Play – Carol's Notebook

Othello by William Shakespeare

May 4, 2015 by Carol2 Comments

David, Amber, my mom and I saw Othello performed at the O'Reilly Theater in Pittsburgh this past Saturday. I really enjoyed the performance, and the play. Watching the play live, being performed by quality actors, including Jeremy Kushnier, who's Iago was creepy and conniving and just outstanding, is so entirely different from reading the words. Kushnier really was the star of the show. Amber wanted to know why, if Iago is one of the best fictional villains, she's never heard of him. My response was, she's 15, there are probably many things she hasn't heard of. The play was performed on a small square stage with a minimalist setting that allowed me, at least, to concentrate on the story being presented. The play is definitely for adults - full of racism, sex and violence, but it's entertaining and easy to follow. I asked Amber if she understood it and she said that she had been a little worried beforehand but when she got into...

At the playhouse: The Game’s Afoot by Ken Ludwig

September 8, 2014October 13, 2014 by Carol2 Comments

Every summer, we head over to the Brooke Hills Playhouse to see a play or musical or two. This year, we were able to see the last show of the season, which was The Game's Afoot by Ken Ludwig. The play premiered at the Cleveland Playhouse in 2011 and won the Edgar Award in 2012 for Best Play. It is December 1936 and Broadway star William Gillette, admired the world over for his leading role in the play Sherlock Holmes, has invited his fellow cast-members to his Connecticut castle for a weekend of revelry. But when one of the guests is stabbed to death, the festivities in this isolated house of tricks and mirrors quickly turn dangerous. Then it’s up to Gillette himself, as he assumes the persona of his beloved Holmes, to track down the killer before the next victim appears. The danger and hilarity are non-stop in this glittering whodunit set during the Christmas holidays. It's an enjoyable play, and...

Matinee at the Playhouse: Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring

June 10, 2013 by Carol9 Comments

I occasionally read a classic novel, but not plays so often. Besides, plays are so much better seen at the theater than read or even watched on tv. Yesterday, my mom, David, Amber and I saw Arsenic and Old Lace at the Brooke Hills Playhouse, the local community theater. It was funny, in a dark kind of way and the actors did a good job, as they always do. The play revolves around Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic who must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn, NY, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves. His family includes two spinster aunts who murder lonely old men, lonely because they don't have any family to miss them, by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch" of cyanide; a brother who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt and digs locks for the Panama...

Reading Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

January 29, 2012October 2, 2015 by Carol3 Comments

I have mixed reactions when it comes to The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. The story is a framed as a play put on for the amusement of a drunkard that has been convinced he is a nobleman. In the play, Baptisat Minola has two daughters, the older is Katherina, a shrew whose temper is notorious and it is assumed no one would want to marry her. The younger daughter, Bianca, is beautiful and gentle and has several suitors, but Baptista insists that the older daughter be married first. Petruchio arrives in Padua and is recruited by one of Bianca's admirers to woo and marry Katherina, holding up Kate's money as a legimate reason to marry her. Petruchio courts Kate with reverse psychology, pretending that every harsh thing she says or does is kind and gentle, while he himself is just mean and nasty to everyone but her. Kate and Petruchio are married in a ridiculous ceremony where he dresses like a clown, hits the priest,...

Reading Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

January 22, 2012 by Carol8 Comments

On this midsummer night, the woods are full of magic and enchantment, lovers and fairies. A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of Shakespeare's romantic comedies, has whole batch of main characters, certainly more than most plays. From ancient myth we have Theseus, soon to be married to the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. We have four young lovers Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius, who would really fit in to any time and place, since young people in love tend to act and think the same. From the English countryside of Shakespeare's time, we have Nick Bottom, a weaver, who along with some other workmen is pulling together a play to perform at the wedding. Finally, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, and Puck come from the world of folklore and magic. At the beginning of the play, Hermia's father is insisting she marry Demetrius, even though she truly loves Lysander, so she and Lysander conspire to run away together, agreeing to meet in...

Comments: Hamlet by William Shakespeare

June 16, 2011June 15, 2011 by Carol7 Comments

I listened to Shakespeare's Hamlet performed by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I'll grant you, it's not the same as seeing the actual play, but it's closer than just reading it would be, though I do wish I had had a print copy to refer to at times. Most of us know the basic plot line. Hamlet's father, the King of Denmark is dead. His uncle, Claudius, has taken the thrown, and the queen, and to top it off, the ghost of Hamlet's father claims that Claudius killed him. Hamlet swears to the ghost to avenge his death and suggests that he will act crazy to divert suspicion. We've also got Ophelia, who he was courting but now has more or less turned his back on. She may or may not be pregnant. So, Hamlet's going crazy or at least pretending to, and also wanting to make sure that Claudius is guilty before killing him. He ends up accidentally killing Ophelia's dad and she...