Patrick in Williamsburg and Richard II
I put a placeholder post in for this day because I was too tired to write about the events of the weekend before (or was it the weekend before the weekend before?). Now it's December 16th 2007 and I'm finally making the post. At 5:26 in the morning, no less. Hey, whatever works, right?
On Friday Lee and I saw Richard II performed at a church in downtown Richmond. We were in somewhat of a rush to get there, as is fairly usual with us. I was underdressed, which is unusual, and I was very cold as we trotted from our paid parking lot to the church. We bought our tickets quickly and seated ourselves with plenty of time to study our surroundings before the play started. I really enjoyed this because the church's chapel room where the play was performed had as its most prominent feature dark, delicate wooden beams forming Gothic arches in the ceiling. I adore Gothic architecture so this was most definitely my cup of tea; I drank it in. Then the play began, started off with one of the actors--in pseudo-medieval garb--strumming a small guitar and singing this song by Sting or The Police that has this endless chorus of "Sending out an S.O.S." that really did not please me. I gritted my teeth and waited for the performance to begin, which quickly sent all thoughts of the terrible song out of my mind. In fact I forgot about it so completely the memory came back in a rush only when Lee mentioned it later on.
The play was just the sort of play that makes you forget things like that. Like the guitar player, the other actors were all dressed in what I would call pseudo-medieval or approximate-medieval clothing. I'm no expert, far from it, but to me it looked like a few different periods were mixed together, along with some flights of fancy and judicious use of untraditional fabrics. For example, John of Gaunt had a lovely long jacket of some kind that had a tapestry-like fabric alternating with a rich dark green corduroy. I'm pretty sure there was no corduroy in the middle ages. Anyway, the costumes were enchanting--they really did suck me into the play and mesmerize me--and the acting was fabulous as well. Almost all the actors played multiple characters (I think the one exception was Richard II himself) and they did a good job distinguishing each part. My favorite actor happened to be the one who started out playing John of Gaunt. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a deep voice--think of Jame Earl Jones's younger brother maybe. He was earnest and well grounded in his acting, too. Richard II was also good, and he really had his character evolve in a perfect way; at the beginning he came across as benevolent and merciful and by the end he was a self-pitying drama queen, but the progression from beginning to end was so gradual and so natural that you could hardly detect it even when looking for it. (I'd read the play with Peggy Knapp in fall 2005.) Other actors might play Richard as a self-deceiving man who puts on a big charade of kindness at the beginning, and that's a valid choice, but I think this actor played Richard very honestly, as a man who is weak inside but really does his best all along. At least that's one interpretation of it.
The other thing I wanted to write about was my Saturday with Patrick in Colonial Williamsburg. He drove down from Arlington in the morning and we drove together to Williamsburg, a 45-minute drive. We spent the whole time laughing and talking, as usual, and when we arrived there it was close to lunch time but still pretty early. We walked around for a while looking at what had changed since we'd last been there, then chose to eat at a tavern. Now I'm blanking out on which one it was because I'm pretty sure the Shields Tavern was the one that closed, but I can't be sure. Ugh I knew I should have written this the day that we went. Anyway, we had lunch at a tavern--something I never did as a child, even though we visited Colonial Williamsburg several times when I was little--and I had a drink called a shrub that's basically fruit juice with a scoop of sherbet in the middle. Sounds simple but it was divine! Oh I loved it. My meal of roast chicken was wayyyy too big for me to finish, despite loading some of it onto Patrick's plate. The waiter guilted me about leaving it but what could I do? I didn't have a refrigerator handy and it wasn't quite cold enough to risk leaving the food in the car. Patrick and I were there for the afternoon so the chicken had to stay behind.
We walked around for about three more hours, I would guess. Most of the colonial buildings were closed to us because we didn't have visitors' passes (a pain in the neck to get and pretty expensive), but we still got a great experience for free. We stopped in at the shoemaker's and I talked to a young woman who was making a pair of shoes. I asked questions that I thought she'd find interesting to answer but instead she looked baffled and Patrick seemed slightly embarrassed, but maybe he was just bored. I don't think shoes did it for him. He enjoyed spending some time feeding a pair of horses in their paddock, ripping leaves off of a nearby tree they were already grazing on. I'm a little afraid of horses so I hung back. We also spent time in a few of the gift shops, which were always my very favorite part of Colonial Williamsburg. I bought a lace-trimmed lady's bonnet from an outdoor market that I don't remember from my childhood visits; Patrick looked at the tricorn hats but they were like $70 each, which was pretty deterring. Each of us got a present for our fathers for Christmas and I got a piece of chocolate made from a colonial recipe. Ohh and Patrick got a pin for his mother for Christmas, a really pretty and somewhat elaborate pewter (or sterling silver? not sure) design that I'm pretty sure she'll love.
The best thing about the afternoon was how wide-ranging our conversation was. Usually Patrick and I fall to reminiscing about high school and weird old classmates of ours, but this time it was different because we talked about more things than the usual. We dredged up old and forgotten memories and had a great time (at least I did) talking about them. It was one of those day-long conversations that you can't recall too well in detail afterward, but you remember the warm feeling it gave you. I really like that.
So, that's the story of my Friday night and my Saturday afternoon of... um, a while ago. It took a while but I'm glad I eventually did it. Oh yeah, on that same Saturday I became crazy about Christmas ornaments and Patrick stood by patiently while I bought them. I deliberately got some that were cloisonne (basically enameled metal) so the cats couldn't break them, but the little artificial tree I brought from my parents' house turned out to be like a plastic salad for the cats so I ended up not being able to display my little Christmas ornaments after all. What a bummer. Why do the cats have to chew everything?
