Mariam-Julius Caesar ⭐⭐⭐

This play was such a solid play and the movie did it such a great injustice. It should have been passionate and emotional about people having to decide what is right between terrible evils, about the betrayal of friends, about protecting people and their rights, about fighting and dying for your principles. 

At least, I was able to tell from the movie that it should have been all of that. The delivery just did not match.

“Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar” was delivered in all lower case, maybe in 8 pt font.

Brutus did drop this banger:

“Say not that I loved Caesar less,

But that I loved Rome more.”

Man was idealistic to a fault.  He really walked off after that to let Marc Antony say whatever he wanted.

The best part was Marlon Brando’s first few sentences of Marc Antony’s, “for Brutus is an honorable man” speech. That was scathing and his voice was dripping with it. 

It’s worth putting that speech here:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; (Meh delivery on this line. I agree with Missy on the shouty.)
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.

Oof!

I don’t know when this will be but I’m waiting for a moment in my real life that I can say in a voice trembling with scorn:

And Brutus is an honorable man!

Anyway, at this point Marlon pauses, poses fetchingly in a classical thinking pose:

 and then absolutely ruins the rest of the speech by seeming to turn crafty and use the moment to rile up the population so that he and Octavius can rule. 

Funny part that wasn’t meant to be funny. Cassius has someone stab him with a sword that looked about the size of a kitchen knife (Missy tells me its close to accurate and far more dangerous than I imagine) and then aaaa…*dead*.

Funny part that was in the play but not in the movie: the mob that Antony has stirred up is running amuck and grabs some random guy and demands to know what he’s doing, why he’s there, is he married or single? 

He’s attending Caesar’s funeral and he’s single. The mob looks at each other and then back at him and demand to know if he’s making fun of them because they're married.

No, random guy assures, he just meant that he’s single, like actually. 

Well anyway, what’s his name?

 “Cinna”. 

“Cinna like one of the guys who stabbed Caesar?” 

“No! Cinna the poet!” 

“You mean Cinna the bad poet? Cinna, the bad poet that writes bad poetry?” 

*Drags him off to lynch him or whatever.*

It was funny but also terribly real and violently sad.

I had a moment where I thought the women, especially Portia was interesting. They had much more of a say than women have had in any of Shakespeare's plays so far and Portia even said something somewhat modern sounding:

I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am I yourself
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.

But she had just that one scene and disappeared.

This play made me think about what I would do if a friend I was totally loyal to did something so horrendous that I had to choose whether I should break the loyalty. Anyway, the answer is I hope I don't have to find out. 

I said to Missy I'd like the people who did Gladiator to redo Julius Caesar. She has suggested Branagh for a remake. So if any of you are reading this blog, please do consider it. 

Henry IV Part I next. We are figuring out which version to watch.

Mariam-Venus and Adonis ⭐⭐⭐

I saw "poem break" on the list and immediately thought "commercial break, time to get up, get a snack and a drink, text everyone back." 

Missy reminded me we actually have to read/listen to this poem. 

I listened to it on a plane so I got it in one go which was a good way to listen to it. It was actually straightforward to understand and I admire storytelling poetry. I love Homer for this reason and I think he beats Shakespeare. But this was good storytelling, good and easy enough to understand. 

The story was ok. I uncomfortably sat through listening to this goddess chasing a guy who clearly just wants to go back to his video games/hunting and then when he thinks she died, he gives her a crumb/kiss and she asks him for one more crumb/kiss and then the next day he dies from the hunting/video games. 

The one good thing is a flower grows out from under him.

Not to dismiss their pain and sorrow, but I judge human folly more harshly in fiction.

It was nicely written. I just think I didn't like the story and the next poem seems even worse, story-wise so I'm glad to get to Julius Caesar 

Missy -Julius Caesar ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

So our list claimed that this 1953 version of Julius Caesar was the definitive version and the only one to watch hands down. 

I’ll give you a little taste here. 

Julius Caesar is the story of the assassination of Caesar by his fellow republicans. It’s about their motivations and the reactions of his world thereafter. 

I hadn’t seen any version of this play before, though I had read it. The positives were that those throw away lines, referring to the biggest storm ever, or the crowd becoming a mob, got the royal MGM treatment on the screen. There is a giant cast and the special effects are big and booming and immersive. This really makes a huge difference for me as the audience.

Brando as Marc Anthony

and Mason as Brutus are great!

But I felt the hamminess of a big Ben-Hur tinged Hollywood in most of the other performances. Particularly, I felt it with Caesar (Louis Calhern) and Cassius (John Gielgud). I felt the Captain Kirk pauses and grandiose poses, keenly. 

