I'm Weak - And Back Early

I couldn't stay away 10 whole days. *shrug* Oh, well. I did stay away from blogging for eight days, so now to make up for it, you're getting a double update. Maybe even a triple. I FINALLY wrote something on The Shakespeare Journal - I'm sorry it took so long! My thoughts were all jumbled and it took a long time to get them all typed down - sort of like closing a suitcase with too many clothes inside of it. Anyhow, the post is on Miranda from The Tempest. Not scholarly or terribly interesting, but so what? ;)

When the play begins, she’s lived on an island with only her father and their hideous slave, Caliban since she was three years old. This naturally makes her relationship with her father very different from the relationship many girls have with their father. She confides in him openly, though she is rather a reserved girl, as a rule. Prospero is Miranda’s world, until Ferdinand comes along, much like Cosette and Valjean in Les Miserables. But unlike Cosette, Miranda still has room in her heart to love her father as before, while Cosette pretty nearly forgot Valjean. (Selfish girl. Grr.)

And I also hope to do a post on Books and Windows. Maybe. I'm not promising anything. *sigh*

The Roman Mysteries series one arrived in the mail! EEK! :D I'll do a post on that, as I promised to Alyosha and Rebekah. :)

I'm re-reading The Man Who Was Thursday. The other day I was overcome by an urge to read Gabriel Syme's speech to the anarchists out loud. It's rather over-the-top, because he's only pretending to be an anarchist himself, but it was fun to read out loud.

I went to see You Can't Take It With You, put on by the Shakespeare Festival I'm doing Comedy of Errors with. Twice, actually. It's such a hilarious play! I was so proud. I kept thinking, "This is my town. Some of these people are people I know." It was so great.

Speaking of The Comedy of Errors, our out-of-town director stopped coming to all our shows, so the director of Can't, Peter, (he runs the Shakespeare Festival) has taken over CoE. It's going to be so much funnier now. I also get to be in another scene, jeering at Egeon, the condemned Syracusian with some other townsfolk. Fun. :P We have a performance tonight. I'm excited - really, really excited. You would think I was the director.

In other theatrical news, we're going to see Wicked in August. Unless something happens that prevents us.

Well... that's all for now, I guess.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

When I picked up Rebecca I was expecting a suspenseful mystery novel, from all the things I had read about it. It's not exactly a mystery novel, but it is suspenseful. I really liked it.

There were three things that struck me the most about the book:

1) The main character - her name is never given. I could relate to her very well, as her imagination and mine tend to work in similar patterns. I'm still astounded that a writer can get away with telling a story from the perspective of a believable character without giving away their first name.

2) The writing. It's so FULL and delicious and rich, from descriptions of the gardens at Manderley to an account of afternoon tea.

3) The story. It seemed rather dreary after the marriage of the main character and Mr. de Winter, but now I realize that I should have seen that twist coming.

A lovely, melancholy book, worthy of all the good things I ever heard about it.

Leaving For A While

Ok. Life is just a little too much right now. I still have schoolwork to finish, and a room to clean thoroughly, and I'm having a very difficult time. I'm going to back off from the internet for a week or so and see how it goes then. I'll see you all in about 10 days, maybe a few more. :)

Bonita Granville as Nancy Drew

Today I'm going to talk about the Nancy Drew movies. Not that new Emma Roberts movie that came out last year: that was cute, but nothing near so cute as Bonita Granville.



Isn't she adorable? When my grandpa got out the Nancy Drew movies from the 30's that he had taped, I was an 11-year-old Nancy Drew book purist. "That's Nancy!?" I exclaimed, "It can't be! She's bouncy and... blonde!" And adorable! It's been a long time since I've said that I love the Nancy Drew books, but I do love these Nancy Drew movies. I even love the changes they made (changing Ned Nickerson to Ted Nickerson, for instance. Ned sounds oily.)

One of the movies shares a title and part of a plot with the book Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, and the movie Nancy Drew, Detective is based off the Nancy Drew book Password to Larkspur Lane. Today I have, off of YouTube, one of the four movies: Nancy Drew, Reporter. It's not my favorite, but it was all I could find. If you have Netflix, look for all four movies in a two-disc set. My favorite is Nancy Drew, Troubleshooter. You don't have to like it, or even watch it. If you like 30's movies, 30's dialogue, costumes, etc. you'll probably like it. :)

Part One:


Part Two:


Part Three:


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Part Six:


Part Seven:

Opening Night

Last night was the opening night for The Comedy of Errors. My very first opening night. I'm sort of sick right now, so I felt a little queasy during the performance; it might have been stage fright but I'm not so sure. I still feel the same way right now. Maybe I'll never know.

