If you download the etext of Jane Eyre and open it in your word processing program of choice, you can count the number of instances of any word in the entire novel. (In Microsoft Word, use Edit → Find... → Highlight all items found.)

Some words to look up:

• eye / eyes
• read / reads / reading / reader
• two / second / twice
• three / third / thrice
• book / books
• picture / illustration

isragirl presents : Jazz on White Night 2007, Video by Dvir Katz ©

The White Night of Tel Aviv report continues in a second and yet just as thrilling post. OK, so where were we? July 3^rd, streets and beaches of Tel Aviv city, theaters, gardens and public sphere in general. More on the list: For the students - HaDag Nakhash (The Fish Snake) at Antin Sqr., Tel Aviv University. A lot more going on campus that night so if in the neighborhood check it out. Street party at Ha Melakha compound, Dance City 2008 - dancing in HaYarkon Park, 10 different areas dedicated to Hip Hop, Salsa, Samba, Irish music, Mediterranean music, Classical etc.(starting at 11pm). And if Classical music is played in the park, why not host piano players all along Rothschild Ave.? (from 9pm). In the old port of Jaffa you'll be able to enjoy music from all over the Middle East, as well as fresh sea food and sailing under the moon (starting at 9pm). Bat Sheva Dance Company will perform with Furo on Tel Aviv's Port Deck; live Jazz on the open deck and at Café Shaked.

Street theater and improvisation awaits you along Ben Gurion Blvd, and while there you can pop in for a lecture (if you understand Hebrew) at the Ben Gurion house (now a museum), which is going to make you hungry so most restaurants in the white city area will offer special discounted menus. A Graffiti exhibition will open that night in hangar 26 in Tel Aviv port (Bait BaNamal - A House in the Port, 7pm-midnight), followed by a party and night treatments at Kula. A celebration of White wines will go down on Gordon beach (LaLa Land from midnight), The Eretz Israel Museum shell stay open till 2am, including the Planetarium. Most museums and galleries will stay open till midnight. 14 different guided walks (in Hebrew) will take place all over the city and even if you don't understand the language it  just might be fun....The Israeli Opera will host a midnight concert called A Night on the Opera, with famous classics, and the cinemateque will have night screening...and the list goes on and on...

An all night out in the city that never sleeps – Tel Aviv

• Travel Israel: Guide, Travel Tips, Photos and Videos
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• Why Go to Herzliya?...
• Netanya on the Beach
• Tiberias - Holiday Treat
• Fun Israeli Videos
• Tel Aviv Bars, Pubs and DanceBars

Thanks to this we were more than apprehensive about our night at the circus of Shakespeare.  I in particular was apprehensived out due to my throbbing headache, lack of sleep and a hideous day spent with three small squawking children which, by the time Andrea got to my house last night, had turned me into a bitch goddess of epic proportions.  I almost cancelled, but then when Tallulah came running to me in tears for this sixth time in one afternoon, this time because she had trampolened on her own nose, I felt that it was best to be absent from my dwelling to save me murdering everyone with a shovel.

By the time we got to Warwick my headache tablets had kicked in, my temper had subsided and the wind, which had been howling a gale all day had also died down.  All these things made me feel much more chipper and less likely to mope about on my perch, pullling my feathers out and doing my own squawking.  We had also ingested large quantities of the Co-op's very excellent fair trade, stem ginger loaf cake, which helped enormously.  I recommend it in times of crisis if you don't like Rescue Remedy.  It's a sure fire winner baby.  Andrea who had spent the last forty eight hours cutting herself to ribbons learning the ancient art of glass cutting and manoeuvring a tonne of top soil around the county in the dead of night, and clearly had problems of her own, agreed with me on the cake.  Smiley face and gold star for you.

So. The tentacular delights of Shakespeare?  Actually, v. v. good as Bridget Jones would say.  Not in the slightest bit traditional, but very entertaining and with moments of deep joy.  The company is called Footsbarn Theatre, and it's their own tent.  Have tent, will travel.  I quite like the idea of having my own circus tent.  Apparently the ginger bloke from Harry Potter has spent all his filmic earnings on his own personal ice cream van, which also sounds like a good idea.  I must put big top and ice cream van down on my list of things to buy when I'm ridiculously rich.

Andrea and I discussed fake blood on the way home last night.  She was commenting on the fact that in this production they used silk scarves, and was it a Japanese thing (there were oriental elements to the play)? I said  I thought it was more to do with the nature of having to get fake blood stains out of a big top and the prohibitive cost of dry cleaning.  You can tell I spend all day looking after children.

