Shakespeare in the Park

I've been feeling pretty down on city living lately. I think it started with my trip to my mom's through some of the prettiest river road scenery Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota have to offer. While I was at my mom's place, I was struck by how quiet her street was, and how freely the kids could wander without worrying about being hit by a speeding car--a real concern on our street here in St. Paul.

My yearning for quiet continued as the neighbors next door got more and more raucous (though things have calmed down for now since one of the neighbors was ushered out by three of St. Paul's Finest, as I wrote about in a previous post). My yearning for security sharpened as my kids and I walked to the corner store the other day to get milk and candy, and fumes of pot smoke wafted out of a car parked in front of the store, right near where Bridger was locking up his bike.

My reading material lately has not exactly inspired calm or peace of mind. First, I was reading a book called Distracted, which posited that our reliance on electronic media was going to lead to another dark age. Then I read the new book about Columbine. And because I wasn't depressed and jittery enough after that, I picked the book Beautiful Boy off the library shelf, a heart-rending memoir by the father of a young man addicted to crystal meth.

"It's terrifying," I told my husband.

"Then why are you reading it?" he asked.

"Because," I said. "I want to know the parameters of how bad things can get. I want to know if there's anything I can do to help prevent that kind of thing now."

Then some friends of ours sent me a link with pictures of the house they just bought in rural Wisconsin, after years of hard work and struggle and living in a teeny rental place with their young daughters. I looked at the photos, the picture windows framing forest in every direction, the big deck, the garden. I sighed. I was happy for them. Overjoyed, even. But I also felt a deep, jealous yearning. I want that, too, I thought. But for now and probably a long time to come, we are very much anchored here--in this old 1912 Late Victorian four-square, this neighborhood.

Today, though, something shifted for me. A weight lifted. The kids and I went to Newell Park, a lovely neighborhood park with a shady canopy of mature oak trees, to see a free outdoor performance of The Tempest (Brian opted to stay home, enjoy the silence, and read the paper on the couch). We'd gotten ready ahead of time by reading a picture book version of the play by Bruce Coville, so the kids were familiar enough with the story to identify the characters milling around before the show. I'd told them that if the actors were good enough, they'd be able to understand the emotions and action of the play by the body language and facial expressions, even if the language wasn't always familiar.

I expected they'd watch a scene or two and then start whining to go to the playground. Uh-uh. They sat there entranced the whole hour-and-a-half (it was a skillfullly abridged version of the play). Cassidy was so riveted, when I told her I needed to go to the bathroom and asked if she wanted to go with me, she said no, that she'd stay on the blanket with Bridger and keep watching. This is the girl who often howls if I go from one floor of the house to another without taking her with me.

But after all, what's not to like for a kid? You have a dancing, singing monster, an enchanted island, a magician with a fancy purple cape, an airy spirit painted the colors of the sky, guys wielding swords, a beautiful and noble young girl falling in love with a prince. After all our fairy tale-spinning, the world of The Tempest was utterly familiar ground to them.

Up at the park building, a big multigenerational party was in full swing. Picnickers hung out at shady tables. A group of kids and adults was playing pick-up softball at the park diamond, a few dozen yards away from the Shakespeare performance. Suddenly, living in the city wasn't feeling so bad. It had its rewards, just as living in the woods would have its own set of rewards.

Near the very end of the play came Miranda's famous speech, delivered upon seeing a group of men other than her father for the first time in her adult life (she's been stranded on an island with her magician father and assorted spirits since she was two).

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!"

Her father tersely replies, "'Tis new to thee."

I got tears in my eyes--such a lovely, perfect distillation of innocence and experience, wonder and gimlet-eyed realism--and deeply, darkly funny as delivered by the actors.

When I told my husband about it later, he said, "I can imagine saying exactly the same kind of thing to Cassidy when she's a teenager."

Four hundred years ago, a man in England wrote a play. A group of people performed it in a shady natural amphitheater of oaks and grass today, in a land still referred to in Europe as the New World when the playwright was alive. It's still new in many ways, this world of ours. New and old, both--fresh and weary, all at once. Today my children got their first taste of Shakespeare, the best possible experience I could have imagined for them, and my heart feels lighter and more grateful than it has in weeks.

There are a few more performances of The Tempest left in the Twin Cities if you're interested. You can find a schedule here.