We're down to 80 characters

Sigh. There are, like 80 characters in Henry IV Part 1, Part 2, and Henry V. But some of them are the same person, just with a new title, so I have to weed them out. And then I need to figure out which characters are minor and easy to cut. And then I'll still be left with too many characters, so I need to blend some, cut some, etc.

Sigh sigh sigh.

But I've got a nice little spreadsheet now. I think I've earned the right to go to bed.

ohhhh i'm so sleeeepyyyyy

My new fave author.

...

...

Yes, I should be working on my book. I am! I opened up all my files. I put on the right music. And then I sat there staring at the screen. Staaaaring... sigh. I'm so so sleepy. Sleeeeepyyyyy. But the last few nights I at least make myself work out one plot point before I go to bed.

Soooo sleeeeeepyyyyy.

There will be blood

The Curse of the Full Time Manager is starting to take effect. I'm getting that "och i'm so tired" feeling when I get home, plus the overtime here and there, here and there. Och aye! This month... Nanowrimo and FTM will battle it out for supremacy! Scaaaary.

Stratfordganza Day 3: À l fin de l'envoi je touche!

Our third day was Cyrano de Bergerac, again at the Festival Theatre. Here's the Shakespeare garden, looking a little worse for wear in this weather.

Here the Boyz discuss the merits of Cyrano, as they wait for the doors to open.

One thing that's fun about Stratford--a bit like being at a convention--is that everyone's there for the same reason, so they're all fun to talk to. Like, one day I was standing in the shop and said: "Colm Feore was so great in xyz" and the woman behind me said (gushing) "Colm Feore is great in anything!" And we were both going to see Cyrano the next day.

And at West Side Story when Gilby warned the people around us that he might break out singing, both the woman behind us and the woman in front of us said they would join him.

And at Cyrano there was a girl behind us who'd been here earlier in the summer with her mom, and had to come back and see Cyrano again with her sister. It was alll sooo chummy.

After the play we set off back to Toronto.

At the airport I got on a standby flight back home. Here we are with our last cranberry juice, at the airport.

And here we are on the city bus going home. We just finished reading our second E. Lockhart book, which was, appropriately, about kids at a theatre summer camp.
And that was the end of Stratfordganza. It was so fun, I wish I could do it every year.

Stratfordganza Day 2: Say it LOUD and there's muuusic playing!

Did I mention how Stratfordganza came about?

I met Gilby 12 years ago when the store I work at opened--he worked in the Computers department, and I was in Fiction. When his birthday came about he went dancing around the store telling everyone, which I found Veddy Amusing. So I stood at my computer and made him a birthday card. Which he found Veddy Amusing. And so we became friends.

He was this Ayn Rand loving, philosophy-arguin' type, so when he drove me home one night and sang "Stars" from Les Miz to me, I was shocked to see this whole other side to him--the musicals lover!

Gilby is one of my beSTest friends. I am in adoration of him. He's very easy to love. And thankfully my husband and his wife don't Take This the Wrong Way (it's totally non-sexual) so we're able to run away for a weekend together (and I stayed 10 days in London with him, when he was there on business a few years ago.) Giiiilbeeeee!

We've given each other a Christmahannukahbirthday present each year, but I (who am supposed to make something creative) am running out of ideas. So this year I proposed we go see a play, or go to Stratford together. I think this will be our tradition, though I don't think I can afford Stratford and 3 plays each year. But maybe a musical in Toronto, where I can stay with him and his wife.

On to... Day Two.

Here is Our Spot at the bar, where we usually ate cause the restaurant was always full. At least we tried to make it Our Spot. But after the first couple times, it was always taken. Basts.


Went souvenir shopping that day. I bought Fernando a shirt with a bear on it that says "Exit, pursued by a bear." And a pen. And a magnet for our fridge. And a water bottle. And my Oscar doll. And Gilby got his finger puppet, and I tossed in a collection of Oscar Wilde's works for him. I do not feel guilty for my materialism, since the money supports the festival--whose traditional supporters are dying-off-oldies. (One of the central plot points in Sling and Arrows.)

After I had to mail some cards. I asked where I could get stamps.

Lady - At Blowes, across the square.
Me - ... ... Blows?
Lady (suppressing giggle) - Yes, it's someone's name. Blowes.

On the way we saw Allen's Alley, which needed photographing. How many of us can claim to own an alley after all? Here I've got my arm around the boyz. (And might I add - everytime I buy slacks from Reitman's they shrink the first time I wash them, even though I use cold water and hang dry? Despicable.)


There was Much Wind. And chilliness. I was wearing 4 layers all weekend. But I have a Most Excellent poppy - the kind with a Canadian flag pin holding it in place. That's what you get when you buy early and donate well!

Blowes.

This is the Avon theatre by our hotel, where we saw Earnest the night before.

Our hotel.

That night we took a 20 minute walk down to the Festival theatre. There were mirrors in the lobby, so we didn't have to ask someone to photograph us! Oscar's a bit low, because we're seeing something he didn't write -- West Side Story.

I thought we'd get a shaming for placing our toys on the Weird Sisters, but no one noticed. And everyone who walked by laughed.

And instead I got a shaming for photographing the theatre interior.


West Side Story was great. Our friend, Mrs Alfonse, had had a bad performance earlier this summer. But everyone sang well, and the staging was great. Tony did a lot of leaping around on Maria's balcony, which really made them seem IN LURV. The songs were beautifully sung, the dancing was great. Gilby was meh'd by Riff, but I thought Action was great.



Here is Gilby watching Darth Vader at the canteen, again.