The company is based in France.  They spend all winter practicing in the Auvergne and then dust the tent off to zoom around the world putting on productions in five languages and seeing how many props they can squash into a portaloo in between gigs.  The language barrier was apparent in spades last night.  As mentioned, they had gone a bit oriental and had some Japanese cast members, who when they weren't mangling Erizabeefan into Engrish, were doing brilliantly in Japanese.  Titania was Japanese.  She was a dab hand at ribbon waving on a stick (told you it wasn't traditional), but her speeches were somewhat earifically challenging.  I actually thought that at one point I was listening with such concentration that my ears were bending round to reach her.  Such is the power of drama to affect us.  Let that be a lesson to you.

Puck was a Japanese masked warrior who looked like a Lion Dog and kept making little Bruce Lee style yaps and clicks in between engirdling the earth in forty minutes.  His voice was somewhat trying, probably due to the large mask as well as his own personal linguistic wrestling matches with the bard.  He was a dab hand at waving flowers into lover's eyes though. I'll give him that.

There were lots of masks, which were very cool.  Hardcore masks, not cutesy masks.  I mean they didn't look like bank robbers or the members of Slipknot or anything, but they weren't pretty pretty.  The fairies all looked like something Arthur Rackham would have cooked up after a particularly heavy night on the fromage and port, and were quite twisted and cool, particularly the midget one that had a big bouncy dress, a la Upsy Daisy in In the Night Garden, the nightmare version.  It was more Goblin Market than Cicely Mary Barker on a commemorative plate.

Before I go any further, for those of you who are not up on the world of Mr. S, here is another potted version, Katy stylie.  Theseus is the Duke of Athens.  He's going to marry his lady love, Hippolyta (both of whom in this version looked like Herne The Hunter in Robin Hood, the one with Michael Praed in it, not the new, crap one).  On the same day, a nobleman called Aegeus is hoping to marry his only daughter, Hermia to a man called Demetrius.  Demetrius loves Hermia.  Hermia loathes Demetrius.  Hermia loves Lysander.  Aegeus thinks Lysander is a feckless waster and says that unless she marries Demetrius she will either be killed or have to become a nun.  Harsh, but fair these fictional Athenian nobles.

In the meantime, Helena, who is Hermia's friend is in love with Demetrius.  Demetrius used to be in love with Helena until he met Hermia.  He gives Helena the brush off because he thinks with his knob and is an unpleasant little man.  She is not best pleased and turns into his number one stalker, thinking foolishly that this will make her appear more attractive to him and win him back, while in fact it makes her look like a bit of a mentaller and he runs a mile, screaming.  While she is stalking Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander agree to meet in the woods at night time and run away from Athens where they can get married in peace.  Hermia tells Helena and Helena, thinking that she can win favour with Demetrius, tells him everything.  They go to the woods too.  Demetrius wants to kidnap Hermia and Helena wants to stalk Demetrius while he's doing it.

While they're all wandering around the woods, Titania and Oberon the king and queen of the fairies are also in the woods having a big fight over an Indian boy that they both want to keep as a pet (like a chinchilla, but less sandy).  Oberon is cross because Titania won't give him up.  He orders Puck, his naughty fairy servant to squish some flower juice into her eyes while she is sleeping, which will make her fall in love with the first thing she sees when she wakes up. That'll learn her.

In the meantime a bunch of peasants (the simples) are practising a play in honour of the Duke's upcoming wedding.  They all have hilarious names like Bottom and are very stupid.  They do lots of clowning around and punning on sex and put on a bizarre play about the thwarted lovers Pyramus and Thisbe who get eaten by lions.  They decide to go and practice in the woods at midnight (as all good theatre companies do).

This means everyone is running around the woods in a hilarious 'Oops! There go my bloomers!' kind of way, and Puck creates mayhem by squirting this love potion in all the wrong people's eyes.  Eventually Titania falls in love with the peasant Bottom, who is now, for unexplained reasons dressed as an ass and Lysander and Demetrius are now both in love with Helena.  Vicars fall out of cupboards, bosoms explode, fire is eaten and much braying is enjoyed by everyone.

Oberon eventually sweeps down and sorts everyone out and makes all the right people fall in and out of love. It ends with everyone getting married happily, the peasants play going on and Thisbe's comedy breasts exploding spectacularly.

So, imagine all this in a big top, with only six cast members, two bassoon players wearing glasses and Elizabethan English being mangled in French, English and Japanese.  Include, if you will, false teeth, lots of spit, ribbon twirling, a man who looked unnervingly like Richard thingy from The Crystal Maze and comedy breasts, and you will pretty much be there with us.  The simples were fantastic and did huge amounts of ad libbing and mucking around with the audience.  I particularly liked the way they pronounced sword as s- wooord and am now going to make it my own for any s wooord fight in which I happen to be embroiled.

