I have an ongoing theme this week.
Get lost going to a play in the hinterlands and then sit back and watch love unfold.
A small price to pay for such pleasures.
Instead of south like last night, tonight a friend and I headed west, an even more challenging direction for its homogeneity, both in architecture and street-naming conventions.
After multiple wrong turns and dead ends, at long last we arrived at Steward School's theater for Richmond Shakespeare/Henley Street's must-see production of "The Taming of the Shrew."
Yes, I know there are people who dismiss this play as sexist, male domination over female, blah, blah, but as director Jan Powell pointed out in her notes, it can also be seen as a "deft depiction of how hard it is to make love work in the real world."
Amen, sister.
In a clever staging, it was set in 1930s Hollywood, with ditzy starlets, gangster types and seamed stockings, as a movie cast attempts to shoot TToTS in two hours.
Chalkboards are clapped, lines are forgotten, sets malfunction, and the enormous camera onstage captured it all.
The show began with a film of "coming attractions" showing on the enormous screen behind the stage set to classic newsreel music.
For the feature presentation, of course, it said, "Screenplay by William Shakespeare."
As a bonus, during set changes between scenes, one of the actors would go to the '30s-style microphone and croon a standard.
Blue Moon, I Get a Kick Out of You, Stormy Weather and my personal favorite, The Way You Look Tonight.
Considering it was preview night, the cast was moving seamlessly between movie actors waiting on set and Shakespeare's characters.
I burn, I pine, I perish.
In an interesting bit of casting, Petruchio's servant Grumio was played by a woman, Stacie Reardon Hall, and while such a thing would never have been allowed in Shakespeare's time, it totally worked here.
I'll attend her here and woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Liz Blake White was all fire as Kate, the woman who finally realizes that Petruchio is that rarest of things, a genuine partner, and accepts him on his terms, to the surprise of those who thought her shrewish.
McLean Jesse was her adorable, docile sister, all squeaky voice and delightfully superficial attitude which just made all the men want her more.
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.
When Mark Hackman as Petruchio shows up for their wedding, he is brilliantly and inappropriately dressed in a blue feather boa, pink wings, sunglasses, a wife beater and boots that don't match. With a fake snake wrapped around his arm.
Every girl's dream groom.
During intermission, the couple next to us got up and he returned first but patiently waited in the aisle for her. Climbing back over our legs, he said he'd done that to save us the trouble of being climbed over twice. A very sweet gesture, we said.
"He is sweet. I think I'll keep him," his wife said. I asked how long she'd been keeping him.
43 years, she said. Now that's a man who's been wooing with spirit well.
I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor.
The second act had Petruchio withholding food and sleep to bend Kate to his will and as a woman who thrives on those two things, I can only imagine how well this tactic would work on me.
Kindness in woman, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.
The part of the story that dealt with the Hollywood actors had its best moments when the leads, a former happy couple now estranged, can barely spit out their lines at each other civilly.
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich.
After clamorous kissing (a fabulous phrase for snogging) during the wedding, my favorite scene involves the three new husbands betting each other who has the most obedient wife.
Call me old school, but I find something very romantic abut how Kate shows her love by responding when her husband calls for her while the other wives put their husbands off.
Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado
First kiss me, Kate and then we will
What, in the midst of the street?
You know what?
Yes, in the midst of the street or in the midst of a party or a restaurant or in the midst of anywhere he wants to kiss you.
Thereby hangs a tale...and a lesson in love.
It's enough to make you forget you're lost somewhere out in the bowels of the west end.
Showing posts with label stacie rearden hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stacie rearden hall. Show all posts
Friday, November 8, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
I Like My Strumpets
I was told more than once that I'll go see anything, no matter how obscure or obtuse, just to go out.
Tahitian acrobat cymbalists? Sure. Moroccan throat singing mimes? Okay.
So naturally I perked up when I saw that the next in the Richmond Shakespeare Bawdy Bard staged reading series was just such a hybrid.
Improv comedians and Shakespearean actors doing, what else, Shakesprov.
Shoot, I was at Capital Ale House an hour before doors opened.
Don't tempt my sense of humor and my intellect unless you mean it.
I'd brought along an improv master (or so he claimed) to laugh with me.
When the host said we had to wait until 7:30 to go in, I asked of him the time.
Glancing at his watch, he told me it was 7:11, much to my amazement.
That's so cool that you wear a watch, I told him.
He instinctively went to thank me and instead got a knowing grin on his face and said, "Right?"
Right, indeed. We had a ten-minute conversation about the lost art of watch-wearing and I got a peek into why a 25-year old chooses to daily wear the watch his mother gave him for his eighteenth birthday.
Pulling it off his wrist, he pointed to the back of the face proudly. "No battery!" he boasted. "It's got a spring."
Just like in the olden days.
