Althouse: Trip no further, pretty sweeting...

August 4, 2019

Trip no further, pretty sweeting...

Yesterday, in Spring Green.

46 comments:

rhhardin said...: O mistress mine is a lute song (Thomas Morely). I used to play it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK4J6ZqL_T0; 8/4/19, 9:34 AM
Ken B said...: Racist. “Trip no further” only applies to those who can trip in the first place, the possessors of white privilege.

Alternatively...

Racist. “Trip no further” is aimed at those who lack white privilege, telling them to stay out.; 8/4/19, 9:44 AM
Wince said...: Shade for thee,

but not for me?

No privilege nor roll of Benjamin

can redeem my lack of melanin?; 8/4/19, 9:57 AM
Big Mike said...: Do that’s what happened to Obama’s styrofoam Greek columns.; 8/4/19, 9:58 AM
Seeing Red said...: Spring Green. Isn’t that House on a Rock?; 8/4/19, 10:01 AM
Ann Althouse said...: @Seeing Red

Wikipedia lists 4 attractions in Spring Green, Wisconsin:

1. Taliesin
2. American Players Theatre
3. The House on the Rock
4. The Sh*tty Barn; 8/4/19, 10:06 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Shade for thee/but not for me?"

The shade moved around. We were in shade for the first 2 hours, but the shade/sun line moved slowly and we saw our fate approach. The last hour was a tad brutal.

I prefer the evening show. Darkness moves in and there's... at this point I'm interrupted by Meade, who, looking over my shoulder says: "And the next word is... magic."; 8/4/19, 10:10 AM
Seeing Red said...: Thanks! It’s been at least 2 decades since I’ve been there.; 8/4/19, 10:11 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Meade moved in and next: magic!; 8/4/19, 10:12 AM
Big Mike said...: Google says that “Hamlet” is being put on today in Madison by the Young Shakespeare Company. That wouldn’t be their stage, would it? The lyrics seem wrong for the dark tone of the play.; 8/4/19, 10:12 AM
traditionalguy said...: Shakespeare is an old white dude. But no one has ever come close to surpassing him in writing plays, etc.; 8/4/19, 10:14 AM
Seeing Red said...: We were there it was before any technology we didn’t realize it was gonna take us four hours to get there by the time we got there and we were starving and All the restaurants closed at three.

Still love the calliope.; 8/4/19, 10:15 AM
Seeing Red said...: Huh. The travel time is about the same as to The Dells.; 8/4/19, 10:17 AM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: My kingdom for a set upgrade!
who plays there-- Gina Lollobudget-a?; 8/4/19, 10:18 AM
Narr said...: Bard be trippin!

Narr
Not his biggest fan; 8/4/19, 11:01 AM
Original Mike said...: "The last hour was a tad brutal."

I spent the last 3 days camped in a friends field west of Madison with the telescope. I had a small tarp and kept to it as much as possible, but I'm pretty sunburned this morning. Amazing how burned you can get from scattered sunlight. At least the temperature was tolerable.; 8/4/19, 11:13 AM
Ann Althouse said...: The play was "Twelfth Night" — a very silly play using the old tricks of mixing up "identical" twins, a shipwreck with persons not as dead as supposed, and an abundance of clowns.; 8/4/19, 11:24 AM
Original Mike said...: "Darkness moves in and there's... at this point I'm interrupted by Meade, who, looking over my shoulder says: "And the next word is... magic.""

Darkness brings the Universe into view.; 8/4/19, 11:24 AM
Big Mike said...: My kingdom for a set upgrade!

Minimalist sets were all the rage back in the sixties, esp. in universities. Maybe it's come back in vogue, maybe it never left.; 8/4/19, 11:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Amazing how burned you can get from scattered sunlight."

I used a spray-on sunblock and didn't get burned at all.

A few weeks ago, I dropped the spray can and forgot where I was and it turned out I'd omitted on arm. I walked the whole golf course that day (as a spectator), and I ended up with one very sunburned arm and one just fine arm. It looked SO dumb.; 8/4/19, 11:27 AM
Mark said...: Seeing Macbeth a week from today at APT, excited for it.; 8/4/19, 11:28 AM
Original Mike said...: "It looked SO dumb."

Just call it fashion.; 8/4/19, 11:29 AM
rcocean said...: Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”

“Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.”; 8/4/19, 11:29 AM
Big Mike said...: The play was "Twelfth Night"

I've never seen that one performed by a competent cast. I do recall feeling sorry for poor Malvolio, but he's meant to be easily fooled.; 8/4/19, 11:29 AM
rcocean said...: Like icarus too close to the sun.; 8/4/19, 11:31 AM
rcocean said...: "I've never seen that one performed by a competent cast."

Shakespeare often reads better then he plays.; 8/4/19, 11:32 AM
Ann Althouse said...: According to the Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout, APT is the best regional theater company in the U.S.