The audience did their part and talked, chattered, whooped and generally joined in for all they were worth.  There were a lot of kids in the audience, one of whom had an uncanny knack for shouting out in the quiet bits.  Things like: 'It's a donkey!' when Bottom first appeared as an ass, and 'Ow!' when Thisbe's boobs exploded etc, etc.  It was like panto, only better.  If only we could have shot the teenagers behind us who insisted on chatting to each other throughout the entire performance it would have been a complete success.  I did think about taking them on but I was full of ginger cake and only just over my headache, so decided to let sleeping teenagers chatter.

I am reading this as part of A Midsummer Night's Challenge.

I will admit, I skipped the majority of this book in an effort to read only A Midsummer Night's Dream. The first half was an in depth analysis of the classic work and a latter part focuses on the sources Shakespeare may have used to compose the play.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play set in ancient Athens. The plot involves three separate batches of characters whose circumstances bring them together.

The initial scene involves Theseus, Duke of Athens, as he prepares for his marriage to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. While holding court, Theseus is approached by Egeus, the father of Hermia. Egeus has promised his daughter to Demetrius, but Hermia protests, claiming she loves Lysander. Lysander argues on his behalf that marriage to him would be just as beneficial, and that Demetrius is stringing along Helena, Hermia's lifelong friend. Theseus holds by Athenian law, ruling that Hermia, as property of Egeus, must either marry Demetrius, swear herself to a nunnery, or die. Lysander and Hermia, unable to accept this ruling, conspire to run away together, swearing to meet in a glade outside Athens.

In the second scene, we meet a troupe of part-time actors. These men, tradesmen of Athens, seek to conduct a play in celebration of Thesues's wedding. They decide to act out a tragic romance, and each person takes their part to study, agreeing to meet later on.

Out third scene unveils Oberon, King of the Fairies. He is attended by his jester and lieutenant Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow. Oberon is angry with Titiana, his wife, for she has denied him one of her attendants, a young changeling boy from India. Seeking to teach Titiana a lesson, Oberon sends Puck to collect a rare flower touched by Cupid's arrow. When this flower's juice is placed on the eyes, that person falls madly in love with the first person they see.

While Puck is away, Oberon spies upon Demetrius and Helena. Helena, in a desperate attempt to gain his favor, has told Demetrius of Hermia and Lysander's plan. Demetrius and Helena go traipsing through the woods, and Oberon is swayed by Helena's plight in this one-sided romance. Upon Puck's return, Oberon charges him with taking some of the flower's dew and placing it on Demetrius, so that he may love Helena. Oberon himself then enchants Titiana's eyes as she sleeps. Puck, however, mistakenly enchants Lysander, turning his heart from Hermia to Helena.

Thinking his job well done, Puck finds the troupe of actors, and selects Nick Bottom, a weaver, to fulfill Oberon's plan. He turns the actor into a beast, giving Bottom the head of a donkey. As Titiana awakens, she falls in love with the transfigured man, much to the glee of Oberon and Puck.

The remainder of the play focuses on the ensuing drama and how each situation is resolved. While not Shakespeare's greatest work, A Midsummer Night's Dream is memorable for his depiction of faerie and humorous reflection, via Bottom, on the nature of man. But more than anything, rereading this Shakespearean classic reminded me just how much his plays work one's vocabulary.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Shakespeare created a brilliant template with A Midsummer Night's Dream. Under a midsummer moon, lovers find and lose each other, friends become enemies and back again, lines are blurred between classes and between fairies and mortals. Until recently, I didn't realize how much one of my favorite plays and movies, The Philadelphia Story, owes to A Midsummer Night's Dream. There's the estranged/divorced married couple, the pre-wedding setting, the characters falling in love (and blurring class lines) under influence of a mind-altering drug, whether it's the juice of a rare flower or Pommery champagne. Philip Barry even sets the play on midsummer night and explicitly refers to it by having Tracy's younger sister Dinah say "it's supposed to be the longest day of the year or something" (to which Tracy, coping with the escalating complications of her wedding day, replies, "I wouldn't doubt it for a minute.").

Then there's A Little Night Music and the movie upon which it is based, Ingmar Bergman's exquisite Smiles of a Summer Night. Once again lovers change partners beneath a midsummer moon (beautifully evoked by a waltz among birch trees in the opening of A Little Night Music). But while the majority of the lovers in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Philadelphia Story end up back with their original partner (Demetrius being a notable exception) in A Little Night Music/Smiles of a Summer Night, the majority of the lovers change partners and end the story with the new partner. One might say that the events of the night help Frederik recover from the madness of his love for his child-bride Anne and back to his far more real love for his former mistress Desirée. "A coherent existence," as Desirée puts it. Frederik, like The Philadelphia Story's Tracy Lord, finds his eyes opened in the course of a midsummer night's adventures.

