors won't recognize them; gratuitous business with cigarettes, apparently mostly because they had some wonderful cigarette holders to show off.

The actors were all very good, and, as is usual with the BFA people, excellent at physical comedy that explicates the more obscure lines. Moth and Armado and Costard were all excellent. We were sorry that they cut Holofernes's scenes so much, but they left in a lot more of the romance than usual, so I guess something had to go. He and Nathaniel were good too. All of the women did very well with their somewhat flimsy parts. However, the hunting scene with the high heels also annoyed me, even though it was probably supposed to be funny.

The transformation of mood at the end was really brilliantly done. The Princess bears the brunt of this, and she almost changed the quality of the lighting with her body language. Armado's one line of sympathy also worked very well, and everyone did a very good job of instant sobering. The Parson had a similar moment earlier when he rebuked Berowne and Company for making fun of the enactment of the Nine Worthies. I felt bad for laughing at the Nine Worthies myself, as I sometimes do during parts of the tedious brief story of Pyramus and Thisbe. For some reason, they interpolated parts of Henry V into Maria's farewell scene with her swain. This made me laugh at the time but shake my head afterwards, which may in fact be a fairly good version of the play in miniature.

A pleasant note was that we ran into pegkerr and Fiona. We had an enjoyable chat during intermission, mostly their telling us how the production of Arcadia that they'd seen at Southwest High School had gone. Fiona told us that there was a real turtle, and that the actors were charged with making sure it didn't fall off the table, since it was a loan. Peg remarked to me that whenever she thinks of Septimus in that play, she thinks of Mike's rendition, and I admitted that I did too.

Before the play, we had a lovely meal at the Hard Times Cafe. I am always a bit befuddled there because they have so much that I can eat. Both of the soups of the day were vegan; I got the peanut soup, on the grounds that I can make red lentil soup myself any time. Eric kindly asked me if I wanted a banh mi, which I didn't, but I ended up getting the seitan gyro, which is just below the banh mi on the menu, and it went really well with the peanut soup. This was really peanut-butter soup, with a generous admixture of ginger, hot peppers, potatoes, onions, and tofu. We ended up eating most of it by scooping it up in the blue corn chips. The Hard Times gives you blue corn chips and a dill pickle with every sandwich, no matter how oddly they may sort with its taste or origins.

We went straight home on the bus afterwards, to cosset our infirmities. The full moon on the snow was very pretty, and Mars and Sirius were not swallowed by the moonlight.

P.