Merchant of Venice mishap (or, a minor theatre miracle)
I have decided that, before talking about Hamlet or Merchant or anything else, I am going to talk about something that happened halfway through Merchant. It's possibly one of the best spontaneous things to happen during a play, and it was kind of amazing. You had to be there, I suppose, but I'm going to describe it anyway.
Well, to start: the weather all day had been very, very hot. After Hamlet we went to a little after-show thing, and one of the women working there said that it was 95 degrees, and was probably going to get hotter until maybe 10PM, if we were lucky, when it might cool down.
Then around the end of... I think III.1 (the last scene before the intermission), the sky started flashing. This is an open-air theatre, remember - it doesn't have a roof. It had a second level of seats, under which my dad and I were sitting under, but we could still see the sky.
And it was flashing. Very weird.
The intermission comes, and then, finally, we hear thunder. There's some cheering from the crowd in the... whatever you want to call it, you could call it a lobby, except it doesn't have a roof.
We go back in, and the scene (III.2) starts: Bassanio's choosing of the casket. There was a strange little thing that happened during the music: He goes to the gold casket and motions for the key to it. Portia turns away, dismayed. Bassanio puts the key in, makes as if he would open it, and then:
So may the outward shows be least themselves:
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
Meanwhile he starts taking off his jewelry and ruffs and other strange clothes-like things. Then, for some reason, the people in the front rows start making noise: whispering and coughing and such. I can't tell what's going on until I realize
it has started to rain.
And Bassanio realizes this, and he's gotten that far into the speech (the part I put above). He just stops and grins at us, the audience, with these golden things in his hands, standing out on the front of the stage and being rained on, and he laughs, as if to say, "Well, what shall we do now?" And the rest of the people onstage laugh too. And we the audience laugh. And then suddenly we're clapping for him, giving him an ovation, for nothing more or less than being rained on, and laughing about it. "Look. It's raining. Isn't this funny?"
He, bravely, ons with his speech. He gets all the way to choosing the leaden casket - it's really a downpour now, and the people in the front have moved to the sides (some have left altogether) - and finally a voice comes over the intercom: "Hold on, please!" And Bassanio, holding the casket, makes a kind of sweeping gesture with his arms (a kind of "There it is!", because we were all expecting the performance would be stopped), and we all laugh cheer for him again. I didn't hear what the voice said again, but it said something, and Bassanio moves under the overhang on the stage. I'm not sure why, to protect the casket, perhaps?
So the play goes on, in the rain. I doubt that Portia's line
How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love,
Be moderate; allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess.
has ever gotten a round of applause like it did that night. And of course, "it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven" got a laugh.
So, there is my story of The Time It Rained During Merchant Of Venice, and I hope you enjoyed it. I did not sleep well last night, so I am rather tired, and I think my dad will be here soon to pick me up for yet another family trip.
Well, to start: the weather all day had been very, very hot. After Hamlet we went to a little after-show thing, and one of the women working there said that it was 95 degrees, and was probably going to get hotter until maybe 10PM, if we were lucky, when it might cool down.
Then around the end of... I think III.1 (the last scene before the intermission), the sky started flashing. This is an open-air theatre, remember - it doesn't have a roof. It had a second level of seats, under which my dad and I were sitting under, but we could still see the sky.
And it was flashing. Very weird.
The intermission comes, and then, finally, we hear thunder. There's some cheering from the crowd in the... whatever you want to call it, you could call it a lobby, except it doesn't have a roof.
We go back in, and the scene (III.2) starts: Bassanio's choosing of the casket. There was a strange little thing that happened during the music: He goes to the gold casket and motions for the key to it. Portia turns away, dismayed. Bassanio puts the key in, makes as if he would open it, and then:
So may the outward shows be least themselves:
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
Meanwhile he starts taking off his jewelry and ruffs and other strange clothes-like things. Then, for some reason, the people in the front rows start making noise: whispering and coughing and such. I can't tell what's going on until I realize
it has started to rain.
And Bassanio realizes this, and he's gotten that far into the speech (the part I put above). He just stops and grins at us, the audience, with these golden things in his hands, standing out on the front of the stage and being rained on, and he laughs, as if to say, "Well, what shall we do now?" And the rest of the people onstage laugh too. And we the audience laugh. And then suddenly we're clapping for him, giving him an ovation, for nothing more or less than being rained on, and laughing about it. "Look. It's raining. Isn't this funny?"
He, bravely, ons with his speech. He gets all the way to choosing the leaden casket - it's really a downpour now, and the people in the front have moved to the sides (some have left altogether) - and finally a voice comes over the intercom: "Hold on, please!" And Bassanio, holding the casket, makes a kind of sweeping gesture with his arms (a kind of "There it is!", because we were all expecting the performance would be stopped), and we all laugh cheer for him again. I didn't hear what the voice said again, but it said something, and Bassanio moves under the overhang on the stage. I'm not sure why, to protect the casket, perhaps?
So the play goes on, in the rain. I doubt that Portia's line
How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love,
Be moderate; allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess.
has ever gotten a round of applause like it did that night. And of course, "it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven" got a laugh.
So, there is my story of The Time It Rained During Merchant Of Venice, and I hope you enjoyed it. I did not sleep well last night, so I am rather tired, and I think my dad will be here soon to pick me up for yet another family trip.