But food waits for no time talk, so we sent him on his way and began by scoring white chicken chili at the bar while waiting for the doors to open.
On the plus side, the cannelini was toothsome and the bits of fresh jalapeno added a nice heat to each bite. On the minus side, it wasn't nearly hot enough, especially on a frigid night like this.
Once the doors opened, it was an easy walk to a front table in the music hall.
Part of the beauty of comedy and iambic pentameter intersecting tonight was that it was happening in a bar, meaning we were supposed, nay, even encouraged, to eat, drink and chatter during the show.
You don't have to tell me twice (Cobb salad, chocolate cake and any number of asides).
The Shakesproving jumped right in with a game where two people had to argue the pluses and minuses of an issue thrown out by the audience.
You now, stuff like, global warming (yea or nay) or lead paint poisoning (good or bad?).
I see now that was just to warm us up, get our laughing muscles loosened up.
Next came a game called Replay where crowd suggestions formed the device, in this case, cross dressing, murder and love, all then executed Shakespearean-style.
The replay came in when they then had to redo that scene through other lenses.
We saw it done with hate, as a coking show and Al Capone gangster-style.
You might be surprised at how the same scene was funny all four ways.
The next game, Playwright, used technology, so I would have been useless to them.
Each of the four onstage had their phone set on the script of one of three plays (Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cesar), ready to use whatever lines from it they chose.
With an improv comedian to facilitate the scene between them, each actor had to use only lines from the play he'd been given to further the dialog.
When Adam grabbed himself and uttered, "I fear it is too choleric a meat," the audience about lost it.
There was a game where they had to mime pre-determined components of a murder (dog park, painter, gouging out eyes and then poisoning) and get the contestant to guess the scenario, "Clue"-like.
You can't imagine how amusing miming eye gouging can be until you've seen it.
Buzz/Ding, the next amusement, required the Bawdy Bard's guiding light, Kerry, to come onstage and, much like with Richmond Comedy Coalition's "Richmond Famous" nights, share tidbits about her life, job and friends.
It's overshare and then be skewered for it, pretty much.
From there, four of them improved Kerry's life while she sat there with a human "buzzer" and a human "dinger" and hit the appropriate one depending on how accurately her life was being depicted.
Hysterical as their depictions seemed to the audience, most of the time she was buzzing.
And now all the room knows her boss likes booze humor and bathroom jokes.
So, yes, laughter always comes back to potty humor, even with the Bard.
The longest game was Story, wherein we helped create a many-chaptered book while eliminating people from the stage.
"The Dark Prince Emerges," became the title by default when a man yelled it out first.
He continued to announce the name before each new chapter, varying his voice for dramatic value.
From there we had eight chapters, including a particularly enthusiastic and protracted one on breasts, nipples and milk.
The guys could have run with that all night, but Katie tried to curtail them eventually, suggesting we moved on from mammaries.
Aw, do we have to, their faces seemed to say.
There was a different component added in for each new chapter and whichever person lost the thread (sometimes in mid-syllable or final consonant) was eliminated.
Stacie ended up being last breasts standing, no small accomplishment.
The Dating Game used stock Shakespeare types - Ophelia, a rich father and sad blood (the most melancholy Thomas ever)- as the bachelors while the lusty bachelorette asked animated questions to find her Mr. Right.
Only occasionally did things get a little skeevy.
"We'll edit that out later," host David said to the studio audience more than once.
Soliloquy required any of the four people in the skit to stop and do a monologue when pointed to.
To their credit, each one was fearless about taking center stage with made-up words while all froze around him.
After so much effort on their part (all we'd had to do was cackle), we closed with a fun game, a little number called I Like My Strumpets.
We'd throw out something (clowns, chainsaws, Julius Cesar, ruffled shirts) and they'd take turns making analogies.
"Shakespeare used a lot of puns," host Matt said, "But he also talked about butts a lot."
So you can imagine where that took us.
I like my strumpets like I like my chainsaws...with teeth!
The women in the group quickly tired of strumpets and began using lords instead to convey their points.
I like my lords like I like my ruffled collars...a little rumpled and stiff.
Wah, wah.
So here goes.
I like my evenings like I like my dark princes...funny, smart and good kissers.
And they can mime their choleric meat, but I don't need to see it.
Of course, with Shakesprov, we can always edit that out later.
Tahitian acrobat cymbalists? Sure. Moroccan throat singing mimes? Okay.
So naturally I perked up when I saw that the next in the Richmond Shakespeare Bawdy Bard staged reading series was just such a hybrid.
Improv comedians and Shakespearean actors doing, what else, Shakesprov.
Shoot, I was at Capital Ale House an hour before doors opened.
Don't tempt my sense of humor and my intellect unless you mean it.
I'd brought along an improv master (or so he claimed) to laugh with me.
When the host said we had to wait until 7:30 to go in, I asked of him the time.
