A Singer’s Notes 26: Fall Festival at Shakespeare & Co. and the Madwoman of Cambridge

From Shakespeare & Company's Fall Festival

Fall Festival at Shakespeare and Company

It could be a tough crowd, but it isn't. It could be a dull crowd, but it isn't. It could be an old crowd, but it isn't. What it is is noisy, what it does is participate. What it feels is true. They carried King Lear out on a cot-like device, and she was dressed in white. She was sleeping...the sleep of the blessed, the first fruits of them that slept. At her side a diminutive girl made a piping Cordelia. There was an immediate hush, the wild beasts were stilled. We heard the words we have heard so many times coming out of adult mouths with adult ideas behind them: "We too will sing like birds in the cage..." This time it had enough simplicity. This time in spite of all the incongruities, it was real. There are a lot of swordfights. The text may be rearranged inelegantly, but as I heard Roger Rees say once, "Some of the best Shakespeare I have seen came from American high school kids.”

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Michael Miller

Michael Miller
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The Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts
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