All Bard, all the time, or if food be the music of love, eat on!

Wednesday was a 2-play day for all of us.  Two Shakespeares for the 3 of us.  Even as much of a fan of this as I am, let me say you probably shouldn't try this at home.  Not only is Willy Shakes dense, giving you lots to think about, but his plays are on the long side for the current norm.  But, it was a pleasant enough day.

We started day one with the breakfast part of "bed and breakfast."  Our host, Terry, served us bacon, eggs, and waffles, with a side order of muffins or coffee cake if you wanted it.  A nice light repast to start your day.  It was very good.

It was not long before the four of us, the old folks, as it were, were off to the first play of the day (I momentarily forgot that EH refused to go see Twelfth Night because she dislikes Shakespeare's comedies AND she is particularly not fond of this one.  In fact, she was not fond of this production WITHOUT having seen it! :)).  We walked in the park next to the theatre, had the traditional vacation lunch of chocolate ice cream (famous line from this trip from Michael, "I've eaten more ice cream on this trip than I've eaten in the last year." That was Sunday, at least one ice cream ago :)). Then the gift shop, where I bought a new deck of cards, and then the play.

K and I enjoyed the play.  M & B did not.  Now for English major/theatre person stuff; skip if you want to the next bold.  This version of the play began with Feste (the play's fool) onstage, singing.  As the actor, Brent Carver, has the voice for it, well, okay.  Carver is on the publicity for the play, with a guitar (which he never plays, BTW).  The director, or whomever made it Feste's play -- had several songs, sometimes alone onstage.  This perturbed EH quite a bit, as she said the sexual politics of it was...well, I think she went with "wrong" a lot over dinner.  In fact, for those of you who don't know the play, they reversed the first two scenes: it's supposed to start with a shipwreck, where the brother and sister are separated and the sister, Viola (named, OC, for the character played by Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love) is washed ashore and thinks her brother, who is her twin, his drowned at sea.

The actor playing Viola/Cesario was okay, but she wasn't strong enough, or wasn't directed, to take over the play that is HER play.

And the actor playing Duke Orsino came out in the new opening scene with the "if music be the food of love" line, spitting it like he was seriously pissed off.  Not melancholy, but mad.  He did this throughout, making his transition to love for Cesario/Viola harder to grasp.

Those are the big flaws.  Oh, yeah.  The picture.  (you can't take them here with actors on stage, OC):

Yes, those are fake trees.  The balcony, requisite in so many Shakespeare plays, is in the top of the center tree.  But this looks, on the face of it, like a set for As You Like It.  !!!  And the trees, seen above as silver, folded out to make them more golden at the beginning of the second act.  Michael explained this was symbolic of Olivia's blossoming through her love for Cesario.  Uh huh.

(For those of you who skipped, you can come back now).  We had enough time to go back to the B&B and change and go to dinner.   We ate at The (Old) Prune.  No, I don't get the ( ) thing, either, but I didn't put it on the sign.  We have eaten there before and they have a pretty high end chef.

It was a pre fixe menu, with four categories (apps, mid, mains, desserts) and you could get 2, 3, or 4 for a fixed price.  Only EH went for 3.

I took pictures.  They are in the Stratford file again, but here's the link, again.

Here's my first course, a "mid" (as you can see, not large), which was tortellini with a light cheese sauce:

Rather than figure out how to caption, the other items are K & Barb's potato & herb soup with a ball of gruyere, EH's squid and kale.  M had unpictured pate (blah!)

For main courses, I'll picture the twofer -- both EH and M had the seared salmon with Japanese style broth and wasabi.

Barb had skate wing, Karen had game hen (already off the bone, which I'd never seen before), and I had the risotto with tomatoes.

We were all pleased with dinner.  EH & M were disappointed the salmon didn't have more sear to it.

And then EH had the rhubarb with strawberry sorbet dessert (pictured).

Sated, we went our separate ways:  remember Barb refused to see a 3rd production of Timon of Athens (I have killed that horse many times over with Timon & Pumba jokes), so they went to see something new called The Virgin Trial.  They said it was quite good.

Timon was in the Patterson Theatre, which is usually a small thrust, with like 5 rows of seats in risers all around, but last night was a stage in theatre in the round.  Here's the opening set.

Very modern.  Timon is rich and a couple opening scenes are banquet or partying scenes.

In Act 2, the gray modern floor, is changed with lighting and there's a trapdoor that serves as his cave, where Timon "lives" throughout.

It was good.  They did a good job of pacing, and the series of scenes where his servants go to his "friends" (turns out he has only 2, neither with money) to ask for money were well done.

At the end, we enjoyed it.  Some of it was quality poetry -- this guy Shakespeare might have had talent.  If he hadn't written a bunch of the greatest plays ever, this one would be considered quality stuff.

It was a rather late night and everyone was tired, so no card game to report on.  I got to watch the NBA game, which was amazing as the Warriors came from 6 down in the last minute and a half with 11 consecutive points.