Beneath a Silent Moon offers my own take on the midsummer night theme. I actually scoured A Midsummer Night's Dream for quotes when looking for a title. for the book but couldn't find one my publisher and I agreed on. I love Beneath a Silent Moon as a title (it was a suggestion of my agent, Nancy Yost) because while it isn't a quote, to me it conjures up the moon imagery which is so prevalent in Dream. Perhaps not surprisingly, my version of midsummer madness includes lots of spies, smugglers, and secret meetings beneath a silent moon. But the elements are still there. Lovers find and lose each other, partners change, old loves are rekindled. Lovers and lunatics seem not so very far apart. "Love isn't sensible," Quen tells his former lover. "Love's a fire that can't be contained. Until it burns itself out."

Writing this blog post, I realized Beneath a Silent Moon even offers it's own dark twist on theme of a wedding party. Charles and Mélanie aren't precisely estranged, but they are certainly struggling to define the dynamics of their marriage. And there's a birch coppice which serves at the setting for midnight adventures, my own homage to the birch wood in A Little Night Music.

At the end of the book, Mélanie thinks, somewhat ironically, of the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill. I think that Charles, like Tracy and Frederick and Titania waking from enchantment, finds his eyes opened in the course of the story.

Do you like stories with midsummer settings? Any thoughts on the one's I've mentioned? Any new examples to add? This week's Fraser Correspondence addition is Gisèle's take on midsummer madness, in a letter to her cousin Aline (Lady Frances's daughter, married to Geoffrey Blackwell).

Also, all this week I have the honor of being Guest Author on Candice Hern's wonderful message boards. Do stop by and chat (I have a dread of being the guest author no one asks questions of :-).

Today’s Photo Friday is entitled: Midsummer Night's Dream

Follow the links below for other entries (I will add links as entries come in!):

Tall Chick Tales

Idea jump!

A picture's worth a thousand words

Blahblahblog (Linda is away at the moment but is posting in absentia!)

Below: music to get you in the mood: The piece is the Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream.

We are a day early since traditionally the 21st June is Midsummer night! Midsummer has been celebrated in Europe for many centuries and some traditions predate Christianity. Traditionally all turning points of the solar year were celebrated, and midsummer was originally celebrated as the summer solstice.

The word "solstice" comes from the Latin "sol" meaning sun and "stice" to stand still. Midsummer's day - June 21st - marks the summer solstice, the day when the sun reaches its northernmost point and stops before beginning its journey back to the south of the equator. The sun reaches its highest point in the sky and Midsummer's Day is the longest day of the year - in northern latitudes of the British Isles the sun is only just below the horizon even at midnight, and it never gets completely dark.

Midsummer is thought to be a magical time, and there are many superstitions connected with it. Almost all magic is said to be more powerful at Midsummer and Midsummer dew is said to have special healing powers. The superstitions vary from young girls washing their faces in the dew, to make themselves more beautiful - older people do the same to make themselves look younger. And it is said that if you walk barefoot in the dew on Midsummer Day's morning, it will stop the skin from getting chapped. If you can brave the sometimes chilly June night and bring yourself to dance naked through the dew, then it will also ensure fertility for the coming year! It is also said that you dream of your true love on Midsummer night, the one to which you will become betrothed - and so many hopeful young lovers go to sleep thinking hard about the one they love, perchance to dream.

Many of you will be familiar with one of my favourite light hearted Shakespeare plays, a romantic comedy: A Midsummer Night's Dream. The main plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream is a complex and involves two sets of couples (Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius) whose romantic cross-purposes are complicated still further by their entrance into the play's fairyland woods where the King and Queen of the Fairies (Oberon and Titania) preside and the impish folk character of Puck or Robin Goodfellow plies his trade. Less subplot than a brilliant satirical device, another set of characters—Bottom the weaver and his bumptious band of "rude mechanicals"—stumble into the main doings when they go into the same enchanted woods to rehearse a play that is very loosely (and comically) based on the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe. The play is charming and fun, hilarious in parts - and has a classic happy ending where each wins the hand of their love.

