That was summer
Sep. 6th, 2009 08:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielThis has been the most enjoyable of summers, partly as a result of working on some interesting projects (editorial, non-fiction, and fiction), and partly because of the lovely weather (warm but not too hot), which has meant I’ve been enjoying some outdoorsy activities for a change (I’m not exactly what you’d call the outdoorsy type). Chief amongst these were two productions we saw by Shakespeare’s Globe on Tour, of The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’d seen neither before, and did not know the first play at all.
Both productions used a very small company of only eight actors (who also performed all the music and danced), and the sets were small, designed for performance in outdoor locations and portability. (We saw both plays in the Master’s Garden at Emmanuel College.) I gather the idea is to follow in the footsteps of Elizabethan touring companies.
I read The Comedy of Errors before going, so chief amongst the pleasures was trying to work out how the doubling up at the end was going to be done. Not just with Antipholus and Dromio (both pairs played by a single pair of actors), but also with the rest of the cast: given that there were only eight performers, everyone was doubling up on parts. It was a riot: one actor literally leaping between Duke and merchant, delivering lines to himself. A lot of the humour in the play could get very uncomfortable (”Oh, look, the slave is getting hit again! How hilarious!”), but given that one of the Antipholuses is having a really rotten day, it somehow gets away with it. I think the last scene, in which the two Dromios reflect upon fraternal love, cuts through all of that, and you’re not left with a toe-curling feeling of schadenfreude (one reason I don’t much like Twelfth Night).
The design of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was 1920s: gramophones, teddy bears, jazz. The fairies, in rumpled dinner jackets and black masks, were louche and seedy and looked like they’d been up all night. The mechanicals (in aprons and bowler hats) were from Les Dawson’s version of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, and I never thought I’d find myself typing that. Oberon prefaced every piece of magic with the word, “Schwinnnggg!” which I don’t recall from reading, but which never stopped being funny. I am a simple soul. We watched it on a gloriously sunny afternoon, and although I do wonder whether it might have been more magical at an evening performance having the play unfold as the light faded, it was huge fun, the cast were uniformly brilliant, and I can’t complain one bit.
The weather changed around here practically overnight on September 1st. It’s still sunny, but the wind has picked up, and the light is suddenly disappearing much earlier. Ah well, I love autumn.
Both productions used a very small company of only eight actors (who also performed all the music and danced), and the sets were small, designed for performance in outdoor locations and portability. (We saw both plays in the Master’s Garden at Emmanuel College.) I gather the idea is to follow in the footsteps of Elizabethan touring companies.
I read The Comedy of Errors before going, so chief amongst the pleasures was trying to work out how the doubling up at the end was going to be done. Not just with Antipholus and Dromio (both pairs played by a single pair of actors), but also with the rest of the cast: given that there were only eight performers, everyone was doubling up on parts. It was a riot: one actor literally leaping between Duke and merchant, delivering lines to himself. A lot of the humour in the play could get very uncomfortable (”Oh, look, the slave is getting hit again! How hilarious!”), but given that one of the Antipholuses is having a really rotten day, it somehow gets away with it. I think the last scene, in which the two Dromios reflect upon fraternal love, cuts through all of that, and you’re not left with a toe-curling feeling of schadenfreude (one reason I don’t much like Twelfth Night).
The design of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was 1920s: gramophones, teddy bears, jazz. The fairies, in rumpled dinner jackets and black masks, were louche and seedy and looked like they’d been up all night. The mechanicals (in aprons and bowler hats) were from Les Dawson’s version of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, and I never thought I’d find myself typing that. Oberon prefaced every piece of magic with the word, “Schwinnnggg!” which I don’t recall from reading, but which never stopped being funny. I am a simple soul. We watched it on a gloriously sunny afternoon, and although I do wonder whether it might have been more magical at an evening performance having the play unfold as the light faded, it was huge fun, the cast were uniformly brilliant, and I can’t complain one bit.
The weather changed around here practically overnight on September 1st. It’s still sunny, but the wind has picked up, and the light is suddenly disappearing much earlier. Ah well, I love autumn.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-06 07:36 am (UTC)I have heard a theory that people like the weather that they experienced just after they were born. My birthday is mid August, and I most love the late summer and early autumn like this - breezy, pale and cool.
