I just wanted to tell you about my night tonight. For their finals, my students had to do some performances. And powerful performances they truly were. I was very pleased with what I saw:
1. One Romeo and Juliet scene done with pirates and Mercutio killed by a fatal conk on the forehead. ‘A bump!’ he shouted, ‘A plague on both your houses!' Coincidentally, the actress playing Mercutio, Stacy, had cracked her head on a pole the previous evening, so her goose egg was purple and absolutely authentic.
2. Another Romeo and Juliet scene done ghetto style with switched genders. Stuart played the Nurse. The kind of Nurse, apparently, who wears gold lame tube tops and hooker skirts with fuchsia lipstick. Stuart enjoyed his role a tad too much. (To each his own!) I liked all the ‘hood dialogue, as it added to the layers of Elizabethan language and reminded us all that Romeo should have checked himself before he wrecked himself, yo.
3. A delightful Pyramus and Thisbe scene where Thisbe was actually played by a girl, and Mark Pugh did some Irish dancing with a pole right before Pyramus’ suicide. Pretty funny stuff. Amy was a pleasant wall, but her moon performance was truly memorable. She stood very still, holding an opaque white exercise ball.
4. An original ten minute musical! Several ladies dressed in black mourned a dubious death, and then plotted to kill each other to win an inheritance. The music was all original, sung by the talented songstress Jen Driggs. I liked the part when they sang ‘There’s going to be a murder...tonight!....tonight?....tonight?.....tonight! I also liked when the chandelier fell and killed the police inspectors. Real stage magic!
5. The world premiere of the Hyde Park Players’ hilarious comedy Where’s George? The practicum class has been rehearsing this little piece for weeks and it all came together tonight for one magical performance. And by magical, I mean that it was magically shorter than usual. Because they accidentally skipped 8 pages of dialogue. The forgiving audience plead with them for deleted scenes after the curtain call, which they got. So, in the end, everyone found out Where George actually went.
After a night of homespun theatre, we headed across the street to Hyde Park for Dominos pizza and Fallon’s amazing salad for thirty. As the sun went down, we played kick-the-can and steal-the-flag in the long grass, hiding behind giant oaks and maples like a bunch of American sprites. Finally, in true Kumbaya style, we gathered in a circle with a guitar and sang Peaceful Easy Feelin,’ taking turns to make up hilarious alternative lyrics which slyly documented our six weeks together in one amazing city.
