Shakespearean Festivities and such

For the weekend of my birthday, Steve and I went to the Cedar City Shakespeare Festival. Little Momma and Chelsee also went that weekend, so we got to spend some time together.

If someone only had the time or the money to see one play this year, I would tell them to see 'Hamlet'. It was by far the best of the plays we saw this year. Brian Vaughn has been my favorite actor in the festival the last few years, and he was very compelling as Hamlet. I was thrilled that the director chose to leave in all of Act II scene ii, which is my favorite scene--especially the part of the Player King's monologue about Priam and Hecuba, and Hamlet's soliloquy, "Oh what a rogue and a peasant slave am I...." I've never seen a production of Hamlet that left it in--except for Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, which I believe, for better or fore worse, enveloped the play in its entirety.

The next best of the three plays was 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'. This play was just a
lot of fun, with the wives ruling the day (as they indeed should!).

'Antony and Cleopatra' was good, but left a little something to be desired. The guy who
played Antony was kinda dull, and didn't seem like someone I'd let all Egypt burn for if
I were queen. The costumes were pretty lame too--especially Antony's. I think he was
wearing what would be the equivalent of a wife-beater in modern day! =)

It was fun, to spend time with little momma and Chelsee before the plays looking at the gift shops or having meals or hanging out at the Pastry Pub drinking cold chai, and it was fun after the plays to sit and have muskat --Chelsee didn't have any, she's too young--and talk about what we liked or didn't like about the shows.




On Sunday (my birthday) we spend part of the day walking around the SUU campus, and we found a monument to brilliant people in history--I thought I would post a few pictures. I know, I know, I'm a total geek.

Shakespeare

Galileo

Thomas Jefferson
Socrates


Plato

Marie Curie