Twelfth Never Ending Night

A couple of months ago Harrison was feeling jealous of my Mommy and Me Book Club with Chloe.  In an effort to appease him and continue my master plan of turning him into a super nerd, I suggested that he and I could have a Shakespeare Club.  [Insert evil laugh.]  He thought it was a great idea.  (What the?)  I found out that the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival would be performing "Twelfth Night" this year, so I chose it as our first play.

We read a scene or two every night that we could and finished the play in about two weeks.  I was really impressed with how well he read the script.  He did it better than a lot of college students I've met.

This is a picture of me as "Feste" in an all-female production of "Twelfth Night" at Peace College back in 2001.  Yes.  I played the accordion.  Harrison thought that was pretty cool.

 

After we finished the play, I marked our calendar for May 30th and Harrison has been counting down the days since.  Last night we went to the Shakespeare Festival and found our patch of ground.

We heard there might be rain, so Harrison grabbed that cowboy hat out of the trunk.  Cool set, right?  So five minutes after I took this picture, it started to rain end-of-days style.  We grabbed our stuff and headed for the car.  I asked if Harrison wanted to come back another night.  No way. 

 

By 8pm, it wasn't raining, anymore.  They started the show 15 minutes late, but it went on.  (Because it must.) 

 

Then in the middle of my favorite monologue, they stopped the show and said we were on a "rain hold."  Harrison still didn't want to leave.

So we waited in the rain a little longer.  Then the show started up again.  It was lovely.  Really and truly lovely.  Harrison said, "I could understand them!"  He knew the story and he understood what was going on, but was surprised to find that he could actually understand their words.  That's the work of fine actors.  We were riveted.  Then intermission came and Harrison asked if we could go home.  I told him we were now in for the long haul.

Then the artistic director came out at intermission and said a huge storm was coming our way, so they were cancelling the rest of the show.  He told us that the actors could hear us if we wanted to say anything to them.  We erupted in thunderous applause and they all came out onstage.  The actor playing Malvolio said, "Just for you." and dropped his pants to reveal his yellow boxers and cross-gartered stockings.  Then their musicians played us a special song and we all enjoyed a sweet moment together. 

 

It wasn't at all what we had planned, but it was just right.