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Date: 2009-09-07 09:19 am (UTC)I was born mid-January, and I do love clear crisp winter days. Mostly I don't like heat and wasps, but they seem to bother me less these days.
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Date: 2009-09-06 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-06 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-06 02:00 pm (UTC)The acting company I belonged to in college also did puppet shows, and so when they did MSND, all of the fairy parts were played by marionettes, with the puppeteers behind flowered trellises. One time, Titania-puppet got stuck by her hair and a wing to the trellis, as was evidenced by her sudden twitching and spazzing. Then, in a tiny voice, "she" said, "Um... could somebody help me? I think I'm stuck!"
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Date: 2009-09-07 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-06 07:41 pm (UTC)Here too - although we were still in Somerset on the 1st (our wedding anniversary!), but walking the kids to school the next morning, it was suddenly a case of "yes, you will need a jumper, no you won't need your sunhat, and where is your waterproof?..."
I love September too - I think it's to do with that phenomenon which there isn't even a word for in English (though there's a very satisfactory one in French, "la rentrée"), for going-back-to (work/school/college etc) feeling, hopefully, refreshed and rested and then invigorated by the sudden snap in the air and the smell of bonfires..
Admittedly, I have just mowed the lawn PRACTICALLY IN THE DARK at 8.15 pm, but that is because a) I have been disorganised all weekend b) it's bound to rain tomorrow and c) I am mad.
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Date: 2009-09-07 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 08:04 pm (UTC)The Midsummer Night's Dream sounds fab and I would have giggled at "Schwingg!" the entire way through.
It is very definitely autumn here too. I didn't mind the general temperature of this summer but I might have liked a bit more sunshine. And some more energy to deal, but c'est ma vie.
I hope your autumn is equally enjoyable, if not more so!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-08 10:34 am (UTC)And Quite Right Too! (I am rereading Jane Duncan at the moment, and capitalization is Breaking Out Everywhere as a result. She and Twice have just come into possession of the Storied Urn and the Animated Bust.)
Here's to a wonderful autumn for you.
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Date: 2009-09-08 05:03 pm (UTC)If all goes to plan, I will be re-reading Duncan and it will be for legitimate research purposes, I hope!
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Date: 2009-09-08 05:45 pm (UTC)I will be re-reading Duncan and it will be for legitimate research purposes, I hope!
Eeee! *keeps everything crossed!*
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Date: 2009-09-08 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 10:16 pm (UTC)Doubling of characters seems an inevitable consequence of restricted budgets, though sometimes I fear it's taken too far. I saw the Merry Wives of Windsor in King's garden a couple of weeks ago - which was not as successful as the Globe on Tour. With all due respect to the actress (who made a reasonable job of it) I struggle to accept Huw Evans, the Welsh clergyman, being played by a woman. Dr Caius (known locally as "keys") was way OTT - hamming the part up with a Monty Python funny walk. But, rather to my surprise, a company of ten managed to pull off the final scene in Windsor Forest, doubling (or more likely quadrupling) parents, suitors, townspeople, fairies and all.
What I did miss with both these productions was the effect of light - and I would have thought the Dream needs it even more. With an outdoor evening production there's that truly magical moment when the daylight is fading, and the stage lighting gradually taking over; done carefully, it can build the whole atmosphere, and take the action into another world. (Can you tell that I used to run stage lighting for outdoor amateur productions?) You can't achieve anything like the same effects with a temporary outdoor rig as with a full indoor theatre, but simply putting up half a dozen PARcans, pointing them at the acting area, and switching them on is, to my mind, not even trying.
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Date: 2009-09-08 07:19 am (UTC)Was that part of the Summer Shakespeare Festival? I've been to a couple of those and they can sometimes veer into am-dram-ham. Which can also be fun, if not intentional. And, having said that, I've seen nothing more panto than Sean Bean's Macbeth, a big old lavish production.
With an outdoor evening production there's that truly magical moment when the daylight is fading
Yes, it was wonderful for Errors. We'd planned to go to an evening performance of Dream, but couldn't make it. The matinee was nicer in that the audience was smaller, and I suppose I can always imagine the change in light.
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Date: 2009-09-08 10:11 am (UTC)Yes, the Merry Wives was part of the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival. And in parts it didn't so much veer into am-dram-ham as plunge in headfirst - which was, as you say, fun (up to a point) - and I think quite intentional.