Gilmabelfest Day 3 - I am always having heavy-deep thoughts, except of course when I am not having heavy-deep thoughts.

I may have mentioned before that I've historically tended to use my summer trip out west as a time to assess my life, look at where I'm going, where I want to go, etc.

It's only just started, so I've come to no conclusions yet, I can only look at the couple things that have struck me...

Oscar Wilde's style of writing in epigrams is easy to make fun of like in this Monty Python skit. "There is only one thing worse than doing X, and that is not doing X."

I can resist everything except temptation.
I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

And so on. But there's a lot of truth in many of his lines. Like the famous one about "not being talked about." And I liked this one in the play last night: "in England a man who can’t talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician." The context in the play is that the protagonist can't come out and admit to something dishonest he did in his youth, because it would end his political career. And politicians have to act like their perfectly moral, for an audience full of immoral people. It's crazy.

And this line by Lord Goring struck me for the first time:

"Never mind what I say, Robert!  I am always saying what I shouldn’t say.  In fact, I usually say what I really think.  A great mistake nowadays.  It makes one so liable to be misunderstood."

No wonder Goring is my favourite character--that's the story of my life. Not that I believe in just spouting out everything that comes into my mind, and I don't. But there's something true in there, that the more real you are, the more likely you are to be misunderstood. I guess because you're not cleaning up and organizing the phrase for mass consumption first.

And I've always loved "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it." I take life very seriously, but that's not how I deal or interact with it. And the more serious I'm expected to be, the less I feel like myself.

Anyway, I'm just blathering. I'm not sure what I took away from An Ideal Husband, except that I know I took away something. At the very least it reinforced my love of all things Oscar.

What I got from [title of show] was a little simpler. It touches on all the usual themes in art, about being yourself, creating what you love, having confidence in your own vision, not editing yourself for mass consumption. One of the songs on that theme is Die, Vampire Die! And the other is Nine People's Favourite Thing: "I'd rather be nine people's favourite thing than a hundred peoples' ninth favourite thing." Nothing new or heavy deep, but I'm glad they included it in the show, because these things are definitely part of the creative process.

Anyway, that's it.

Gilmabelfest Day 3 - [title of show]

Heading out to [title of show].

We drove a good ways down the length of Yonge Street, so I was checking out the sights. Like the revelation that MTV is run by the Masons.

This store put spikes all over their letters, presumably to prevent pigeons from nesting. But the pigeons still found a spot!

Our play today was a small production of a not well known show called [title of show]. It's autobiographical, about two guys trying to write a musical about writing a musical, starring themselves and two friends. In real life (as in the play) they did this for a festival, and then got picked up off-Broadway, and in 2008 made it to Broadway.


I believe these are the two original guys:



It was really clever and funny, and the production we saw was so well done. So much so that I have trouble watching the original guys, because I feel like my actors were The Guys. If you have a chance to see it, I'd recommend it (though I can't vouch for the quality of other productions.) I see (on their list) one Canadian showing, in Montreal.

Oscar-D and Porthos-S pose before the theatah.

Return to Maison CG.

Pretty street whereupon is situated Maison CG.

And so Gilmabelfest nears its end. In an hour we're heading out for suppa with Midnightstreet & Vidal, and tomorrow morning I fly out. We've agreed this year was an even bigger success than last year--all three productions were top notch. Yays!

Gilmabelfest Day 2 - part 2 Oscar's Moment

Today I went for sushi with Gilby and his girlfriend; then G and I headed out on the road with Oscar Doll and Porthos, to see Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake.




Here we are stuck in traffic, which has been the theme of this visit. We even had traffic at 11:30 PM coming back into town last night. (Gives time to photograph the sights.)


Gilby was feeling sleepy on the road, so we pulled off the highway to look for a Provider of Coffee.

Mabel: Maybe the Petro-Canada there.
Gilby: There's a MacDonald's.
[heading towards McD.]
Mabel: What kind of Canada is this if there's no Tim Horton's when you need one?!!
Gilby: [points to the mall by McD.] There's one there.

Wow. Tim Horton's really is the spirit of Canada. We were like something straight out of one of their ads.


I wonder if the Shaw Festival has a more secure financial future than the Stratford, just because there's so much more to offer tourists in this area. Stratford is kinda cute in the center of town, but otherwise not all that eye-rocking; whereas NOTL is gorgeous, it's wine country, and near the Falls.


The city must have money because they've planted copious amounts of flowers all up and down the main road, and all the buildings are well kept. There's lots of gatronomie type restaurants, mostly attached the many vineyards. We passed plenty of mansions as well.

The city center is *precious.* Like a Hummel figurine.

We ran into some horsies. Horsies-girl showed Gilby how to introduce himself safely to Ebony, and then showed us how much he loves a good belly scratch. Precious.

We weren't sure what this building was, cause there was no store sign; and then saw two maids stop and offer house keeping. So it's part of a nearby hotel! Precious, I tell you.

Now, last year at Stratford we got laughed out of town when we stopped at our hotel's restaurant and asked for a table, because it was a good restaurant and people reserve even months in advance. So I'd learned my lesson, and called ahead to a couple restaurants. The one considered best in town didn't have room at 6 PM (half the people in town are there for the 8 PM play), but my second choice did--here's the Angel Inn, rebuilt in 1812.

(Tried to make the pic bigger so you can see the boys.) (And my souvenir bag.)

Here Oscar Doll waits with baited breath to witness his own genius.

As last year with Earnest, we loved the play. I enjoyed the interpretations of Miss Chevely and Lord Goring as much here as in the movie version. Rupert Everett plays Goring languidly, which I lurv, but I enjoyed this more energetic performance too. I liked Miss Mabel, but I may have to conclude that Minnie Drive is the definitive Miss Mabel--I don't think I would have fallen in the love with the character just based on this performance, as I did after seeing the movie.

I also didn't care for a couple of the costume choices and set pieces--they distracted me. (Have you ever seen a waistcoat that the front goes all the way to the knees? Very odd.) But I loved the music, and overall it was funny and dramatic and grreat!

Our drive home, traffic-jam-free. Look how the CN tower is lit up like a disco ball at night.