March 11, 2011

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company

Yesterday we took the morning to try something new -- we attended a student matinee of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company.  We did read the story ahead of time so that we all had a background idea of what to expect.  A Midsummer's Night Dream is about four mortals (who are in a love rectangle, of sorts), and some wood fairies who place spells on said mortals and fellow fairies.  There is also a play-inside-the-play, which was absolutely hysterical.  Even J-Guy loved that part.  His favorite line of the whole play was, "Tatania loves an ass" (the donkey type) - what 11-year-old boy wouldn't find that funny, right? Oh, yes - and also the phrase "asshead" was used a few times, to describe the donkey-headed clown.

The actors and actresses were wonderful.  I was worried that the poetry would be a little difficult for S-Doll to follow, but she seemed to grasp it very well. 

It was one of the best plays we have ever seen.  The kids loved it, I loved it.  Definitely will add some additional Shakespeare student matinees to our schedule next year.

J-Guy is actually taking a Shakespeare course at Leaves, so I thought it would be good for him to see another Shakespeare production.  He enjoyed it, although it did get a little long for him...

Overall, we'd give the show 5 stars (on a scale of 5) - if you have a chance, go see it.

Another nice thing that the actors / actressed offered was a 10-minute question & answer session at the close of the show.  It was great for the kids to show how each actor got into acting (all had college degrees in something related to the theater).  Very interesting.

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