"Speak what we feel..."

"...not what we ought to say."
So last night I finally took Joy's advice and made it to a production by the theater group Overshadowed. (Go to Joy's blog to find the link. You know how backward I am when it comes to these things. I'm just fighting with the backspace key here on the Garard's computer this afternoon.)

In order to prepare for seeing a three person show of King Lear, I pulled out the old Norton Anthology and "brushed up on my Shakespeare." I thoroughly enjoyed the prep work. Good thing, too, because I had to explain it to Mel, Grace, and Crystal. In the version I enacted for Grace, the roles were played by Splenda, Equal, or Sweet N' Low packets. Albany, Edgar, and Gloucester were all yellow Splenda, which kept throwing me off. Without an understanding of the basic plot of a Shakespeare play, there's no way to understand things like deeper meanings or even to really enjoy the beauty of the poetry itself.

So back to the play. Although the trip into the Chicago area with Joy, Grace, and Crystal was eventful in itself, I'll save that for another time. The performance was very well done. With only three talented actors and a handful of simple props, there we were back in Shakespeare's world inhabited by larger than life characters who spoke words that expressed our innermost thoughts and captured our wildest dreams. Nathan Bennett, Rebecca Hervas, and Andy Croston put, it seemed, their whole selves into portraying the story for us in that hour and a half. You pay to see a play like that, and still you walk away feeling like you've been given a gift. I've got food for intellectual thought for days and new motivation to finish that dusty Brit Lit II correspondance course on my shelf.