On Friday Lee and I saw Richard II performed at a church in downtown Richmond. We were in somewhat of a rush to get there, as is fairly usual with us. I was underdressed, which is unusual, and I was very cold as we trotted from our paid parking lot to the church. We bought our tickets quickly and seated ourselves with plenty of time to study our surroundings before the play started. I really enjoyed this because the church's chapel room where the play was performed had as its most prominent feature dark, delicate wooden beams forming Gothic arches in the ceiling. I adore Gothic architecture so this was most definitely my cup of tea; I drank it in. Then the play began, started off with one of the actors--in pseudo-medieval garb--strumming a small guitar and singing this song by Sting or The Police that has this endless chorus of "Sending out an S.O.S." that really did not please me. I gritted my teeth and waited for the performance to begin, which quickly sent all thoughts of the terrible song out of my mind. In fact I forgot about it so completely the memory came back in a rush only when Lee mentioned it later on.
The play was just the sort of play that makes you forget things like that. Like the guitar player, the other actors were all dressed in what I would call pseudo-medieval or approximate-medieval clothing. I'm no expert, far from it, but to me it looked like a few different periods were mixed together, along with some flights of fancy and judicious use of untraditional fabrics. For example, John of Gaunt had a lovely long jacket of some kind that had a tapestry-like fabric alternating with a rich dark green corduroy. I'm pretty sure there was no corduroy in the middle ages. Anyway, the costumes were enchanting--they really did suck me into the play and mesmerize me--and the acting was fabulous as well. Almost all the actors played multiple characters (I think the one exception was Richard II himself) and they did a good job distinguishing each part. My favorite actor happened to be the one who started out playing John of Gaunt. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a deep voice--think of Jame Earl Jones's younger brother maybe. He was earnest and well grounded in his acting, too. Richard II was also good, and he really had his character evolve in a perfect way; at the beginning he came across as benevolent and merciful and by the end he was a self-pitying drama queen, but the progression from beginning to end was so gradual and so natural that you could hardly detect it even when looking for it. (I'd read the play with Peggy Knapp in fall 2005.) Other actors might play Richard as a self-deceiving man who puts on a big charade of kindness at the beginning, and that's a valid choice, but I think this actor played Richard very honestly, as a man who is weak inside but really does his best all along. At least that's one interpretation of it.
The other thing I wanted to write about was my Saturday with Patrick in Colonial Williamsburg. He drove down from Arlington in the morning and we drove together to Williamsburg, a 45-minute drive. We spent the whole time laughing and talking, as usual, and when we arrived there it was close to lunch time but still pretty early. We walked around for a while looking at what had changed since we'd last been there, then chose to eat at a tavern. Now I'm blanking out on which one it was because I'm pretty sure the Shields Tavern was the one that closed, but I can't be sure. Ugh I knew I should have written this the day that we went. Anyway, we had lunch at a tavern--something I never did as a child, even though we visited Colonial Williamsburg several times when I was little--and I had a drink called a shrub that's basically fruit juice with a scoop of sherbet in the middle. Sounds simple but it was divine! Oh I loved it. My meal of roast chicken was wayyyy too big for me to finish, despite loading some of it onto Patrick's plate. The waiter guilted me about leaving it but what could I do? I didn't have a refrigerator handy and it wasn't quite cold enough to risk leaving the food in the car. Patrick and I were there for the afternoon so the chicken had to stay behind.
We walked around for about three more hours, I would guess. Most of the colonial buildings were closed to us because we didn't have visitors' passes (a pain in the neck to get and pretty expensive), but we still got a great experience for free. We stopped in at the shoemaker's and I talked to a young woman who was making a pair of shoes. I asked questions that I thought she'd find interesting to answer but instead she looked baffled and Patrick seemed slightly embarrassed, but maybe he was just bored. I don't think shoes did it for him. He enjoyed spending some time feeding a pair of horses in their paddock, ripping leaves off of a nearby tree they were already grazing on. I'm a little afraid of horses so I hung back. We also spent time in a few of the gift shops, which were always my very favorite part of Colonial Williamsburg. I bought a lace-trimmed lady's bonnet from an outdoor market that I don't remember from my childhood visits; Patrick looked at the tricorn hats but they were like $70 each, which was pretty deterring. Each of us got a present for our fathers for Christmas and I got a piece of chocolate made from a colonial recipe. Ohh and Patrick got a pin for his mother for Christmas, a really pretty and somewhat elaborate pewter (or sterling silver? not sure) design that I'm pretty sure she'll love.
The best thing about the afternoon was how wide-ranging our conversation was. Usually Patrick and I fall to reminiscing about high school and weird old classmates of ours, but this time it was different because we talked about more things than the usual. We dredged up old and forgotten memories and had a great time (at least I did) talking about them. It was one of those day-long conversations that you can't recall too well in detail afterward, but you remember the warm feeling it gave you. I really like that.
So, that's the story of my Friday night and my Saturday afternoon of... um, a while ago. It took a while but I'm glad I eventually did it. Oh yeah, on that same Saturday I became crazy about Christmas ornaments and Patrick stood by patiently while I bought them. I deliberately got some that were cloisonne (basically enameled metal) so the cats couldn't break them, but the little artificial tree I brought from my parents' house turned out to be like a plastic salad for the cats so I ended up not being able to display my little Christmas ornaments after all. What a bummer. Why do the cats have to chew everything?