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Last weekend I saw Macbeth again at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse with a group from the Northwestern University Club of Virginia, after which we moved on to L’Italia Restaurant’s Pompei Lounge for a nice reception. It was pouring, so my friends from other parts of the state didn’t get to experience the real beauty of the Shenandoah Valley, but at least the theater and after-theater experience were nice.
Friday night I saw The Tempest, a wonderful production directed by Giles Block, staring David Loar as Prospero and John Harrell as Ariel. They were wonderful, as were Matthew Sincell as Ferdinand and Susan Heyward as Miranda. It’s a good story, you know, with everyone happy in the end except poor Caliban. It seems to me that Prospero’s brother gives up a little too easily, but maybe that’s in the face of Prospero’s overwhelming power. One of these days I’m going to sketch out a novel borrowing some of the elements, particularly banishment and revenge. That would be fun to write.