Some of this is just temporal dissonance, I’m used to and prefer, in a likely juvenile way, one kind of movie and this is another. BUT mostly it’s because I vastly prefer a natural sounding delivery, like anything by Branagh, to the sort of scenery chewing shout-fests the 50’s were keen on.

Here the famous Marc Anthony Speach in two styles so you can hear what I mean.

I love this one.

Here is the 1953. I like this one and think Brando is great here.

A lot of the shouting is due to the crowd and distance, completely appropriate to the scene, but not all of it. Older movies (mostly for technical reasons) were shouty. 

I find shouty less compelling.

If you want a real taste of what I don’t like go look up the Charlton Heston version (shudder).

Enough complaining about old Hollywood. 

The play is also not my favorite. It is short and still manages to pack in a bushel of spechifying. 

I’m much more a fan of Greece than Rome when it comes to the two giants of ancient western civilizations. So the attack and defense of the Roman ideals is never going to be much for me. In Shakespeares day everyone literate was brought up on Rome and things Roman and this series of plays makes great sense for them.

There are great ideas here and noble dissertations. To me though it’s not compelling in and of itself.

This play brought more quotable quotes than you could imagine for such a small one.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars

But in ourselves,”


“Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.”

“Et tu, Brutè?”

“Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war.”

It goes on and on. You know lines from this play if you are old enough to read this blog. It has in it some masterful writing.

It’s beautifully written and interesting but it has yet to grab me. This is probably also because I dislike Caesar and most of the conspirators and most of the crowd characters.

The most interesting things for me here all point to Marc Anthony and Octavius in their future. Probably because my foot in the door for Rome comes from I Claudius . I love I Claudius!

It did tickle my history fancy though.

Here for your viewing pleasure some fun Julius Caesar images. 

Brando smoking on set. 

Julius Caesar 

Marc Anthony 

Brutus

Now for something completely different. I've been waiting to do this play, with great anticipation, to put this video, that my daughter showed me last year, up. Its fantastic. Warning it is gory.

I hope someone, in future, does a version of Julius Caesar that I like more. I’m not writing it off by any means but this version wasn’t entirely for me. 

Julius Caesar - 3.5 stars for not grabbing me. 

Mom score - no real moms but I want to give 4 stars to Calpurnia for having to go through the barren woman shaming from Caesar in act one. 

Mariam-A Midsummer Night's Dream ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

Probably till the end of the year, I won't be able to immerse myself in each play the way I have been able to so far, just due to the busy. 

There were no lectures for this one and I heard about a third of it on audio in which I understood the premise and then I didn't get any further.

At around this time, I had a discussion with Missy about comedies. So far the comedies had not impressed. I felt that the tragedies and histories touched on the human condition and the histories also taught me a lot. The comedies were fluff although I had not much to go on since I've only watched Much Ado About Nothing, so far. I did rate Much Ado a 4 stars but I felt that was due to what the actors brought to the play and not what was in the play. 

I got some context from Missy that helped frame it better. The comedies were meant for holidays, celebrations, revels. It put me in mind of the cozy Christmas murder mystery genre. And I might not love those but I do appreciate them for what they are. 

The context for my watching this movie was that I was in a fancy hotel for work but with nothing to do for at least the next six hours, dinner DoorDashed in, and after some thought, dessert too. I haven't had such a day in a year so in other words...a revel? Add 0.5 points for the very appropriate situation. I believe it added much to my enjoyment. 

I loved it. Most of all for what I like to say is 90s maximalist movie style. Romeo and Juliet was the same but less celebratory. There were flowers and fruits everywhere, even in places where they shouldn't be.

 Extras packed into every corner. 

It felt very Michael Kinkade:

Little side story arcs that were there just for the fun of it like the fairy folk that were just openly stealing things with no explanation given.

The color is so warm, the people look a little orange. And there's this style of lighting that was used to indicate fantasy or etherealness. 

The Neverending Story was of this type of movie too from around the same time. 

Donnie liked the bikes. I really liked the record player and the whimsy of the incongruous records in fairy land. It should have been jarring but instead it fit. 

And Shakespeare often does music as magic (Ariel's singing comes to mind) and the sentiment of that touched me too. 

Shoutout to this one guy who we never get an explanation for:

I did briefly wonder if it was leftover costuming from Star Wars. 

For the life of me, I can't tell you who was with who and who ended up with who. (There were three female H names. And here I have to pause and apologize to Sarah J Maas who I harangued for doing the same thing because if Shakespeare did it, I guess she gets a pass.) I wasn't super invested but I was glad that the right people all ended up together. That's what I want my fun, cozy, holiday movie to be like. 

