O, for a Muse of fire!

About this time every year the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival presents their outdoor production of Shakespeare in the Park. This year's production is one of my personal favourites, Henry V (the honors for my favourite belong to Macbeth).

Die Frau and I went out twice. Once about two weeks ago and again Friday night. When you're watching a good production of the Bard you get pulled in, almost forgetting it's theatre. Wait a minute. Isn't that the point?!? There are, however, fewer things more agonising than watching bad Shakespeare (or worse, being forced to listen to your high school classmates read it aloud in the most boring possible!).

The production was quite good. The acting, for the most part, was terrific. Except the Dauphin. I told J (as in J and C, J who still doesn't have a blog, hi J) that he acts like he wants to be Harry Lennix when he grows up. He was good. Just a little tooooo melodramatic. The costuming and set design were fantastic. Though I wouldn't have wanted to wear one of those costumes Friday night as it was still around 85 degrees and humid as hell an hour after sundown! There was music. Some of it played as underscore but it mostly played during scene changes. I'm not sure what the attempted effect was but it seemed a bit distracting to me. The "Royal Music" sounded a bit too "Welcome to 79th Academy Awards!" and the "Peasant Music" was a little too Titanic, but I suppose it did it's job.

I'm convinced that there are fewer speeches written in any language that, when done well, can make you want to take up arms quite like the St. Crispin's Day speech.

Goosebumps.

Twice.

Oh sure, the speech that precedes the battle of Sterling in Braveheart is good. That is, it's good until you understand that it's modeled entirely after the St. Crispin's Day speech. Way to go Randall Wallace.

The other plus of the festival is that, since there is no charge for admission, you can BYOB. Which we did. And food. Good wine, good food, good friends, good Shakespeare. Good grief! That's what I call a good night.