The Boyz regard New Oscar with suspicion.
And so ended Day 2.

Song: My brother reminded me about this one

Blind from The Talking Heads

We loved this when the video came out! Blind blind blind blind bliiiiind!

Stratfordganza Day 1: He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his doctors!

*
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest
*

Because I know that punctuality is not one of Mr. Gilby's strong points (though he has many), I wisely planned to arrive in Toronto by noon. Our first play wasn't until 8 PM.

This was good thinking, because Gilby was expected to make a stop at work lunch, where one of his work crew was celebrating his birthday. So we stopped in at the Indian restaurant for lunch. They were lots of fun and A Pleasant Time Was Had by All.

Then we took the 2 hour drive to Stratford. It's a very cutesy sort of place, though probably prettier in summer.

Here is Finger Puppet Oscar as we enter his hometown. (FP Oscar was born in Stratford, where Mrs. Bacher adopted him and gifted him to me. We brought FP Oscar and Beanie Yoda with us.)

I was most worried about our hotel (Foster's Inn), because I could only rely on online reviews of it. But it was great. It was a funky little place, and I considered stealing much of the furniture. (In the end I only thefted the room key, which I have promised to return by mail.)


Gilby brought True Blood with him, he wanted to force upon me--so we sat on the bed together and watched episodes, in between meals and plays.

Back to the tale... here we are at Othello's. We were going to eat at the hotel restaurant, but were informed by the Funky Wait Staff that they were booked solid, and Othello's would be the only place in town with room because (a) they were big and (b) their food sucked. Both proved to be true, but that was fine. Pictured here: the boyz, with cranberry juice--for some reason that's all I drank the whole time.

Our play that night was The Importance of Being Earnest by my fave fave fave writer, Oscar Wilde.

Here we are waiting for I of BE to begin. We tried to take our own photo but Gilby looked like a madman, I looked scheming, and the boyz looked like they were falling down drunk.
So Gilby asked the girls next to me to take our pic.

The I of BE was the show we both enjoyed the most. Gilby had never read/seen a Wilde play, so he was delighted by the fantastico humour.

The I of BE was my fave Wilde play as a girl, but the recent movie version ruined it for me, even though it starred my #1 Actor Boyfriend Rupert Everett, playing one of my Top Character Boyfriends, Algernon Moncrieff. The film was by the same dudes who did one of my fave movies of all time, Wilde's An Ideal Husband (also starring my #1 Boyfriend in one of my favourite roles) but the director completely missed the boat on this one. It's not the LEAST bit funny (as you can see on youtube). Ugh. I was soooo disappointed, and haven't returned to the play since.

Thank heaven for Stratford. And for Brian Bedford who played Lady Bracknell and was HI-larious. We lahffed and lahffed. This was our favourite bit: Algernon has always used his invented invalid friend as an excuse to escape from Lady Bracknell, and in this scene he kills off Bunbury...

Lady Bracknell. Dead! When did Mr. Bunbury die? His death must have been extremely sudden.

Algernon. [Airily.] Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon.

Lady Bracknell. What did he die of?

Algernon. Bunbury? Oh, he was quite exploded.

Lady Bracknell. Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity.

Algernon. My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean—so Bunbury died.

Lady Bracknell. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians. I am glad, however, that he made up his mind at the last to some definite course of action, and acted under proper medical advice.

Gilby was so excited that he had to have his own Oscar finger puppet. And I had to buy a doll-sized Oscar, even though I feared he would upstage Oscar FP and Beanie Yoda. Gilby grew tired of my vacillating and made me buy him.

Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell (from a CBC article):

One of the funniest battleaxes in the history of English comedy, the role has been played on stage and screen by the likes of Dame Edith Evans and Dame Judi Dench – and at Stratford, memorably, by the late, great William Hutt. His Lady Bracknell in the festival's 1975 production – revived twice – has become the stuff of legend. That's doubtless what inspired Stratford's new artistic chief, Des McAnuff, to suggest Bedford do the part.

"When he told me, I said, 'Oh my God, really? I'll have to think about that,'" Bedford says during an interview in the living room of his long-time Stratford home – a tastefully refurbished Ontario cottage. He's barefoot and wearing sweats – a disarmingly casual look for a member of festival royalty. He says he went back and reread Wilde's play and decided it would be the perfect left-field followup to his last Stratford outing two seasons ago. "What do you do after you've done King Lear?" he asks. "Lady Bracknell seemed to fill the bill."

..."I realized I had to be as utterly convincing as Lady Bracknell as Barry Humphries is with Dame Edna," he says. "Of course, you know it's Humphries you're watching, but you don't think about that – you're just absolutely flabbergasted and absorbed by this crazy woman that he's giving you. I thought how important that was: there mustn't be any hint of a man playing a woman."

And from the NYT review:

Without sacrificing a single of Lady Bracknell’s withering bons mots, he avoids the stridently arch and the obvious. A single word — “Found?” — spoken in a tone of hushed stupefaction sets the audience roaring no less than that peerless joke about losing both one’s parents seeming like “carelessness.” The trick to making a male Lady Bracknell into something more than a camp joke is to take her as seriously as she takes herself. That’s no mean feat, of course, but Mr. Bedford performs it with forthrightness that inspires admiration, riding the crests of Wilde’s language like a great galleon in full sail. [Once you've seen the production you realize how accurate this review is. I can still hear that "FOUND?" in my head!]

***
To see how horribly unfunny the movie was, you can see this exchange at the end of this scene on youtube:

It couldn't be less funny.

This version (at minute 6) is much better. And Bedford was even better.