So - what's this got to do with Photo Friday, I can hear you ask? Well, I decided to create my own enchanted woodland! Below, is a recent favourite photo I took of my husband P standing on a tree trunk in a bluebell wood - I didn't ask him to pose - I just turned around and he had climbed on to the stump of a tree (it's a boy thing!!!!) so I quickly took his photograph - and that gave me the idea for this week's title.  Then, with a little photographic manipulation, a few tweaks, and the help of Google image search, I introduced magical companions for him in the form on beautiful enchanting fairies. Don't you think he makes a good Oberon?

Photo Friday: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Photo Friday Advance Diary:

27th June: Tall Chick Tales choice: Sunrise/ Sunset
4th July: CuriousC’s choice: Traditions
11th July: CordieB’s choice - TO BE NOTIFIED
18th July: Julie’s choice - TO BE NOTIFIED

"No one can say, now, when the nudity explosion will occur. But when it happens it will be bitter, noisy and exciting."

~ Murray Schumach in The Face on the Cutting Room Floor, The story of movie and television censorship, 1964.

Schumach gets points for realising that nudity was inevitable. As early as 1964, breasts and buttocks were massed, quivering, on the Hollywood horizon, ready to engulf the town. That very year, Sidney Lumet struck a decisive blow for bareness by forcing female nudes upon the public in THE PAWNBROKER, a film so obviously creditable and worthy and impossible to enjoy, the censor was forced to give way and open the nipple floodgates. Although looking at it today it's somewhat strange how well-fed the naked ladies of the Nazi concentration camp "joy division" are. But then, Rod Steiger looks pretty well-fed for a prisoner too, especially since presumably he's NOT supposed to be screwing the guards for preferential treatment. Although you never know, I suppose.

Above we have Dame Nudie Dench, I think playing Titania, appropriately enough, in Peter Hall's long-vanished film of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Has anyone seen it? Is it dreadful?

For some reason the sentence "Nice rack, Dame Judi!" strikes me as deeply amusing, but I suppose I'll grow out of it.

My interest grew more and more after the play, Shakespeare always came easy to me, I credit the King James Version of the Holy Bible, once you read this version of the Bible, you're understanding of various types of writing come a bit easier in my opinion. I became interested in his poems and sonnets after purchasing a paperback of the collection at an outlet bookstore. I immersed myself in sonnets, learning more than just the popular lines men used for pick up lines and wannabe scholars for kicks.

In my years I forgot the sonnets I loved so much, until my small paperback made it's way back into my hands. I started to read Chloe my beloved sonnets, watching her eyes look at the pages, listening to the sound of my voice, not knowing exactly what she's hearing, just words from a favorite voice. I can only hope one day these "words from a favorite voice" become something magical and calming to her, just like they were to me, just like they still are.

So I leave you with my most loved Shakespeare Sonnet.

65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'ersways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

O, none, unless this miracle have might,

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

This week sees the final week of our Spring/Summer tour with performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Venue Cymru in Llandudno from Wed 4 - Sat 7 June.

Provisional casting is as follows - as always, please remember that this is subject to change at any time.

Wed 4
Theseus         Hiro Takahashi
Hippolyta       Keiko Amemori
Hermia           Georgina May
Helena           Christie Duncan
Lysander        Kenneth Tindall
Demetrius      Toby Batley
Puck               Victoria Sibson

Thur 5 matinee
Theseus         Darren Goldsmith
Hippolyta       Pippa Moore
Hermia           Hannah Bateman
Helena           Christie Duncan
Lysander        Toby Batley
Demetrius      Ashley Dixon
Puck               Kieran Stoneley

Thur 5 evening
Theseus         Hiro Takahashi
Hippolyta       Keiko Amemori
Hermia           Georgina May
Helena           Michela Paolacci
Lysander        Kenneth Tindall
Demetrius      David Ward
Puck               Ashley Dixon

Fri 6
Theseus         Martin Bell
Hippolyta       Martha Leebolt
Hermia           Lori Gilchrist
Helena           Christie Duncan
Lysander        Yi Song
Demetrius      Toby Batley
Puck               Ashley Dixon

Sat 7 matinee
Theseus         Darren Goldsmith
Hippolyta       Pippa Moore
Hermia           Lori Gilchrist
Helena           Michela Paolacci
Lysander        Yi Song
Demetrius      David Ward
Puck               Kieran Stoneley

Sat 7 evening
Theseus         Martin Bell
Hippolyta       Martha Leebolt
Hermia           Keiko Amemori
Helena           Michela Paolacci
Lysander        Hiro Takahasho
Demetrius      David Ward
Puck               Victoria Sibson

Tickets are still available and can be purchased on 01492 872000 or online at www.venuecymru.co.uk

Here is a provisional casting for the production:

