Sunday, July 06, 2008

Just stuff

On the 4th I spent the day with my friend John and his daughter Sara. We drove to The Woodlands where a close friend lives and joined her neighbors. There was a swimming pool, which made it a pleasant evening. The weather had cleared up nicely and it was sunny and warm. We got caught up in a lot of gridlock once the firework display was complete, that wasn't so fun. But overall it was nice.

So, last night I was bored and called John to see if he wanted to see a movie with me. Instead, he invited me to see this. Shakespeare wrote 8 plays depicting the bickering over the throne by a couple of families. They are long and, to many, very hard to follow.

So this theater had the idea of taking all 8 plays and condensing them into 25 minute plays; and then handing each one to a different director to execute. Each director was given 7 actors and $150 budget. I was quite impressed with the outcome.

There was one actor among them that I thought was really talented. I wonder if we will see more of him in other venues. His name is Eddie Chevez. There was just something about him.

Nothing more to report.

2 comments:

SunWolf said...

I absolutely love Henry V. I don't know how you could ever condense it into 25 minutes. There is so much to it. You could not give up the Crispin Day speech. And there is the most beautiful, tender love scene in the end of the play, when Henry asks French Katharine if she could come to love him. "Take me, take a soldier, take a king..." she has trouble with her French. He would happily hear her say she would love him with her French heart in her broken English. She still cannot tell him. He asks her in so many ways if she could love him. "I cannot tell" she says. And he responds "Can any of you neighbors tell me Kate?" The timing is, in that wonderful Shakespeare way, perfect, and you laugh out loud the moment he says it. You should check out the Kenneth Brannagh/Emma Thompson Henry V, done before their bitter breakup. To me, it is magical, and the music is stunning.

I love Shakespeare

A Girl From Texas said...

I saw Merry on Sunday (I was doing an open house in the area and she invited me for dinner). I mentioned the 25 minute plays and she told me about the Crispin speech and then, she played the video. I really enjoyed it very much.