The outdoor theater, seen in the photograph, was recently upgraded. The countryside is beautiful and you walk up a hill through the woods to get to the theater.

APT has been around for 40 years. I've been going there since the 80s (when the site was much rougher). It's so pretty now. Really nice to see a play in the woods, but I recommend taking in an evening performance. I think lighting in a dark space is good in theater, though of course, daylight is what Shakespeare had.; 8/4/19, 11:34 AM
Hagar said...: People think Shakespeare should be performed as high art when it s actually about blood and thunder.; 8/4/19, 11:36 AM
Hagar said...: and slapstick!; 8/4/19, 11:38 AM
Farmer said...: We were there! And left in the intermission because of the heat. I could've taken the heat, but the sun bearing down on me was too much after an hour and half. And the kids were melting.; 8/4/19, 11:38 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I've never seen that one performed by a competent cast. I do recall feeling sorry for poor Malvolio, but he's meant to be easily fooled."

We especially enjoyed Malvolio, played by David Daniel. Some of the time he reminded us of Martin Short doing Ed Grimley and other times like Alec Baldwin doing Trump. He's a priggish idiot who's full of himself and gets fooled and humiliated... and the challenge is to make that fun for us. Can't feel sorry for Malvolio! That would ruin the play.

He's the person being addressed in the line: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"; 8/4/19, 11:38 AM
rcocean said...: I've always enjoyed outdoor theater at night, much more, assuming the weather cooperated. Partly its habit. I'm used to going to the movies/theater at night. Going in the day seems odd for some reason. Seeing a play in the harsh daylight seems unnatural.; 8/4/19, 11:39 AM
Yancey Ward said...: "Shakespeare often reads better then he plays."

For me, this has always been true, but it is because I have to figure out the language a bit since it isn't contemporary English in either meaning or structure. I have read every play, and the tragedies more than once, so I have a much better understanding of the language than I did at age 18 when I saw King Lear on stage, for example. I would be willing to see the plays staged today.

Were they staging "Twelfth Night" there? I didn't like that play very much, but then I don't generally like comedies as much- at least not those of Shakespeare.; 8/4/19, 11:42 AM
Hagar said...: Shakespeare and Ibsen were both theater managers and wrote for the gate.; 8/4/19, 11:42 AM
Quaestor said...: John Dowland's lute setting for this charming song, which I used (unsuccessfully) to woo my first true love.; 8/4/19, 11:53 AM
Mrs. X said...: Try this version of O Mistress Mine:

O Mistress Mine - Harris; 8/4/19, 11:56 AM
Fernandinande said...: A young unprepared actor is sweating his way thru "Hamlet", the audience is getting restless, and after a while the catcalls start.

Finally the young actor stops and turns to the audience and says "What are yelling at me for? I didn't write this shit!"; 8/4/19, 11:57 AM
Big Mike said...: Can't feel sorry for Malvolio! That would ruin the play.

To an Elizabethan audience, and continuing right down to the Victorian Era, the notion of a servant -- even an upper servant -- fancying himself in love with the noblewoman who employs him would have been hilarious all by itself.; 8/4/19, 12:50 PM
steppin' razor said...: First saw Twelth Night in a production at my college. Glenn Close (a student) was Olivia, Hermione Lee (visiting prof) was Viola. We didn’t know how good we had it. If music be the food of love, play on.; 8/4/19, 1:21 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: The Sh!tty Barn? Did Arthur's Supper Club pay you to say that?; 8/4/19, 1:34 PM
Tomcc said...: By the end of the day you were pretty sweating!; 8/4/19, 1:38 PM
traditionalguy said...: Othello and Henry III are at Stratford Festival this summer. And Private Lives again , a favorite last seen 15 years ago.; 8/4/19, 2:14 PM
traditionalguy said...: When played correctly, Hamlet is a LOL comedy. A dark comedy, but funny as they come.; 8/4/19, 2:25 PM
James K said...: I think Twelfth Night is one of his better comedies, but that is somewhat faint praise. Lots of great lines and speeches, though. Most famously, “Be not afraid of greatness....” “Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage,” etc. I saw a great Public Theater production of it in Central Park a few years back.; 8/4/19, 3:34 PM
Narr said...: Shakespeare's work is full of cliches.

Narr
Somebody had to throw that one; 8/4/19, 4:18 PM
Big Mike said...: Hamlet as a comedy??? I don’t think so. When the final curtain falls we have (spoiler alert!) Ophelia, Rosenkrantz, Guildenstern, Polonius, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet himself dead — virtually everyone with a speaking role — and only Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, the fortunate Fortinbras, and a handful of courtiers still alive. Even Yorick the jester and Hamlet’s father’s ghost are dead, but they were that already when the curtain went up.

Now for a comedy, it’s hard to beat the double entendresp in “As You Like It”:

“He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love’s prick in Rosalind.”; 8/4/19, 5:25 PM