Tues 27
Theseus - Martin Bell
Hippolyta - Martha Leebolt
Hermia - Georgina May
Helena - Pippa Moore
Lysander - Kenneth Tindall
Demetrius - Christopher Hinton-Lewis
Puck - Ashley Dixon

Wed 28
Theseus - Hiro Takahashi
Hippolyta - Keiko Amemori
Hermia - Georgina May
Helena - Christie Duncan
Lysander - Kenneth Tindall
Demetrius - Toby Batley
Puck - Victoria Sibson

Thurs 29 matinee
Theseus - Martin Bell
Hippolyta - Martha Leebolt
Hermia - Hannah Bateman
Helena - Christie Duncan
Lysander - Kenneth Tindall
Demetrius - Christopher Hinton-Lewis
Puck - Kieran Stoneley

Thurs 29 eve
Theseus - Darren Goldsmith
Hippolyta - Pippa Moore
Hermia - Lori Gilchrist
Helena - Michela Paolacci
Lysander - Yi Song
Demetrius - David Ward
Puck - Victoria Sibson

Fri 30
Theseus - Hiro Takahashi
Hippolyta - Keiko Amemori
Hermia - Georgina May
Helena - Michela Paolacci
Lysander - Kenneth Tindall
Demetrius - David Ward
Puck - Kieran Stonley

Sat 31 matinee
Theseus - Hiro Takahashi
Hippolyta - Keiko Amemori
Hermia - Lori Gilchrist
Helena - Christie Duncan
Lysander - Yi Song
Demetrius - Toby Batley
Puck - Victoria Sibson

Sat 31 eve
Theseus - Martin Bell
Hippolyta - Martha Leebolt
Hermia - Georgina Roberts
Helena - Pippa Moore
Lysander - Kenneth Tindall
Demetrius - Christopher Hinton-Lewis
Puck - Ashley Dixon

Four of NBT's dancers took part in a fashion shoot for the Manchester Evening News ahead of performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Palace Theatre last week.

Georgina May, Yi Song, Michela Paolacci and David Ward posed in beautiful 1940s costumes from the production at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, sometimes getting right down to their stylish smalls! (Photos: Sean Wilton)

The pictures accompanied Helen Tither's article interview with David Nixon who not only choreographed the ballet but also designed the costumes. HERE

Click here to read a review of the first night performance at the Palace

Shakespeare’s poetry does not rhyme, and its meaning is not always evident.  To me sometimes it sounds forced.  And his plays do not interest me.  Literature class forced Romeo and Juliet upon me, and in respect for a friend I read Tweflth Night.  So I don’t have a lot of exposure to his plays, and I have never seen them acted.  If I had, their interpretation might have more hold on my heart.  Most of all I find that Shakespeare is overrated. 

Perhaps, however, he is under-read.  The one thing that tempts me to scorn my own opinion of Shakespeare is that whenever a true fan of his work, someone who has invested the thought to understand his themes, has described to me a play or a couplet, I have enjoyed the metaphor.  The Danish prince on Prince and Me aids the American farmgirl in her literature class by directing her penetration of Shakespeare’s sonnets.  My immediate reaction is that any poetry that requires so much thinking is not romantic, though it masquerades as such.  Maybe the metaphors were more common, or the objects of comparison an everyday thought.  But I must praise the ability to say more with words than the words themselves, to do something with choice of words and order, rhythm and association, pattern and emphasis that has, even to those unaware, layers of influence and meaning.  My friend who convinced me to read Twelfth Night explained the statement Merchant of Venice is on Jewish philosophy.  I greatly enjoyed that.  When Chesterton critiques A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I feel let in on the secret.  And occasionally when I catch radio host Hugh Hewitt interviewing David Allen White, a literature lecturer, about a piece of Shakespeare, I am delighted by the events and ideas Shakespeare addressed.  How he did it from a cottage in the country I’ll never know. 

Dickens always ought to be musical.  Because Jo March and her sisters liked him, I always felt guilty for despising his work.  I wanted story, and Dickens talked about issues, the dark, depressing issues of London which one hopes have been reformed since his creative efforts to address them.  I feel very much as though I was being told what to do, a list of morals told in story form.  Again, whoever makes the selections for literature books is sadly out of touch with students.  I read a shadowy scene of Pip visits Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, and found myself very bored.  If Oliver had not been set to music, I would have been turned off by the immorality and violence of the tale.  But don’t you see that to make it musical, someone had to understand the story and love it enough to adorn it for the world to enjoy?  A radio interview and Chesterton again are responsible for the majority of the interest I have in Charles Dickens.  The former described the magic of the words the classic author used, how each word added to the tone of the novel. 

