Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Wives and Gentlemen

This morning we stopped in Mesquite so we could eat at the breakfast buffet at Casa Blanco...great spread. We then drove on up to Cedar City, Utah and arrived just in time for the 1:00p.m. orientation. We were told about the play, The School for Wives, that was written my Moliere in 1662. It is a comedy about a gentlemen who was overly concerned about the possibility of infidelity by a wife. To avoid this possibility, he goes unmarried until an orphan he has had raised in a convent is of age for him to marry. Unfortunately for him, on the day before their wedding, she falls in love with a young man her age. She knows nothing about love, and her benefactor tries to convince that love is not about feelings, but about being practical. If he can convince her of this she will marry him instead of the young man. He can't and true love wins out.

Supper tonight was at Milt's Steak House where Mike and I shared a steak and a baked potato and had our own salad. Another delicious meal. They have many hummingbird feeders and the little birds were coming to the feeders in multiples. Both of these following pictures are what we could see from our table while we ate supper.
After supper, it was time for the orientation for the evening performance, an early comedy of Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona. In this play, two young men are very good friends. Once they finish the equivalent of our high school, one is sent off to the emperor's court for further training, while the other stays behind in their village of Verona because he is in love with his sweetheart. The one that went to the emperor's court falls in love with the emperor's daughter, who is promised to someone else. The emperor's daughter also falls in love with him The friend left behind is ordered to go to the emperor's court by his father. With great anguish he promises to love his sweetheart even when they are apart and heads off to the court. Once there, he also falls in love with the emperor's daughter, forsaking his sweetheart. He also betrays his friend and has him banished from the empire so there is no competition for the emperor's daughter. The emperor's daughter leaves the empire to be with the her banished love. All the characters in the play follow her and end up together in a forest. Thru twists and turns in the plot, the second friend realizes that his hometown sweetheart is the woman for him, the friend banished from the empire forgives the friend for betraying him and gets the emperor's daughter as his. The emperor realizes he has made a mistake by banishing the love of his daughter so everything is settled as the play ends.

About 35 minutes before the play was to be over, the thunder and lightning began and soon after, the rains came. The actors left the stage, tarps were brought out and the play was suspended. We waited 45 minutes and the play resumed, only to have the rains return after only a couple of minutes! This time, the play was moved into an indoor theater where our tickets showed rain out seats in there. We saw the last portion of the play and finally got back to the hotel about 11:45p.m. A really late night by the time this blog got finished!

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