Taking Steps

As a part of my birthday present from the bestie, she and I went to see "Taking Steps" by Allen Ayckbourn this evening performed by the Colonial Players of Annapolis.  We were both quite excited about it.  The play description classified it as a "straight up farce." The only experience I've had with a straight up farce was "Boeing Boeing" which ranks as one of the 5 best theatre performances I've ever seen.  So the bar was set pretty high.

After a quite long and arduous 2.5 hours, we were quite disappointed. Not only was it not on par with "Boeing Boeing" it wasn't even in the same league. And I'm not even sure why.

I don't want to say it was the cast because any one who is willing to go on stage and perform in front of actual people, is infinitely more talented than I am.  The survey seems to point to the actual play.  The writing just wasn't good which I also hate to say. There were a few zingers but all in all, there didn't seem to be a plot.  Most of all having a "farce" performed in the round with everyone in the same 10x10 square pretending to be on 3 separate floors of a mansion was too much of a stretch of imagination for my little brain.

All in all in was an enjoyable evening in Annapolis capped off with some Banana ice cream with a bit of boredom there in the middle.  The night could have been a lot worse, though I'm not sure the play could have been...

"I am Shakespeare"

I love reading plays.  In fact, one of my favorite things to do is to hit the Drama bookshops in NYC in search for new ones to check out.  That's actually where I found my new favorite: "I am Shakespeare".  It was written by Mark Rylance which is the reason I picked it up in the first place.  A few years ago the bestie and I were lucky enough to see Boeing, Boeing in NYC with Mark Rylance and a slew of other fantastic actors.  By the end of the play, my stomach ached from laughing so hard and one of the main reasons was Mark Rylance. 

So my expectations were pretty high when I saw that he'd written a play, and he did not disappoint.  Apparently, it was first performed at the Chichester Theatre festival a few years ago, but it takes a while to make it across the pond (another point in England's column).  It's meant to have audience participation so I'm sure it's even more enjoyable live but it was fairly brilliant to read.  It's centered around the question: Who wrote Shakespeare's works? (A fascinating topic, to me anyway, but that's a whole other post)  Personally, I'm in the camp that good 'ole Will wrote all of his plays but the characters, which include Francis Bacon, Shakespeare himself, among others, make pretty good arguments.  In the end, the question is never solved, just as it is in real life, but the comedy of errors up to that point, is so laugh out loud funny, that you really don't mind.