The type of things aneurisms are made of
Last night I went into Boston to see Henry V put on by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. Last year I saw their free performance of Twelfth Night not once, but twice, and thoroughly enjoyed the show (maybe not so much the surrounding company in some cases) each time. I had high hopes for this show and the cast (several members from Twelfth Night, and Anthony Rapp from the original cast of Rent) when Jess asked me to come in. I twisted Jena’s arm to go in and wrote a persuasive email to Jaime and Beth. Much to my surprise, after the decline of the invite to join us, Jena and I ran into Jaime at the Park St. fountain at 7:00. Jess and Andy joined us later once we were seated.
To sum up the play in one word: disappointing. It was confusing at some points, boring at others, and in keeping true to Shakespeare’s work, an entire scene was in French. The acting was methodical, but not passionate. The one battle scene we saw was superbly choreographed and redeemed the entire half of the play. Unfortunately the one really hot actor, Anthony Rapp’s voice, and the promise of an equally well crafted battle (with bow and arrows, and damn hot actor guy flexed and arched five feet in front of us - we saw them rehearse the scene earlier) couldn’t counter the fact that there would be other scenes completely in French (and the fact that it was as boring as shit).
We decided that it would be well worth our time and energy to leave the play at intermission and walk to Mike’s for cannolis. Mmmmm….cannoli. For the first time in a long time the line at Mike’s was not out the door. To publicly answer Adam’s question (which he won’t read anyway, but that’s okay) Mike’s is not busy at 10:00 on Thursday night.
After eating our delicious Italian pastries in Government Center, we rushed Jaime to North Station so she could get the 10:40 train to Brandeis. Unfortunately she missed the train, but that meant that we got to spend more quality time, which was nice because I haven’t hung out with her, just to hang out, since January (Jena’s grandfather’s wake doesn’t count - that was hanging out to support Jena, and not really a social event, in the preferred sense).
Now, however, comes the real fun part. Typically it takes one 30 minutes, when obeying all state and federal laws, to get from Alewife to my house (otherwise it can be done in 15 - not that I know from experience or anything…riiiiight). We probably dropped Jaime off in Waltham between 11:30 and 11:45. I walked into my house at 12:40. Jaime gave us directions back to 95 from the T station, which was all good once we were able to process what she said. We figured that would be the worst part of our ride home - finding 95, because once we get on 95 take it to route 3 north to exit 32 (Drum Hill rotary). Easy enough, right? No. Not so much - not gonna lie to you. Jena always gets confused going 95 to route 3, but I told her not to worry about it and I’d walk her through it. Right. It would have been okay if they hadn’t shut down the exit to get to 3 North/Middlesex Turnpike. We had to get off at the next exit to turn around, but Jena didn’t realize that 3 South after merging onto 128/95 is more like Route 1 in Saugus and less like Route 3 North to take us from Burlington to Chelmsford. (Right. Makes sense in my mind. Deal.) Anyway, we get off the highway, and get onto 128/95 South to go down one exit and find route 3 North. It worked. They were doing some trippy stuff with route3 shifting lanes and all. We decided it should not be driven at night with a headache while half asleep. Just when we enter Chelmsford and think all will be fine we see a big orange flashing arrow ahead of us. We shift over one lane. Then, right by the Lowell Connector exit, there’s another flashing orange arrow and cones forcing us off the highway. Route3 just ceased to be. It died. It was no more. It was gone. Good thing we know the area. Bad thing we lost our bearings and got on 495north and not 495south. After realizing our error (only one exit - we didn’t pull a Ben and end up in Amesbury) we got off the highway, went in the other direction and got off at 110 in Chelmsford. From there we decided we weren’t going to play games any more and drove through town to get to my house. We were punchy and dead tired. Conclusion: It takes skill to navigate in Massachusetts. It takes an idiot to drive the roads. The engineers are fuckwits (and for the record, Microsoft Word accepts fuckwit as an actual word) or geniuses. The actual highway system in this part of the state is the type of thing that aneurisms are made of. (Hence the subject line.)
To sum up the play in one word: disappointing. It was confusing at some points, boring at others, and in keeping true to Shakespeare’s work, an entire scene was in French. The acting was methodical, but not passionate. The one battle scene we saw was superbly choreographed and redeemed the entire half of the play. Unfortunately the one really hot actor, Anthony Rapp’s voice, and the promise of an equally well crafted battle (with bow and arrows, and damn hot actor guy flexed and arched five feet in front of us - we saw them rehearse the scene earlier) couldn’t counter the fact that there would be other scenes completely in French (and the fact that it was as boring as shit).
We decided that it would be well worth our time and energy to leave the play at intermission and walk to Mike’s for cannolis. Mmmmm….cannoli. For the first time in a long time the line at Mike’s was not out the door. To publicly answer Adam’s question (which he won’t read anyway, but that’s okay) Mike’s is not busy at 10:00 on Thursday night.
After eating our delicious Italian pastries in Government Center, we rushed Jaime to North Station so she could get the 10:40 train to Brandeis. Unfortunately she missed the train, but that meant that we got to spend more quality time, which was nice because I haven’t hung out with her, just to hang out, since January (Jena’s grandfather’s wake doesn’t count - that was hanging out to support Jena, and not really a social event, in the preferred sense).
Now, however, comes the real fun part. Typically it takes one 30 minutes, when obeying all state and federal laws, to get from Alewife to my house (otherwise it can be done in 15 - not that I know from experience or anything…riiiiight). We probably dropped Jaime off in Waltham between 11:30 and 11:45. I walked into my house at 12:40. Jaime gave us directions back to 95 from the T station, which was all good once we were able to process what she said. We figured that would be the worst part of our ride home - finding 95, because once we get on 95 take it to route 3 north to exit 32 (Drum Hill rotary). Easy enough, right? No. Not so much - not gonna lie to you. Jena always gets confused going 95 to route 3, but I told her not to worry about it and I’d walk her through it. Right. It would have been okay if they hadn’t shut down the exit to get to 3 North/Middlesex Turnpike. We had to get off at the next exit to turn around, but Jena didn’t realize that 3 South after merging onto 128/95 is more like Route 1 in Saugus and less like Route 3 North to take us from Burlington to Chelmsford. (Right. Makes sense in my mind. Deal.) Anyway, we get off the highway, and get onto 128/95 South to go down one exit and find route 3 North. It worked. They were doing some trippy stuff with route3 shifting lanes and all. We decided it should not be driven at night with a headache while half asleep. Just when we enter Chelmsford and think all will be fine we see a big orange flashing arrow ahead of us. We shift over one lane. Then, right by the Lowell Connector exit, there’s another flashing orange arrow and cones forcing us off the highway. Route3 just ceased to be. It died. It was no more. It was gone. Good thing we know the area. Bad thing we lost our bearings and got on 495north and not 495south. After realizing our error (only one exit - we didn’t pull a Ben and end up in Amesbury) we got off the highway, went in the other direction and got off at 110 in Chelmsford. From there we decided we weren’t going to play games any more and drove through town to get to my house. We were punchy and dead tired. Conclusion: It takes skill to navigate in Massachusetts. It takes an idiot to drive the roads. The engineers are fuckwits (and for the record, Microsoft Word accepts fuckwit as an actual word) or geniuses. The actual highway system in this part of the state is the type of thing that aneurisms are made of. (Hence the subject line.)