Sunday night...

[fajrdrako]

I'm still in Stratford.

Today we saw Macbeth with Colm Feore in the lead, Geraint Wynne Davies as Duncan, and Dion Johnstone (whom I now know to particularly look for) as a quite wonderful Macduff. I thought the staging was wonderful - great use of sound and light, and the witches' cauldron was magnificent. Also good use of video to give the effect of Macbeth in his fortress, using a sort of Big Brother surveillance on security cameras, yet giving the impression of himself as the prisoner of his own paranoia - claustrophobic, hypervigilent, desperate. I also loved Tom Rooney as the Porter.

The problem with dressing most of the cast in modern Canadian military uniforms is that it makes the characters harder than ever to tell apart.

I went for a couple of walks. Stratford is a lovely city to walk in. Didn't get to stroll along the Avon feeding the swans, as I'd half hoped, because of the rain. Maybe if I'm quick and early tomorrow morning, I'll still have a chance.

After the play today: more shopping, more books. I swear I will never overspend on books again. But oh so very worth it... after supper I was reading, not one of the books I got, but one maaseru got - How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, which is a delightful read. I'm not sure he says anything I don't already know, and he says some things I think are not true (for instance, Vergil did not come 'immediately after' Homer - there was 800 years between them) - but his style is loads of fun to read. I keep reading choice passages aloud to maaseru, sometimes because they're amusing, sometimes because I'm appalled. (This man likes Faulkner, for example. Yerch.)

Late evening, we went back to Foster's Inn on Downie Street for dessert, and I had their delightful Vanilla Bean Crème Brulée, which was as good as I could possibly have hoped.

It rained today, but that relieved the heat, and it was a beautiful evening. The rain gave maaseru the excuse to buy a wonderful big umbrella with pictures of Shakespeare on it.