Our Dromios (D. of Ephesus and D. of Syracuse) were both played by girls, and wore fake mustaches. Ha! D. of Syracuse came into the girl's dressing room after trimming her mustache and said in a Jaq-Clousseau accent, "Believe it or not, I do belong in here!"

Our nine-year-old duke (pardon me: nine and a half!) had a mild case of stage fright just before the show. But she did so wonderfully. She didn't fidget too much, she stood nice and tall, and spoke loudly.

Some people fumbled of course, but the audience seemed to really enjoy the play. When they first laughed (probably at D. of Syracuse - she was GREAT!) GiGi, the lady playing Dr. Pinch, said, "Ooh, that's good!" When they laughed a second time she said, "Isn't that a beautiful sound?" It was. It really was. It made me want to laugh too. I practically had the play memorized but I smiled and chuckled along with the audience.

I did fine, if you're wondering. I play Luce, a servant. I had some snappy, scornful lines in Act III, and a frantic speech as a messenger in Act V. That was lots of fun. I didn't have so many lines to memorize that it was stressful for me. I went out without my glasses which was... alright, I suppose. I could see everyone on stage well enough. Though with the lights and without my glasses, our Antipholus of Syracuse looked like he had a blurry halo over his head which is funny for two reasons: the first being that the Syracusian boys are supposed to be more innocent and naive than the Ephesian boys. The second reason was that A. of Syracuse was showing people how to make the Sign of the Cross backstage before the show. Hehe!

I almost forgot to mention the turn-out: 100 people! I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but keep in mind that we were performing in a small town in a gazebo. We ran out of seats!

We had another show today. It was very hot, but all together I think everyone did better. Next week is the opening of You Can't Take It With You. I really can't wait to see it. Now I'm already wondering what play the Shakespeare Festival up here will do next year...

My Sister

I think my sister and I spend too much time together...

Today at our church's annual barbecue, a band was playing oldies music, and my four-year-old brother was clapping along. Desirae and I smiled at him, and I started talking about how it's neat that music is so important in our family - it's like we're born with a love for it. Zoe is absolutely mesmerized when my dad plays guitar, Noah claps along to music and likes me to teach him the words to songs; my dad and his brothers all played guitar, his brother Markie had a huge (and rather famous) guitar collection, and his mom plays piano and organ. On my mom's side of the family, both my mom and her sister sing. I've always taken it for granted that we're such a musical family. I was talking to Desirae about this, and finished with, "...and we have an appreciation for all different kinds of music..." And then Desirae interrupted with, "Wow, that's so weird! I was just thinking about musical appreciation a few minutes ago." We laughed. Things like that have happened before: sometimes we joke that we can read each other's minds.

Then just now, I was reading an Agatha Christie short story, "...the past, which cannot be altered..." someone said. And my train of thought wandered for a few second s to the movie Meet The Robinsons, which involves time-travel and wanting to alter the past, then found its way back to the story. Not one minute later Desirae quoted randomly from Meet The Robinsons, "I love baseball. It's my destiny to play that game." Haha!

"How do people make it through life without a sister?" ~Sara Corpening

Joseph and Easy Street

My sisters and I saw Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at a college this morning. It was performed by a Christian-kids-theater group. (They're doing The Music Man in the fall, and I'd REALLY love to be in it...)

Joseph was good - that is, I enjoyed it. The costumes were wild and funny, the singers were mostly very good. But I didn't like the musical very much. It's just too wacky for me, with pretty annoying characters and music. And was it ever colorful! Wow... But as I said, the singing was very good, and there was a lot of dancing.

The sons of Jacob had a random maid who came out and danced with one of them. So strange...

So after that, my sisters and I were kind of in a theaterish mood. A few nights ago we watched Annie (the newish one), and we always comment on the dancing in Easy Street. "Don't people notice them dancing like that!?" Stuff like that. Desirae (or it might have been my other sister) said, "We should do that sometime. Just dance down a street or sidewalk singing and dancing all weird like that," So today, we were walking from a restaurant to Kmart with my dad, and Desirae whispered in my and my sister's ears "Let's do Easy Street" now.

Sooo...

I did.

I took off my sweatshirt (don't ask why I was wearing it on such a day. It wasn't that hot in the restaurant) and started swinging it around. And I sang. And danced like Rooster. We were all kind of having a hard time breathing from so much laughter by the time we got to the store.

EDIT- Post #50, not counting drafts.