Monday, June 30, 2008

The Original Drama Queen


The awful cold I had turned into bronchitis, so I’ve spent the past week laying low and trying to get a lot of rest. I’ve been through my course of antibiotics and am almost done with my inhaler. I still have a bit to go in getting better, but I don’t cough as much, I can actually talk, and people tell me I seem a lot more peppy than I did last week.

This weekend, I saw Antony and Cleopatra, the second play in the Roman Repertory going on at the Harman Center Shakespeare Theater. It still had the “Rome-by-way-of-Japanese-steakhouse-décor” sets, but by now I was used to them. This was a very exciting and moving production, and although being a tragedy, the humor in the piece came through and added an extra umpfh to the play.

The woman who played Cleopatra seemed to be channeling Bette Davis/Joan Crawford, which was rather fun – it IS a rather dramatic role, since Cleopatra did seem to be the original “drama queen.” (Ba dum bum!)

This is the last week of both of the Roman plays, and the next set of Shakespeare plays doesn’t start up again until September. By now, my friend J and I have seen eleven (out of 40 or so) of Shakespeare’s plays performed here in DC (and several in multiple versions.) It is an accomplishment that I am very proud of and I hope to be able to let the streak of playgoing continue this Fall.

In other news, with all the rest I’ve been forced to get by being sick, I have been able to plow through several books in the past couple of weeks:

Moneyball – Michael Lewis
A Long Way Down – Nick Hornby
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

I really enjoyed all of them, but I think the one I enjoyed the most was Kavalier and Clay. I do recommend all of them though (even Moneyball – I was a huge fan of his Liar's Poker and The Money Culture and this book is actually more about reasoning processes than sports, but you certainly learn a lot about baseball, that’s for sure!)

I hope everyone is doing well!

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