What Summer Evenings Should Be

Company of Fools: Romeo & Juliet (2008)
Originally uploaded by Andrew Alexander

We are continuing in our quest to get younger daughter out of the house. This backfired a bit when the Resident Fan Boy tried to extend the campaign to elder daughter and asked her if she had even been outside all day. Elder daughter's answer was devastatingly acidic in the way only a sixteen-year-old can muster: "I'm in Summer School, Dad...."

Anyway, last evening we decided to try out the A Company of Fools' production of The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. A Company of Fools have been active in Ottawa for the past 18 years, and for the past half dozen summers, have presented "Torchlight Shakespeare" in parks in Ottawa. They'll be doing "R&J" in our local park at the end of the month, but younger daughter and I will be in Victoria by then, so after dinner, we hoisted our one lawn chair, a "picnic duvet" long packed in a Rubbermaid container in the basement, plus a bagful of younger daughter's favourite stuffed companions, and headed for Strathcona Park which is a long leafy rectangle along the west shore of the Rideau River below the Russian Embassy on Charlotte Street.

It was actually a perfect evening for it. The day had been hot, but not humid, and stepping off the bus into the golden evening was a taking-one's-place-next-to-a-lovely-fireside kind of warm. There was a tiny stage set up in the centre of the park with a small forest of lawn chairs and picnic blankets in front. The faces were mostly white, but the age range was impressive; the productions are promoted at ACoF's website as being aimed to be accessible to all ages.

And it was! Younger daughter was enthralled, from the opening moments as the actors perspired in the sun shining directly in their faces (we'd glimpsed the vigorous warm-up regimen taking place behind the tents) to the closing moments as an evening breeze picked up, showering the audience with leaves and blowing the flames in the blazing buckets serving as footlights. This version took about ninety minutes and with five actors playing all the parts (Juliet doubled as Tybalt!), the emphasis was heavily on comedy. Mercutio's death was still affecting, as was those of Romeo and Juliet, although these felt a little odd amidst all the hilarity.

I particularly enjoyed Jesse Buck,who played the Storyteller/Friar Laurence/Nurse and as such often changed roles mid-scene, by slipping a cap on or pulling his hood up. It helped that he appeared to be a dead ringer for Hugh Laurie. Juliet (Emmanuelle Zeesman) looked exactly like our star actress in high school and had many of her mannerisms, so it was a pleasant blast-to-the-past for me. Younger daughter loved the balcony scene, with Romeo calling to Juliet ankle-deep in audience. In addition, a tiny dog made the rounds and eventually curled up on our blanket behind the Resident Fan Boy's back, to younger daughter's shuddering delight.

This is what summer evenings should be: balmy, beautiful, with the distant cries of birds and frisbee-players, a breeze rustling the lush leaves overhead, and the laughter of an audience enjoying words written over four hundred years ago.

Then we went home and my family crowded around the TV to watch the latest two Marias get turfed in the coliseum entertainment known as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria. I huddled at the computer and blotted it out, thinking of Shakespeare. Sigh.

There art thou happy (crème brûlée and pedicures)

One of my favourite bits in Romeo and Juliet is when Romeo is sobbing pathetically in Friar Lawrence's cell after being the indirect cause of Mercutio's death, killing Tybalt, and getting himself banished from Verona. After several lines of this, Friar Lawrence finally gets fed up and snaps:

Thy Juliet is alive/ For whose dear sake thou was but lately dead;/ There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,/But thou slewest Tybalt; there art thou happy too./ The law, that threat'ned death, becomes thy friend,/ And turns it to exile; there are thou happy./ A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;/ Happiness courts thee in her best array;/ But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench, / Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love. . . .

So yesterday. I was "periodical" and came home from a morning volunteering at the school library to find that elder daughter wanted to take me up on my offer to take her shopping for jeans and makeup. Since this was her last day home after exams, and the new semester was due to start the next day, I thought we should beat the weekend crowds. As the bus neared downtown, I thought to check my pockets. No credit card, no money, no bank card to get money. Elder daughter took this remarkably well. I didn't, but on the bus trip home, we'd figured out how the fact that my money and cards were on my dresser was, in fact, all the Resident Fan Boy's fault. He'd gotten in my way during the morning routine and the vital step of pocketing my money and cards was thus omitted. Did I mention I was periodical?

By mid-afternoon, I was crampy and not looking forward to donning boot liners, boots, and icers. So I put it off. Now I was trudging up the hill, late, and furthermore, one boot liner was steadily working itself into my arch, taking my sock with it. I strode on, getting more uncomfortable and self-pitying by the minute. "Excuse me," said a lady from behind. "This wouldn't happen to be yours?" She had my bus pass. I must have dropped it near my house while hauling out my sunglasses, and she had trailed me all the way up the hill. In addition, this is the second time I've dropped my bus pass in the past two months, and the second time someone has taken the trouble to return it to me. A voice inside my head said: "There art thou happy." It sounded like Milo O'Shea in the 1968 film version of R&J. I made it across the treacherous field of ice to the school, thanks to my icers. There art thou happy. I sat on a bench inside and adjusted my sock and boot liner and because I'd given myself a pedicure the day before, no one catching a glimpse of my bare foot would have been nauseated. There art thou happy. (My boot liners are no things of beauty though; what possessed me to buy white ones?) I picked up younger daughter who was just closing her locker, and on the way home, remembered I had brought along my camera to capture shots of the crème brûlée snow resulting from the freezing rain and flash-freeze the day before, so spent the rest of the walk snapping away and thinking of my favourite bit from Amélie. There art thou happy.

Elder daughter told me on the way home from the aborted shopping trip that she can tell my mood when I come in the door: "Either it's 'Hello, Darling", or you're pissed." She meant American "pissed" (angry) ---all the same, I'd better clean up my act...