CurlyShavings

Professor Cecil Isaac first pointed me to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1991 in a distraction to a music appreciation course I was taking with him and I doubt I have ever sufficiently thanked him for it. Since then I have listened to a radio-theater version multiple times and read and re-read the script many, many multiples of times. So seventeen years later I was extremely tickled to see a poster at Tommy's in Coventry that my wife pointed out with our local Cleveland Shakespeare Festival (CSF) offering both Hamlet and R&G. (I think it was the children who first saw the poster and wanted to know why the guy was kissing the skull!)

Times being what they are (Indifferent? No, just busy!), we were unable to properly schedule our date until the last weekend of the performances, August 2nd and 3rd. The other details of the evenings can be found nearby. Here's what we thought of the plays.

Hamlet

Prior to this weekend I had dusted off my old Yale Shakespeare to re-read. I had forgotten that Hamlet was "just a bunch of old quotes strung together" and re-reading helped bring those famous lines back to the forefront.

CSF did a marvelous job with our local talent and made the evening quite enjoyable. Dusten Welch (Hamlet) was (in my wife's words) either not feeling well or truly mad and either way, his performance worked for us. Erin Barnes (Ophelia) made you want to skip around the stage along with her when she was in love and rush out to comfort her as we watched her heartrending decent toward her death. She captured the "O, woe is me" (III.i.164) very well as she came undone and unraveled before us. She may actually be my favorite performance in this play.

The performance was well-done with both the minimal scenery, props and actors. Nothing was superfluous and yet nothing was lacking either. The partitions were well used and act and scene delineations were clear when they needed to be. The sound was adequate as both the actors and the sound system fought against the gentle NNE wind that cooled us that evening.

All-in-all we had a wonderful evening with a great play and a moving performance with convincing acting. CleveShakes did a wonderful job.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Although I probably didn't need it, I dusted off my 1991 paperback of this name and this past week re-read it as well. Stoppard's mastery of the English language comes out very well in this work. He takes common words, uses them uncommonly, weaves them in such a way as to obfuscate his desired meaning and supplies alternate meanings as the situation calls for it.

I'm not certain how CSF cast the actors for either of these plays. I doubt I would have chosen Allen Branstein (Rosencrantz) or Erin McCardle (Guildenstern) for either (or both) of these works but they both surprised me and delighted me. I think their casting became clearer in R&G as we watched them play off each other and bring Stoppard's work to life. Branstein was convincingly off-kilter while McCardle tried to ground him. And a female Guildenstern? Well, that worked, too.

In fact this time around I noticed a steady and gradual increase in Rosencrantz' madness while Guildenstern actually grew more grounded. I was impressed with both their performances.

At one point my wife poked me and commented that the dialog was maddening, but I would place that more as Stoppard's responsibility than the actors. (Or perhaps she hears such back-and-forth near-meaningless dialog from the children all day?)

My sole complaint was the after-ending when R&G appeared from after being declared "dead" to begin spinning coins again. Perhaps it was an attempt to continue the humor and comedy of this play after the large body count at Hamlet's ending. Maybe that makes it more family friendly, but they were "dead" and dead they should remain. A minor point perhaps, but it did lessen my enjoyment and confuse my wife.

Overall

Many thanks to CSF for putting these two marvelous plays on and making them so accessible. There were large audiences both evenings and folks genuinely seemed to have good time. I certainly enjoyed both and so did my wife. Being able to do so in a weekend was icing on the cake.

The past 48 hours has been extremely busy for us. Here's what's been shaking.

Home Repair

Saturday morning found me up a ladder at a friend's house, cleaning a five-foot long section of downspout and tarping the resulting rotting shingle siding. The goal was to make it sufficiently functional that the water stops leaking into the foyer but sufficiently ugly that the homeowner wouldn't leave the tarp there indefinitely.

