Peddlers of Bombast

It took me nine days to get there but it was sure worth it once I did.

In conjunction with the VMFA's "Hollywood Costume" exhibit, they're showing 60 films in 60 days, each with a costume represented in the show.

Today's was "Shakespeare in Love," and what could be sweeter than an afternoon of Elizabethan love on a gray, rainy day?

I'd already seen Shakespeare's doublet and Elizabeth's gown, now I wanted to see the source material.

As icing on the cake, a friend e-mailed offering to take me to lunch beforehand, so we met at Chez Foushee for matching grilled romaine salads with shrimp in a cozy, tucked-away table that allowed us to gossip with abandon.

Then he was off to work and I to the museum for some romance.

Not surprisingly, the crowd was mostly women with a few men thrown in for good measure (for measure).

Since I hadn't seen it since it came out in 1998, I'm not sure if I'd forgotten or, horrors, not noticed originally how many inside Shakespeare jokes were in this film.

And I'm not talking about the obvious ones like Will's coffee mug, which read, "Souvenir of Stratford-upon-Avon."

No, I mean all kinds of lines from later Shakespeare plays being spouted by characters throughout and the Shakespeare-literate audience laughed about them all.

Plus there was the kind of language humor like when the producer takes the cast to a bawdy house and orders drinks for everyone, saying, "Oh, happy hour!"

While there someone describes a dish of pig's foot marinated in vinegar on a buckwheat pancake being served and while that might have gotten a groan in 1998, it actually sounds both tasty and trendy now.

Will discusses his writer's block with his shrink, saying, "It's as if my quill is broken, as if the organ of my imagination has dried up, as if the proud tower of genius is collapsed. Nothing comes. It's like trying to pick a lock with a wet herring."

Clearly he's not just talking about writing and the good doctor asks, "Tell me, are you lately humbled in the act of love? How long has it been?"

"A goodly length in times past, but lately..." Truly, nothing says Shakespeare like veiled genital humor.

I could relate to our heroine Viola, played by a luminescent 26-year old Gwyneth Paltrow, when she proclaimed, "I will have poetry in my life...and adventure and love."

What more could a girl ask for?

How about a man who describes his feelings by saying, "I love her like a sickness and a cure together"?

The fabulous Judi Densch has one of the funniest lines at the end, instructing, "Tell Master Shakespeare to write something more cheerful next time for twelfth night," but Viola had the most romantic.

"I love you, Will, beyond poetry."

If hearing that that doesn't clear up a man's wet herring problem writer's block, god help him.