Will's Eve

[nineweaving]

Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.

What have been your most vivid experiences, hearing, seeing, reading Shakespeare?

Among so many others, I remember an idyllic Edwardian Love's Labours Lost, on a lawn by the river Cam, under the willows (there were strawberries and cream in the interval); that black-and-white galliard at the close

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[madrobins]

When I was fourteen, for my birthday, my aunt offered to take me to the theatre, my choice. I chose a much hallooed production of Hamlet then on Broadway, with Nicol Williamson in the title role. It was the first time I'd really understood the way a line reading can turn a scene in a moment. Hamlet is imitating on the apron of the stage, n the middle of the To Be or Not To Be soliloquy, when Ophelia, very obviously coached by Polonius, wanders on upstage, pretending very hard to be reading a book and not to see Hamlet. She crosses, gets into a hammock, and pretends to read so ferociously that she looses sight of Hamlet until he's right behind her and barks, "Nymph, in they orisons be all my sins remembered…"

She's so startled she almost falls out of the hammock.

The scene proceeds, with Ophelia, totally outmatched, trying to do what her father has instructed her to do, but also trying to remind Hamlet that yes, they were a serious item. When she says very sadly, "I was the more deceived," he has a moment of--softness, maybe, or recollection, or perhaps just pity. And he kisses her, and it's one of those kisses that makes it plain that if he thinks he doesn't care for her he's fooling himself. By the time he breaks off for air the entire audience is a little swoony.

Then he remembers himself, and pulls back like a snake about to strike and says, in tones of revulsion, "Get thee to a nunnery."

It's shattering. To Ophelia, and to the audience. No matter how well I knew the play (and for a nerdy 14-year-old it was pretty well) I did not imagine the scene that way.

The other one that was particularly lovely was taking the little boy for whom I was a summer au pair to see Measure for Measure at the Stratford Theatre in Connecticut. There was a bit where Pompey was juggling soft-sculpture dildos. Adam leaned over to ask me, urgently, what those things were. At this point I had explained all sorts of things to him, including the Russian Revolution and male impotence, so I said "You know what they look like?" He nodded. "That's kind of exactly what they are, and I'll explain during the intermission." And I did, over ginger ale.

That owed nothing to the Bard, of course, but it was memorable.

[nineweaving]

...a much hallooed production of Hamlet then on Broadway, with Nicol Williamson in the title role.

Ooh! Now that's a proper sort of aunt. Nicol Williamson was all a tangle of sparks and wires. He could buzz and bang to no purpose (I'm thinking of Excalibur). But when he connected--electrifying!

Wait, was that outmatched Ophelia Marianne Faithfull?

There was a bit where Pompey was juggling soft-sculpture dildos.

Hee! There's something about Measure for Measure that inspires mischief. My most memorable featured derspatchel and his Socko as the Provost and Bernardine. And in the fifth act, Juliet's waters broke with a splat!. Fortunately, I didn't have a little boy with me...

Nine

[madrobins]

That's nothing to the time we went to see (the original) Pippin. There's a sequence when Pippin and Catherine go to bed. The covers are drawn up, and there's a certain amount of wriggling thereunder. Meanwhile, from the wings two dancers, male and female, dressed in the most abbreviated of rhinestone costumes (g-strings, and pasties for her) come out, do a spectacular pas de deux, she leaps into his arms--and he drops her. At which point Pippin and Catherine's heads emerge from under the covers.

"This has never happened before," he starts--and the entire audience (except for Adam, seated next to me) bursts into laughter. Adam is, of course, bewildered. So, as Pippin and Catherine decide to try again, and the dancers repeat their performance and this time she leaps and he catches her triumphantly, I find myself explaining sotto voce to an eight-year-old why sometimes sex doesn't quite work.

I really did earn my salary.

[nineweaving]

I hope Adam remembers you fondly!

Nine