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote to Dickens, and shared his concern for their country’s social issues.  Through her stories I feel as though I receive commentary on Dickens, both a defense and a rebuttal of his work.  Her novels are more realistic, more on the border of the issues to enable her readers, themselves well outside the slums, to look in at a window, gently led like Mr. Scrooge by the ghost to look at the needs of others.  Her heroes have compassion held as an example to the readers.  They learn and love just like the rest of us.  Even her villains are not completely bad.  Each has a story that, while it cannot justify their rebellion, is a justification for kindness shown to them. 

To move my heart a story must be near enough my own experience.  Few people today have family feuds preventing childhood romance.  No one I know was beaten in an orphanage.  Maybe in some parts of the world or my city these things are the case, but my life is without them.  Jane Austen appeals to me because she writes about families with normal problems and interests.  Tolkien intrigues me because, though he sets it in a fantastic world of elves, goblins, and dragons, his epic deals with the basic cases of right and wrong, sacrifice and friendship, and the choices everyday to turn back.  More grown up than when I took literature class, I appreciate biographies for mapping the way individuals of the past navigated the questions of life.  New genres are opening to me; maybe soon I will love the classics on my own. 

Last summer I hosted a literature party in which each girl or lady was invited to bring a passage from her favorite children’s book.  There was Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, Little House on the Prairie, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Alexander, and more.  I liked best loving those books through the eyes of my friends, to have them share with me what is so relevant or poetic or sentimental about the stories. 

So many people talk about classic authors.  I wonder if they do not derive some of their potency and meaning from being a matter of commentary and interpretation.  Is Shakespeare truly better when discussed?  Dickens wrote for the very purpose of stirring thought and inspiring movement in his society.  And what writer does not write to be read and to matter? 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

Stratford has historically been lily-white.  The first time I saw a non-white actor in any Stratford show was in 1999 when I saw West Side Story (The Stratford Shakespeare Festival isn't only about Shakespeare.  In fact, this year, they're also doing George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra.  Nikki M. James is also in this show, replacing Anika Noni Rose as Cleopatra.  Julius Caesar will be played by Christopher Plummer.) where all of the Sharks were played by non-white performers.  Maria was played by Miss Saigon alumna, Ma-Anne Dionisio.  Since then, Stratford has had more non-white performers, though not plenty.

Does colour-blind casting change the interpretation?  For example, in 1999, the role of Ellen, Chris' American wife in Miss Saigon, was played by Margaret Ann Gates, who is of Korean descent.  As Miss Saigon is supposed to be the "updated," 1970s version of Madame Butterfly, one would expect Ellen to be a white, southern belle.  When Margaret Ann was cast, message boards (this was the late 90s - not too many blogs at that time) were flooded with threads with titles such as "was he just seeking a replacement?"  or "does he even love his wife?".  Had Margaret Ann been white like all the previous non-understudies, these threads would not have existed.  But these online critics were harmless compared to Michael Crawford's replacement, Robert Guillaume, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera.  Many people just weren't ready to see a black Phantom and many returned their tickets even before he made his debut.  However, Robert Guillaume's run as the Phantom was nonetheless popular.   Some people even found the 1997 version of Cinderella, starring Brandy and Whoppi Goldberg to be distracting.  However, that was TV, and TV has a very different audience, often one that isn't as enlightened.

For some reason, tragic shows are more likely to go for colour-blind casting, and the actors are usually cast in tragic roles.  Les Miserables has done so since at least the early 1990s, when Toni Braxton made her debut as Eponine.  Other non-white Eponines have included Ma-Anne Dionisio, Lea Salonga and Joana Ampil (for some reason, they like to cast former Kims as Eponine.  Similar role, I guess).  Lea has also played Fantine.  Javert, the evil policeman in the production, has been played by Norm Lewis, who is African-American. Brandy's Cinderella, a Canadian touring production of Grease! (Ma-Anne Dionisio was Sandy) and a mid 90s production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I saw with my English class in middle school are the only non-tragedies I can think of.

How do YOU feel about colour-blind casting?  Good?  Bad?  Does it only work if a non-white performer is cast in a traditionally white role (unless, of course, you're doing a "reverse" production of say, Othello)? Does it only work if the person in the role is a big name (think Denzel playing Brutus in Julius Caesar or any of the "big named" stage actors like Lea or Ma-Anne) Feedback!!!

Reading: An Ode to Mashed Potatoes

Thinking: I'm done with my paper, I'm done with my paper, I'm done with my paper!!!!!!!! Hallelujah and praise the Lord!

How to Annoy Me: Completely disregard everything I have ever said in my blog and personal communications! Are you kidding me?!

