We’re back from a very pleasant weekend at Winedale. I saw two of the plays, Merry Wives of Windsor and The Tempest. I enjoyed Merry WIves of Windsor very much. I expected it to be bawdy, and it was. However, it was also funny and strangely virtuous. Marital faithfulness and true love are rewarded in the end, and unfounded jealousy and attempted seduction are punished appropriately. And it’s all done in the form of a comedy, not like Othello wich covers some of the same themes–except in the tragedy everybody dies. Favorite quote: Wives may be merry and yet honest, too.–Mistress Page

The Tempest we saw on Saturday afternoon in a rather warm barn-theater. I haven’t read the play in a long, long time, and I must confess that I found myself fighting sleepiness and unable to follow the intricacies of the plot at times. Still, I enjoyed the play and came away with a new appreciation for Shakespeare’s abilities as a writer of fantasy. Creating another world, an island, where magical things can and do happen, a fantasy world–this kind of writing definitely intrigues me. Of coursee, I believe the genre is most fully realized in The Lord of the Rings. Quotes from The Tempest:

My library
Was dukedom large enough. –Prospero

How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t! –Miranda