Sailing Lake Erie

Dinner at Cleveland's Saigon

After picking up and installing the baby-sitter, we headed to Cleveland's tasty East 4th Street for dinner at Cleveland's Saigon restaurant. Not far from my employer, I've eaten here three or four times and have developed a taste for BBQ Beef over Rice (C2). We have a rule in our house that you can't have the same dish twice in a row (unless Mom is serving leftovers) so I had to try something different: Salt-baked Scallop (T6). My wife had the Lemongrass Beef (E5). While I tasted hers and she enjoyed it thoroughly, I much preferred mine. Oh! Scallops were meant to be eaten! And whoever thought to lightly-salt and bake them?! The portion was a bit too big but that didn't stop me. Perhaps I could convince them to serve a lunch portion some day.

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival's Hamlet

Elsewhere on these pages I describe our evening watching Hamlet. Less than two miles from dinner, a quick jaunt down the freeway to West 14th street saw us to Tremont's Lincoln Park to see CSF's Saturday evening performance.

The weather (temperature, light and humidity) was perfect. The wind was a bit strong from the wrong quadrant, NNE, which, while blowing the actor's words away from us, also kept us from telling a hawk from a handsaw. Probably also kept the mosquitoes away, too.

All in all, a very good day and an excellent night.

Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church

Sunday mornings find us at church. While there are many, many Presbyterian churches in the area, there are few nearby that hold to their ancient roots as much as the former RPCGA and, to some extent, the PCA. So we drive a gazillion miles to Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, part of the John Knox Presbytery. Why do we go there? It's complicated. Ask me some time.

Housekeeping

We're certainly not legalists. We (including the children) have kept the Sabbath on other days and therefore needed to break it this Sabbath. So we cleaned house on a Sunday because we rested some other day when we should have been working.

Cleveland's Zócalo

After picking up and installing the baby-sitter, we headed to Cleveland's tasty East 4th Street for dinner at Cleveland's Zócalo restaurant. Not far from my employer, I've eaten here three or four times and have developed a taste for Enchilada and/or Tamale Platos de Combinacion. We have a rule in our house that you can't have the same dish twice in a row (unless Mom is serving leftovers) so I had to try something different: Chile Relleno, one cheese and one beef.

I was under-impressed. My cheese Chile Relleno wasn't completely melted. I was surprised to find zucchini and asparagus in my beef Chile Relleno. Perhaps if I'd just gotten the one and not both? I don't know. The Queso Fundido was tasty though as were the chips, salsa and bean dip.

My wife may have had the best, though. She had the Sopa Tortilla Con Limón and it smelled and looked marvelous. She claimed to have liked it, too!

I think my fault with Zócalo is that having eaten extensively in Texas, Mexico and places further south (to the equator), there's a certain something that is hard to reproduce in northeast Ohio. It seems that only the fanciest restaurant or the humblest hole-in-the-wall can make good, authentic Mexican food.

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Elsewhere on these pages I describe our evening watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Less than two miles from dinner, a quick jaunt down the freeway to West 14th street saw us to Tremont's Lincoln Park gazebo to see CSF's Saturday evening performance.

The weather (temperature, light and humidity) was again perfect. I have wanted to see this play since 1991 and finally got to see it.

The Tremont Scoops mint chocolate-chip ice cream sandwiches are awesome!

All in all, another very good day and an excellent night.

I will most definitely be watching Cleveland's Shakespeare Festival's website for next year's announcements. We will be back!

Sunday, driving on our wait to church, I turned around to find the 2 year-old "reading" Dr. Suess, the 5 year-old reading his Bible, the 12 year-old reading the comics and the 8 year-old reading an American Girl book.

It felt rewarding.

Mom was driving and I was trying to catch up on my sleep (didn't work).

I'm not sure why this is impacting me so much. I mean, they moved in last October and we didn't really know they were there until we helped dig them out this March after the huge snow storm this year.