How to Charm Me: *blows kisses to Maurice, Red Wine Gums, and Jenn* If it weren't for the three of you, the nice men in the white coats would be coming to take me away right now. Bless you.

Things I Don't Understand: Men. And women. People in general. *scowls*

Quote of the Day: Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?....I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus! - A Midsummer Night's Dream

I've run into a bit of an artistic dilemma though with the project. I want the temple to appear an authentic Greek temple, but with that said I also want the temple eventually to be part of a larger sim inspired from Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The play is set in Athens so I don't see a problem there with having lots of Greek artifacts about, but I also want my temple to reflect the fact that this is a Shakespearean and British work of art, and want the temple in some ways to symbolically reflect on the entire play. But including a huge statue of Shakespeare in the front, as I have it now, while looking great, creates an artistic clash. Shakespeare wasn't Greek at all, and the image of him surrounded by books I created for the project doesn't quite look right. So now I have to make a decision. Do I maintain the authentic Greek feel I was striving for, or do I go for a more postmodern look, and mix Greek and Shakespearean images?

His 37 plays impacted world literature.

He married Ann Hathaway, had three children, moved to London, and became shareholding director of Globe Theater, writing such classics as Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In King Henry VIII, 1613, act III, scene ii, line 456, Shakespeare wrote:

"Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies."

In Othello, 1604, act I, scene i, line 108, Shakespeare wrote:

"You are one of those that will not serve God if the devil bid you."

Four years before the Pilgrims landed in America at Plymouth Rock, Shakespeare died on this same day, APRIL 23, in 1616. In his Will, Shakespeare wrote:

"I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting."

Carved on his tomb in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon, England, is: "Good Friend For Jesus Sake Forbeare, To Digg The Dust Enclosed Heare. Blese Be Ye Man Spares Thes Stones, And Curst Be He Moves My Bones."

Stiff Right Jab, contributing editor, William J. Federer, is author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion.” A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet.

You are not pretty.

By ...?

"Graeme Stewart slips on his dancing shoes for an extraordinary night at the Grand Opera House

Northern Ballet Theatre have achieved something extraordinary with A Midsummer Night's Dream. They have taken one of English literature's best-loved plays, changing nothing and everything at the same time.

With a creative team including artistic director David Nixon, set designer Duncan Hayler and music director John Pryce-Jones, the production is a stunning display of visual and musical delights, and certainly one of the best contemporary interpretations of Shakespeare's masterpiece..."

Read the rest of the review here.

Jag såg Batman Returns (lite pinsamt att jag som Batman-nörd inte hade sett den förrän nu - men mer om det en annan gång) här i förmiddags (varför tittar man på film på förmiddagen? Jo, man bor hemma hos sina föräldrar och då är det då som TVn är ledig) och förnyade min tonårsförälskelse (kan jag få in en tredje lång parentes i en enda mening? Jadå, för den som är petig så är jag ju faktiskt tonåring i en vecka till men strunt samma) i Michelle Pfeiffer. Eh, ja, utan parenteser blir det alltså: Jag såg Batman Returns här i förmiddags och förnyade min tonårsförälskelse i Michelle Pfeiffer.

Så, där har ni det svart på vitt. Min bekännelse.

Nejdå, men allvarligt talat så är hon ju himla vacker. Visserligen är hon nästan femtio men det här med ålder behöver inte spela så stor roll i det här fallet tycker jag. Sen tycker jag visserligen inte att Catwoman är hennes ideala roll, nej, hon är snarare vacker på det där där mystiska sättet. Sådär som Titania i En midsommarnatts dröm till exempel. Det betyder väl att hon borde vara bra i Stardust också, men den har jag inte sett och det är lite emot mina principer att se en film bara för att jag gillar en skådespelare (ok, ska jag vara helt ärlig mot mig själv hade jag nog aldrig kommit på att se Chicago om det inte vore för Catherine Zeta-Jones - nu är visserligen Chicago sevärd vare sig man gillar henne eller inte men det är en annan sak).

Vad ska man säga egentligen? Hade jag fått göra film av Lord of the Rings så hade jag offrat min högra hand för att få in henne som Galadriel. Men nu var det ju inte jag som gjorde LOTR. Det var en tjock nya zeeländare (att han är tjock har egentligen ingenting med saken att göra men meningen såg så tråkig ut utan ett attribut där). Och klaga på LOTR-filmerna kan jag göra någon annan gång. Det är jag bra på. Men inte här. Det här var min hyllning till Michelle Pfeiffer. Och nu var det gjort. Tillbaka till det verkliga livet. Tillbaka till middagen som ska wokas innan mamma hinner hem.

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