Tonight we attended a free performance of Twelfth Night (or What You Will) by the D. G. Menchetti Young Shakespeare Program at Bartley Ranch. When I picked up L she had her heart set on going swimming again, but I already had the reservation for the show, so promised her next time would be swimming. We had dinner at Mimi’s Cafe before heading to the show. Now I have to admit that I’m not a huge Shakespeare fan, but it was free and I want to expose Lacee to as much culture Reno can offer. I did learn a bit of Shakespeare in college during a literature class called Comic Spirit (we read and dissected a couple of comedies), and I do love the movies Shakespeare in Love and Romeo and Juliet (Leonardo Dicaprio/Claire Danes version), but unfortunately watching this performance was pretty excruciating. I did have high hopes at the beginning because the half-hour or so of pre-show entertainment by a few of the actors was really engaging and fun. We practiced the audience participation parts of the show, and they brought several kids on stage and played guitar and sang about them. They even brought out all of the actors beforehand and introduced each of the characters and explained the story so it would be easier to follow along. But when the show started...total snooze fest. It was difficult to hear the actors (the weren’t individually miked) and I don’t think L paid attention to the show for more than 2-3 minute intervals. From her seat she picked flowers in the flower bed behind us, and within 15 minutes the flowers were torn apart and she was smashing the center of a daisy into a rock and writing with it on the ground. She rearranged the blanket in her seat every which way and at one point was completely wrapped up in it.
We left half-way through the show after a duck flew overhead and decided to lighten its load right onto our blanket and L (she had unwrapped herself by this point). We stopped at the bathroom first to clean her shirt and on the way out spotted a trail. She wanted to go find more flowers to pick and we ended up walking the trails of Bartley Ranch for the rest of the evening. That was more both of our styles. We got back to the car as it started getting dark and the show was still going on. We made it out of the parking lot before it ended and avoided the crowds and traffic which was kind of nice (I forgot to mention that the amphitheater was packed with adults and kids of all ages). Not sure that we’ll attend next year’s Young Shakespeare performance but glad we at least tried it.
Until our next adventure . . .
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