Today is their last day in their house. We had them over once. Talked over the fence a few times. He wants to build a boat. They have a little girl. They're friendly. They drive a Honda. He has a nice tool shop (bandsaw, etc.). They didn't seem to hate us.

Not sure why I pinned some hopes on a friendship.

Now they're moving to Georgia. I hope their house sells quickly and they get what they want.

Godspeed, Troy and Tracy.

Eldest daughter's birthday was a couple weeks ago and she took us to Tommy's for breakfast (she had pancakes).

On the way out, she noticed that if you stand at the right spot, you can make their sign say "Please Wait to be Eated"!

There's a website with a scatological PG-13 title that has accepted a couple of submissions of mine. It seems to poke at builders in the city who build bad buildings. Whether it is an architectural detail or just a bad design, the unknown author published pictures and a short blast against whatever has been discovered recently.

Here's one on a sidewalk near where I walk many days.

Here's another one on a different sidewalk, also near one of my walks.

I was out at Beaumont for Saturday and left early Sunday morning. There's a cache near the front gate . . .

curlyshavings found The Main Gate (Traditional Cache)

On my way home following an OA Vigil ceremony. Thanks for the hide!

While out at Beaumont, our Scout camp this weekend, I bumped into a naturalist who was taking some specie inventories and had just stumbled upon something that wasn't supposed to be there. I which I had taken better notes. He said it was a Calla Lily Dogwood and quite unusual for Ohio. I believe it was on the threatened list.

I figured if it was that rare, it wouldn't be hard to find given those three words. But I can't seem to find any reference to it anywhere.

Oh, well. He showed it to me. I saw it.

He said that based on his observations, he was going to recommend taking it from threatened to something else. I'm not being much help here, am I?

Take me out to the ballgame! My wife and kids made it to a Pirates game today. I, however, went to a Cubs game. Of course, we're at the same PNC Park...

This was a birthday present for my wife, the one in the Pirates hat and Pirates jersey, diligently keeping score.

Cubs won, 2-0. By the end of the 9th inning, there seemed to be more Cubs fans than Pirates fans!

And the much-needed rain held off until the game was over.

As mentioned elsewhere, we were at PNC Park today.

curlyshavings found Mini Tribute (Traditional Cache)

Take me out to the ballgame! My wife and kids (sirIan, Sweet+Pea and littleChip) are going to a Pirates game today. I, however, am headed to a Cubs game. Of course, we're at the same PNC Park...

Afterward we decided to drop by for this cache. Many thanks for showing us this little park.

This past weekend (August 23-24), I was out at Greater Cleveland Council's Camp Beaumont for Cuyahoga Lodge 17's Vigil weekend.

We had a great weekend both in terms of the Vigil ceremony and the weather. It would have been nice to have had more folks there and perhaps next year we will.

The main events took place Saturday evening and I had called a Trail Crew event for the morning and afternoon. Here's what I reported at the August 25^th Lodge Meeting:

The Saturday of the Vigil weekend, the Trail Crew worked on the trail leading to the Ceremony Site as well as placing a guidepost on the Beech Tree Trail, a total of seven hours.

The Ceremony Site Trail has six muddy spots, the worst of which is 40 feet from the beginning of the trail. This is due in part to shallow soil over clay, dense tree canopy and poor drainage features. During the weekend, this portion of the trail was partially graded, attempting to direct the water to the southern (lower) edge of the trail. As this technique will take some time to improve the trail, twenty feet of raised walkway was constructed and added (a "puncheon bridge") to take some of the stress off this portion of trail. When the trail begins to dry and it becomes clear that the grading is working, this "bridge" can be moved to another location.

Before

After

Additionally, the stump of the innermost left-hand post on the Ceremony Site Trail bridge was removed. Plans are being made to replace this 8"x8" post and its concrete footer during the October Fellowship weekend.

The hemlock blocking the left-hand totem pole was trimmed and the hanging maple branch on the northern end of the site was removed.