Shakespeare Back at the Mount

Lots of fun last evening:  Shakespeare & Company back to the Mount! for a shortened, young actors’, directed by Jonathan Croy version of Midsummer Night’s Dream which was just so much fun.  It was David and Ann and Andy and me, and we were worried about predicted storms, but they went on, not behind the Mount house in the old place, but in a place called the Dell, much closer to the parking.  We got to say hi to Jonathan Croy himself. We had folding chairs, a tarp, blankets, mosquito spray, cheese sandwiches on Our Daily Bread sourdough-- like the old days except no kids  (although Nathan saw this last week and recommended it).  Also, it was not quite the old space.  Still, the players appeared from among white pines and were in spite of a cast of only seven, so energetic and attractive they filled the space, even if they didn’t  get the lines all the way out to my deaf ears.   I couldn’t hear a lot of the lines, and it turned out Andy and David missed a lot too, but it so didn’t matter because (a) we all know the play, (b) it was a completely physical and mimed version, and (c) a lot of the lines were cut.   Then the really funny part:  Clear overhead, but thunder in the distance during the last act, and a little lightning during curtain calls (and some old folks left early), but as we all walked to the cars-- a tremendous sky-emptying downpour!  So funny how it waited for the play to be over.  We were wet, but full of hilarity, and we went to Barrington brewery where some got beer, some got salads, and some got a slice of coconut custard pie taking her back to growing up in West Virginia.