Three things from DAH.

 

DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. Isn't everything better al fresco? Unless there's too much sunny heat, or smoky smog, or rainy dark, or whatever. I guess it's always something.

 

Three weeks ago we saw our first staged play since February 2020, proof of vaccination and masks required, Hold These Truths at Capital Stage. Then, two weeks ago, we caught the closing performance of The Rude Mechanicals Present The Riot of the Tipsy Bacchanals or A Tedious Brief Assembly of Wondrous Hot Ice and Strange Snow: A Love Letter to Shakespeare at the Central Coast Shakespeare Festival … we were outdoors, seated within our self-selected pandemic-prevention pod. Both plays were wonderful, and reminded me how much I've missed playgoing. I particularly relished the unique experience of outdoor performance in San Luis Obispo at Filipponi Ranch Winery where Central Coast Shakespeare performs. The actors and the production faced the challenge of keeping our audience attention despite birds, bees and bumptious attendees. This they did, with panache. It was wonderful. 

 

They're not even true nuts, not tree nuts. They're legumes, like peas. Goober peas. The raw peas in their pod are brined, dried, and roasted to make a salty treat. Another pod treat, unbrined: We (me, CHance, Bhavvy, Judy) went to San Luis Obispo where we met up with Kelly, Peter, and Kim -- this was our pod for Central Coast Shakespeare. And Peter remembered the peanuts! Huzzah! A few years ago, for an earlier summer of Shakespeare, I declared that peanuts in the shell were essential al fresco theatrical snacking. It was perfectly acceptable to simply drop the shells to join the wood-mulch footing of the space. This practice adds to the tipsy bacchanalia of the outdoor entertainment. And shelling peanuts is a quiet enough act that it doesn't distract from the play. Peter remembered! So, we had peanuts! But it has never occurred to me to eat the shells. Who does that?

 

Pink is the perfect al fresco wine color. Plus, it's a pretty pairing with peanuts! Summer days may be fleeting, but Fall is fine for pink wine, too. It wasn't so many years ago that pink was a déclassé wine color. The color of insipidly sweet White Zinfandel, or perhaps Mateus Rose, with a few hard to find Old World classics struggling for shelf-space. Now, and for the past decade, pink wines are suddenly de rigueur. Even high quality, high priced, dry White Zinfandels have stepped onto the stage. I can't explain it, but somehow wine has become oh, so pretty in pink. And, really, nice outside with peanuts in the shell. Yes, we really did playgo with peanuts and pink wine.

 

And a bit more:

Prologue, Henry V, by William Shakespeare

(or see and hear Mark Rylance here)
 

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! 

 

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment. 

 

But pardon, and gentles all,

The flat unraised spirits that have dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object: can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?

 

O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

On your imaginary forces work.

 

Suppose within the girdle of these walls

Are now confined two mighty monarchies,

Whose high upreared and abutting fronts

The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

Into a thousand parts divide on man,

And make imaginary puissance;

 

Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,

Turning the accomplishment of many years

Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,

Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

 

(This is also pretty great. From the same movie, but a more familiar speech. Really celebrating in person playgoing.)

 

And that's all for this week.

From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …  

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it. 

 

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