Caesar's Ghost on the Green
Saturday, May 27, 2006
A day for Shakespeare – and so warm by nine o’clock in the morning – that Collette thought the pavement might serve as a good frying pan.
As for the performance – after arriving three and a half hours early to reserve a spot under a grand old tree (which continuously blew little green pods over their picnic), they sat around until start-time. OLeif, Collette, Augustus, Rose, and Molly wandered off to the art museum to find that it had just closed, and then walked down the great green hill towards the lake where an artist painted his fancy and the three played with the baby ducks on the boating lake. Standing as they did on the rocks, they rather looked as though they were awaiting medals on the Olympic medal stand with Augustus receiving gold, Molly the silver, and Rose the bronze. And then they proceeded towards the forested hill to climb back to the top.
“That duck tried to bight me!” Augustus called out, hurrying back over the bridge. “I’m going to hide from these bikers,” he continued, standing behind a bush with no leaves, “and jump out and throw this stick in their spokes.”
However, the bikers turned the opposite direction and his plans were forgotten. Instead, he turned his direction towards the squirrels, birds, and bunnies at the top of the hill.
“Wildlife!” He exclaimed, running towards the frightened creatures, with arms opened.
Meanwhile, Rose and Molly continued to snap pictures of dead trees and they rejoined Joe, Wallace, and Curly who were lazily relaxing in chairs, eating strawberries, drinking all the sodas in the cooler, plunking the ukulele, and protecting the rest of the picnic from passerby.
Then followed the green show, fire-breather and juggler, quartet, ballet, magician, etc. (who looked like a cross between Augustus and Bob B).
“Eeeeeeeew!” Augustus proclaimed loudly for all to hear when OLeif noted this observation.
“It’s like if you and Bob had a kid,” OLeif said, most inappropriately. “That’s what he’d look like.”
And from there, the conversation ran downhill. Meanwhile, all the sandwiches, crumb cake, cookies, and strawberries and sugar were finished off. The blankets were coated in chip crumbs, sugar, ants, and the like.
“Gross, Curly!” Wallace snatched the sugar tub from him. “No one else eat from this. Curly was eating over it and got mouth slobber in it.”
And no one else dipped their strawberries in the sugar tub.
Once the performance had started, they grew generally quiet until intermission when they continued to be loud and somewhat obnoxious. Curly paid Joe three dollars for use of his saucer chair during the second half. And Dr. Pepper was anonymously spilled on the blanket.
However, the performance was quite brilliant – Caesar’s ghost, Roman soldiers, battle, prose, and everything else as you like it. And it was a good evening.