madbaker | 12th Night Thinky Thoughts

1. The Play's The Thing
The play dominated my preparation for the event. The troupe put a lot of time and effort into Much Ado About Nothing, and that ate my Saturday. Friday's run-through wasn't great (although better than many last-night runs I've been in) but we tried to get our jitters out. Our time slot Saturday was prime: in between courts but after most people ate lunch. My rule of thumb is that every hour later is 10% fewer audience members. As it turned out, we had a full house in the room so there was good energy.

We did not disgrace our ancestors, to use an Ursula Vernon quote. It seemed like a good performance. There were a few bobbled lines and impromptu cuts, but mostly the flow was good. I was backstage for most of the show so I am looking forward to seeing the video.

I got laughs, so I think I achieved my goal of not being tedious. (I find Dogberry to generally be the second-most-tedious part in Shakespeare, after the porter in Macbeth.) My ego would have liked a bigger part, but my brain was happy with fewer lines. The actors with the heavier loads did a nice job carrying the weight. Especially Beatrice and Benedick.

2. The Clothes
I didn't have a new outfit for lots of reasons, one of them being that wearing my grey Elizabethans from the play was far easier. I looked pretty good. The wife took in an orange dress and looked fabulous (and knew it). I got a nasty headache Saturday morning, which I nuked from orbit via meds, and then it came back Saturday evening. Both times after I had been wearing my coronet (which I don't usually do anymore). Hmm, this seems related - especially since it went away Saturday evening when I took it off...

3. The Socializing
I had random chattage with people. I did make some time to go through the artisan displays and had a good talk with a lady who had built a model water-powered grain mill (which was fascinating). I later sent her a couple sources I knew about on grain mills from my olden baking days.

I had a big box of cotignac to hand out as 12th Night presents. People seemed to enjoy it. I didn't make any this year, so we might have to do something different next year (or finally stop, as most people have).

4. The Fud (oh, please, oh please...)
We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant twice because it was convenient, especially when we grabbed an early table around 5:30 before they got busy. It didn't mean we got prompt service of course, but it wasn't so slow that we missed anything. It was adequate and better than braving the outside world without reservations. We ate with some other GSP folk and that was nice.

We brought bagels, cream cheese, and lox for Saturday breakfast so we didn't have to waste time in the hotel restaurant. Experience says breakfast is always too busy and slow. Eating in the room was less social than preferable, but it was a reasonable tradeoff. Sunday morning we drove about ten minutes to a family-run Mexican restaurant that does weekend buffet brunch. We had visited once before and had made a mental note that it was worth returning to when in the Modesto area. Quesobirria tacos, egg tostadas, enchiladas, chilequiles... it was all fabulous. I didn't have the menudo, though. We may have been the only native English speakers in the place - not a problem, just a point of reference for its authenticity and clientele.