Love's Labour's Lost last night
Love's Labour's Lost at the Shakespeare Tavern last night.
Two of the volunteers were hyper-active, ultra perky, super cute college girls. One in a proper Muslim modest head-covering, and her friend who had green and red colored hair -- instead of clashing with each other, the two girls looked like a set.
We have very good actors at the Tavern, and I especially admire the ones who play the secondary roles. The leads are good (four male, four female), but if the other roles are weak and colorless, it's deadly. Bricks when you want meringues. I started to list the non-leads in the show, and kept adding people. Don Armado, Costard, Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Jaquenetta. Oh yes, and Moth and Anthony Dull too. Never, ever did the audience lose interest when they were on. Doug Kaye and Tony Falcitelli had the most dangerous roles - Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, who make pompous, pedantic jokes in Latin. Not exactly your basic Comedy Channel fare, but the audiences howl straight through. Let me remind you that our audiences are heavily under 40, if you're thinking, "Well that's fine, for Shakespeare scholars." Heck, last night there was a group of two dozen high school students, all squirmy and giggly, but they caught the pedants' jokes and listened during the long Berowne speech about women's eyes and love.
I'm off to visit my family in Birmingham for the long weekend soonish.
Two of the volunteers were hyper-active, ultra perky, super cute college girls. One in a proper Muslim modest head-covering, and her friend who had green and red colored hair -- instead of clashing with each other, the two girls looked like a set.
We have very good actors at the Tavern, and I especially admire the ones who play the secondary roles. The leads are good (four male, four female), but if the other roles are weak and colorless, it's deadly. Bricks when you want meringues. I started to list the non-leads in the show, and kept adding people. Don Armado, Costard, Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Jaquenetta. Oh yes, and Moth and Anthony Dull too. Never, ever did the audience lose interest when they were on. Doug Kaye and Tony Falcitelli had the most dangerous roles - Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, who make pompous, pedantic jokes in Latin. Not exactly your basic Comedy Channel fare, but the audiences howl straight through. Let me remind you that our audiences are heavily under 40, if you're thinking, "Well that's fine, for Shakespeare scholars." Heck, last night there was a group of two dozen high school students, all squirmy and giggly, but they caught the pedants' jokes and listened during the long Berowne speech about women's eyes and love.
I'm off to visit my family in Birmingham for the long weekend soonish.