Thursday, August 9, 2007

The Delaware Shakespeare Festival

Last weekend, the author of Vocabulary from Latin and Greek Roots and I went up to Wilmington to check out the Delaware Shakespeare Festival's production of Richard III.

First of all, I've got to say that the Delaware Shakespeare Festival has one of the best locations to see a play, and we caught a perfect night-- cool without a cloud in the sky. Rockwood Mansion serves as a fantastic backdrop to a nice night of Shakespeare. You can bring along a picnic blanket and sit under the stars. The performance is outdoors with a solid lighting system and great sound.

As for the play, they did a very good job. I'm always a bit of a perfectionist geek when it comes to editorial cuts, but they did a good with a play that I've always felt has most of it's great dialog early. The director did manage to cut one of my favorite speeches, Clarence's Dream, in which he describes to his jailer his nightmare of drowning. It always haunts me as a high water mark in this play.

In any case, the actor playing Richard, David Stradley, completely owned the show. He did a fantastic job dominating the stage in the way that Richard is written to dominate the play. Every other actor is left with fairly weak roles to do their best with, and most do admirably well. You both loathe and feel empathy for Richard, one of Shakespeare's most intriguing characters.

If you're in Delaware or Philly, and looking for a nice night out this weekend, I'd highly recommend heading out to see the show's last weekend. At only $10 for tickets, it's a bargain for a nice night out.

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Note: Sorry for the lack of a lot of recent blog entries, but I've been putting the final
touches on our fall catalogue, which should be hitting the mail in a few days. We've got LOTS of new products in this catalogue, so keep your eyes on your mailbox. If you don't think you've ever seen our catalogue before, and you'd like to request one, Click here to get our Fall Update Catalogue.

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