Seen on Threads: I am a lawyer. The common misconception is that we’re all very intelligent. Giuliani and the other election deniers from 2020 have done a good job of clearing that up.
Watching a Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Winter’s Tale was (in addition to the interest of the play itself, of course) a good mental exercise for me. I’m out of practice approaching those plays with which I am not already familiar. Something I last did in Ray McCall’s Shakespeare class at the College of Wooster. (I wasn’t yet familiar with The Tempest, either, and why I plugged right into that one were an interesting q.) At one point, my ear so lulled by the environment of the language, I might almost have nodded off. The production itself was a bit of a hodgepodge, or, that was my impression. I don’t mean that derogatorily. That aspect might have made it more of a challenge for me to get an overall sense of the dramatis personæ (see “good mental exercise” above.) Were I more of a critic I might point at this or that element to serve a thesis that it is not one of the best plays, perhaps. But instead I found it engagingly entertaining, and isn’t that the point? Yes, Shakespeare wrote several plays which are monuments in English letters, but that doesn’t mean that I need look down my nose when he simply spins an entertaining yarn. The Tempest has really got in amongst me. But also, on a trivial level: In the Firesign Theatre’s Sherlock Holmes spoof, The Case of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, one character is a businessman with a pignut plantation and a pig-oil beer brewery. (A Chicago mobster observes, “this pig-oil beer runs through you like a hot car.” So I am delighted at last to learn whence the Firesign pignut came.
And a friend/colleague, although presently on tour with one of his ensembles, took time to listen to and comment upon the Op. 200:
Terrific work! I enjoyed the many iterations of fugue, your inclusion of the BACH motif, the slowly stated fugue theme at about 9:59. Your elegant percussion parts, delicately blended in, are the perfect spices for this Shakespearean romp and meditation., Bravo!!!
As a result, I am revisiting it myself and finding that I am still highly pleased with the piece.
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