Monday, July 05, 2010

The Winter of Our Discontent? At 100 degrees?

We hit a hundred degrees Farenheit today. We drove down from the lake where it was probably only mid-nineties, Taxi the parakeet in his cage in the back seat. My home office is miserable, and I’m working on the delicate process of exchanging air– that is, hot as it was, when we got home, the closed up house was slightly cooler. Tonight, I’m led to believe by Accuweather, it’ll be slightly cooler outside. This is going to go on for a while, too–we can sleep in air conditioning, and Andy’s office at work has a.c., but I have to figure out how to be at least a little productive in this kind of heat.

We saw John Douglas Thompson at Shakespeare. He wore more clothes than in the publicity photo to the left, but looks good either way. Even with a hump and a built up shoe and a withered arm, such charm, such physical energy, such beautiful speeches. Such enthusiasm for evil! My current favorite actor.

We saw him first as Edmund in King Lear with Jonny Epstein, but his Othello a year or so ago was superb, and also the modern play where he’s a painter.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Richard– what a strange melodrama of a play, but it doesn’t stop for a moment. I especially liked all the parts for older women, and Duke Clarence’s bad dream:

What dreadful noise of waters in my ears!
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks;
A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvaluèd jewels,
All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep
And mocked the dead bones that lay scatt'red by.
Act I scene iv, in small part.

No comments: