Shakespeare Under the Stars

We had an awesome time Thursday night at Sand Harbor, where we attended the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, along with a fairly large group of friends. Nikki and I rode over with my fellow crafts coop member and high school teacher, Peggy and her husband Mark and daughter Caity, where we met up with my son, Cody, and two other teachers from our school, husband and wife Lynn and Steve, who both are also coop members (Lynn sews and crochets, and Steve does turned wood items). The seating is open, on the sandy beach facing the stage, with incredible Lake Tahoe and surrounding mountains as a backdrop. We had not opted for Early Admission, and our line was short, since we still had a half-hour to wait. Along came three co-workers from my other school, Alan, Kathy and Cheryl (our birthday girl of the day!), and since they had early admission tickets, they staked out a great area for us to have a gourmet picnic dinner. At intermission, we were treated to shortcake and fruit, with a birthday candle for Cheryl, thanks to Alan, and to a cheesecake concocted by Caity, home for the summer, who cooks gourmet dishes after she gets off work from our local pizza parlor (lucky parents!).

I inquired about Kathy's husband and (adult) son, but she said that they are Shakespeare snobs and don't want to go unless the play is in Ashland. Now, my two kids with me and I have been to several plays at Ashland over the years, and it IS really fantastic, but I had to second Cody's opinion, that it doesn't get any better than this, watching Shakespeare at the lake.....

The play of the evening was MacBeth, which we had selected, partly to see it, and partly because the moon was full last night. However, there was pretty heavy cloud cover and even thunder in the background early in the play, so we didn't really get the full effect of the moon. It did peek through during the witches' famous "Boil, Boil, Toil and Trouble" speech.

This play is one of Shakespeare's darker works, dealing with issues of passion, ambition, and evil that are still with us in today's world. Director Lynne Collins' interpretation focused strongly on the passion between Lady MacBeth and MacBeth as the root of their combined evils... without their coming together and their devotion to jointly attaining power, neither would have taken the steps that led to her eventual madness and his becoming a hated tyrant. We all appreciated the fantastic interpretation of the three witches provided by the actresses... they appeared to be apparitions rather than earthly people throughout the performance, and great special effects, including sulphur, were employed to add to their magic. I was also deeply moved to the choice to focus on MacDuff, including a side tableau of his parting with his family to flee from MacBeth, and his pain and grief on learning of their murders.

Many of the actors were part of the Foothill Theatre Company, and familiar to us from other plays; most were professional members of Actors Equity. The quality of the performance was very high, and we had a wonderful evening.


My son Cody took this photo of me knitting while we were waiting for MacBeth to begin the other night! I must have been saying something sarcastic ... I am working on the hot pink tank top, which I finished knitting on Sunday, and edged the bottom and one armhole in a crochet trim last night.... almost ready to wear. I spent two and a half hours at a meeting yesterday and was able to get Nikki's cap sleeve tank back completed up to the armhole bindoff... thanks to those really cool Addi turbos. I will have to take back what I said to her the other night "See, big needles, almost done (hot pink tank), small needles, never done (light pink tank). It is going much faster than I thought and I will have to take a WIP photo and post it.