Glancing at his watch, he told me it was 7:11, much to my amazement.
That's so cool that you wear a watch, I told him.
He instinctively went to thank me and instead got a knowing grin on his face and said, "Right?"
Right, indeed. We had a ten-minute conversation about the lost art of watch-wearing and I got a peek into why a 25-year old chooses to daily wear the watch his mother gave him for his eighteenth birthday.
Pulling it off his wrist, he pointed to the back of the face proudly. "No battery!" he boasted. "It's got a spring."
Just like in the olden days.
But food waits for no time talk, so we sent him on his way and began by scoring white chicken chili at the bar while waiting for the doors to open.
On the plus side, the cannelini was toothsome and the bits of fresh jalapeno added a nice heat to each bite. On the minus side, it wasn't nearly hot enough, especially on a frigid night like this.
Once the doors opened, it was an easy walk to a front table in the music hall.
Part of the beauty of comedy and iambic pentameter intersecting tonight was that it was happening in a bar, meaning we were supposed, nay, even encouraged, to eat, drink and chatter during the show.
You don't have to tell me twice (Cobb salad, chocolate cake and any number of asides).
The Shakesproving jumped right in with a game where two people had to argue the pluses and minuses of an issue thrown out by the audience.
You now, stuff like, global warming (yea or nay) or lead paint poisoning (good or bad?).
I see now that was just to warm us up, get our laughing muscles loosened up.
Next came a game called Replay where crowd suggestions formed the device, in this case, cross dressing, murder and love, all then executed Shakespearean-style.
The replay came in when they then had to redo that scene through other lenses.
We saw it done with hate, as a coking show and Al Capone gangster-style.
You might be surprised at how the same scene was funny all four ways.
The next game, Playwright, used technology, so I would have been useless to them.
Each of the four onstage had their phone set on the script of one of three plays (Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cesar), ready to use whatever lines from it they chose.
With an improv comedian to facilitate the scene between them, each actor had to use only lines from the play he'd been given to further the dialog.
When Adam grabbed himself and uttered, "I fear it is too choleric a meat," the audience about lost it.
There was a game where they had to mime pre-determined components of a murder (dog park, painter, gouging out eyes and then poisoning) and get the contestant to guess the scenario, "Clue"-like.
You can't imagine how amusing miming eye gouging can be until you've seen it.
Buzz/Ding, the next amusement, required the Bawdy Bard's guiding light, Kerry, to come onstage and, much like with Richmond Comedy Coalition's "Richmond Famous" nights, share tidbits about her life, job and friends.
It's overshare and then be skewered for it, pretty much.
From there, four of them improved Kerry's life while she sat there with a human "buzzer" and a human "dinger" and hit the appropriate one depending on how accurately her life was being depicted.
Hysterical as their depictions seemed to the audience, most of the time she was buzzing.
And now all the room knows her boss likes booze humor and bathroom jokes.
So, yes, laughter always comes back to potty humor, even with the Bard.
The longest game was Story, wherein we helped create a many-chaptered book while eliminating people from the stage.
"The Dark Prince Emerges," became the title by default when a man yelled it out first.
He continued to announce the name before each new chapter, varying his voice for dramatic value.
From there we had eight chapters, including a particularly enthusiastic and protracted one on breasts, nipples and milk.
The guys could have run with that all night, but Katie tried to curtail them eventually, suggesting we moved on from mammaries.
Aw, do we have to, their faces seemed to say.
There was a different component added in for each new chapter and whichever person lost the thread (sometimes in mid-syllable or final consonant) was eliminated.
Stacie ended up being last breasts standing, no small accomplishment.
The Dating Game used stock Shakespeare types - Ophelia, a rich father and sad blood (the most melancholy Thomas ever)- as the bachelors while the lusty bachelorette asked animated questions to find her Mr. Right.
Only occasionally did things get a little skeevy.
"We'll edit that out later," host David said to the studio audience more than once.
Soliloquy required any of the four people in the skit to stop and do a monologue when pointed to.
To their credit, each one was fearless about taking center stage with made-up words while all froze around him.
After so much effort on their part (all we'd had to do was cackle), we closed with a fun game, a little number called I Like My Strumpets.
We'd throw out something (clowns, chainsaws, Julius Cesar, ruffled shirts) and they'd take turns making analogies.
"Shakespeare used a lot of puns," host Matt said, "But he also talked about butts a lot."
So you can imagine where that took us.
I like my strumpets like I like my chainsaws...with teeth!
The women in the group quickly tired of strumpets and began using lords instead to convey their points.
I like my lords like I like my ruffled collars...a little rumpled and stiff.
Wah, wah.
So here goes.
I like my evenings like I like my dark princes...funny, smart and good kissers.
And they can mime their choleric meat, but I don't need to see it.
Of course, with Shakesprov, we can always edit that out later.
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