I Should Have Been More Strange

If love be rough with you, be rough with love.
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.


Could there be a lovelier way to spend a May evening than in the Italian Gardens at Maymont, watching Richmond Shakespeare perform "Romeo and Juliet"? And for free?

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
 
A friend called me up late this afternoon suggesting a lecture tonight and I one-upped him by inviting him to join me for some major love tragedy in the park. We made plans to pick up a picnic dinner from Garnett's and take it with us to Maymont.
 
I've seen Richmond Shakespeare perform outdoors in various locations- Agecroft, the gardens at Linden Row Hotel, the old Fulton School- but never at Maymont. It was a beautiful fit.
 
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,

Picnickers were everywhere when we arrived, but we found a good spot and set up our chairs near the actors' pathway to the stage.

All around us, wine was being poured and beers opened and put in discreet mugs as we enjoyed a meal of a Farmer's salad (romaine lettuce, apple, cheddar, bacon, creamy sesame dressing) and a turkey and Gouda cheese sandwich with Dijon mustard on homemade Boston brown bread with a side of their awesome black-eyed pea and mango salad.

There's no trust, no faith, no honesty in men;
all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers

Since I'd never been to the Italian gardens ( don't ask me how that's possible), I was completely enchanted by the setting. I could have been in another city since it was all unrecognizable to me.

The moon became a prop, referenced by Romeo when it was between the trees, and later served as light from directly above us. I saw my first firefly of the season during the second act. At times, trains and planes competed with the actors' voices.

I shall forget just to have you stand there,
Remembering how I love your company.
 
My friend commented on the irony of seeing a tragic love story when he has so much drama going on in his own relationship these days. I countered with my own irony, that of watching a story of two people madly in love, while my own love life is still very much being determined.
 
You must contrary me?
Marry, 'tis time.
 
Sitting next to us was a mother and son pair, he about twelve or so. After the scene where Romeo and Juliet spend their wedding night together, he is shirtless and she's in a night dress.When they kiss passionately before he has to leave to avoid detection, the mother turned and said to the son, "Don't forget, they're married!" Morality never sleeps.
 
Afore me! It is so very late,
That we may call it early by and by...
 
Ah, to be up so late with the right person that it becomes early. There's nothing quite like Shakespeare under the stars to get the romantic juices flowing.