TWELFTH NIGHT AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON: IMPRESSIONS

The devil finds work for idle minds. (Idle hands? Maybe, but it wouldn't fit this particular narrative.)

My mind was idling. It idles a good bit these days. (Oh, I can put it in gear when the need arises. But the need doesn't arise as often as it did before I retired.) Anyway, there I was, coasting downhill in neutral, when I had a brilliant idea. Why not go see a Shakespeare play? Here in the south of France we are, after all, only a budget flight and a short train ride away from our friends in Southampton. And their son had demonstrated the value of a proper upbringing by marrying a girl who enjoyed going to Stratford-upon-Avon on occasion to take in Royal Shakespeare Company performances. With an economical travel itinerary available and knowledgeable guides willing and able, nothing was stopping us from making a pilgrimage to one of the cradles of the English language. And while the English language and American English have diverged over time, they were still close enough for jazz. Why hadn't I thought of that before?

Did I mention? Shakespeare?

I am not insensitive to those modern academics who point out that Shakespeare lived in a class-conscious, male-dominated, colonial society that didn't understand such human failings as racism and misogyny the way that we do today. I'm not insensitive, I just don't care. I don't believe that those facts take away from Shakespeare's towering talent and the effect that his writings have had on our language and culture. (And yes, I believe that he wrote the plays. Most of them. I think...) So, after deciding to pass on a season that featured Titus Andronicus, not our idea of a fitting first dose of RSC fare, we made our way to Stratford-upon-Avon in the winter of 2018 and caught a matinee performance of Twelfth Night.

Cathey and I thought that Twelfth Night would be a perfect first take on Shakespeare in Stratford. It's a pleasant piece of fluff that I believe has gained in popularity recently due to its gender bending. I'm not certain that Shakespeare intended same-sex love to be the play's central theme. Certainly, our program makes that case. I lean more toward the idea that Twelfth Night is meant to be a bit of a farce, written as it was among and between such more serious works as Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, and Othello. But that's one of the joys of interpreting Shakespeare. Who knows? And Shakespeare isn't available for interview.

This is not meant to be an in-depth theater review. Although Twelfth Night by the RSC has in the past featured such stage luminaries as Olivier, Vivian Leigh, Judy Dench, Diana Rigg, Stephen Fry, and Ian Holm, our matinee was mostly composed of actors appearing in their RSC debuts. Our young British friends knew several from UK television, but Cathey and I could conjure up not one familiar face. Not to worry. The performance was thoroughly enjoyable. (I could pick nits. I could say that one or two of the leads seemed overly impressed with the fact they were in the RSC doing Shakespeare and tried too hard to...well...act. But I won't.) The venue is intimate given its cachet. (We could touch the stage from our seats.) The staging made good use of a modern, versatile facility. And thus, to coin a phrase, a good time was had by all.

Obviously, the pictures had to be taken in the dark. The one picture of the stage was taken as we waited for the play to begin. Enjoy.

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats. So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up? It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look

LE CHAT QUI PECHE (THE CAT THAT FISHES), ARGELIERS: RESTAURANT REVIEW

You would think that after over five years of searching for restaurants serving good food at reasonable prices, I would have made my way to Le Chat Qui Peche before now. After all, it's only about ten minutes from our house, in a beautiful spot along the Canal du Midi. But it took a friend to suggest that we would like the place. So we went. And we did. Port-Argeliers isn't much a port, just a spot along the Canal du Midi that boats use as a stopping place. Like a town that might be described as just a wide spot in the road, there hardly seems to be a reason for it to exist other than the fact that it does. So Le Chat Qui Peche, at the foot of a narrow but driveable bridge over the canal, commands a view of the canal that can't reasonably be described as bustling and scenery that might best be described as bucolic. We were among the first to arrive on a lazy summer day, breezy so we chose an outdoor table with less of a view but sheltered. Our server practiced his

France, Food, Scooters and More

Search This Blog