By now I wasn't surprised as perhaps Donnie was about the raunchiness of the whole thing. I've watched enough Shakespeare to not be surprised. But I did have to ask Missy if I was understanding the whole dog metaphor right. I'm not terribly surprised that it was meant to be kinky, just a little surprised that nothing in human psychology is realllyyy modern.

I have in both in Much Ado and now in Midsummer, very much enjoyed the silly comedic side arc. This surprises me because silly used to rarely amuse me but clearly I've started to gain an appreciation. As in Much Ado, I think the actors brought something poignant to their roles that wasn't written into the text. Bottom is annoying and yet, I felt for him when he was being bullied because he does seem to know he doesn't quite fit in. The whole angle of this ragtag group being nervous about acting in front of the king was also poignant as well as how they ended that play so sincerely. I surprisingly laughed at the stupid wall joke and when there was brick behind the window instead of moonlight. The dog also made me laugh. When they all wandered off arm in arm at the end, I felt the warmth of friendship and achievement too. I liked the meta of a play in a play. 

I am looking forward to the comedies much more now. Two in a row have been very good. 

Onwards. There is a poem break next.

Missy - Venus and Adonis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 This week we read Venus and Adonis. This is a well documented and probably flawless (in terms of copy) work.

It also marks our first poem break and the 1/4 mark for this project. 

I love the poetry of Shakespeare but usually that makes me think of sonnets. 

This one is far longer than a sonnet, and the production that I listened had readers/performers who were a little too arching and a little too conscious of their diction for my taste, but it was a clean delivery and very quick, at an hour. 

A summery of this poem. 

Venus sees Adonis and wants him. She pounces on him and plucks him off his horse with lusty enthusiasm. Adonis could not care less and wants to go hunting. She tries to seduce him and he’s very much “No thank you, I’m very busy.”. He wants to go hunting. 

His horse gets the hots for a mare and runs off. Adonis tries to ditch Venus and pays the toll of a kiss, to get her off him. 

She asks if they can meet up the next day and he says no he’s going out, hunting boar. She says a boar will kill you if you do that. He’s all, ‘talk to the hand’. 

The next day she goes to find him killed by a boar. She is bitter and curses both death and love. 

Shakespeare says this all very prettily. 

This is probably Shakespeare’s first publication (1593) and it seems comes from his clean copy. It was super popular when it came out and did a good bit to establish his reputation. 

Half of me wants to say that this is Shakespeare understanding that women can be lusty hornballs too (but of course this unbalances the natural order, so Venus is left frustrated, unsatisfied, and tedious) and the other half of me falls very comfortably into the queer interpretations which often imagines Adonis as an object of homosexual or bisexual desire. There’s lots of good analysis on this poem and it’s worth checking out to see how clever Shakespeare is being here, or at the very least how open to interpretation. 

The Bard is showing off here. There is classical Ovid, there is camp comedy and touching sorrow, its lusty (lust vs love beautifully debated mid stream) and philosophical. He is maybe also doing that thing that popular writers do, and expressing the contemporary zeitgeist, the discomfort of a kingdom of men ruled by a woman. 

Mostly it’s giving Violent Femms

Missy - A Midsummers Nights Dream ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A lot of what I want to do here is compare the 1935 and 1999 film versions of this play. I watched them both this week so they are pretty fresh in my head.

Let us start with something one to one comparison, the transformation of Bottom. 

1935

1999

This side by side has quite a lot going for it. First of all we’ve got two popular and critically acclaimed actors in James Cagney and Kevin Kline. Sometimes differences in delivery are more down to director than actor  with plays like this, but I think it’s a good guess that with stars of this caliber, you are seeing mostly their own choices. 

I think they are both good and actually fairly similar for this scene but the stand out differences come from what’s going on around them. 

This is the time to reveal that I find child actor Mickey Rooney to be insufferably grating. His Puck ruined my day when I watched the 1935 version. 

So, Puck notwithstanding, the biggest differences are technological. Lighting and recording were much harder in 1935 so everything is unnaturally (but intentionally and intelligently) lit. I generally prefer more natural lighting but I dig the artistry of a film classic that has to work so hard within its constraints. 

The sound recording was just not good back then. Soft sounds were pretty much inaudible so everyone was half shouting (it’s hard to do subtitles this way) and the swelling Mendelssohn is constantly distorted. The 1999 has my vote here but it didn’t do much to deserve it. The musical choices were fine but not inspired (except for the processional in which Mendelssohn and an aria or two). For me this one is a draw. 

A standout feature with Midsummer’s Nights Dream is that it lends itself to great set work and design. There are opportunities for costume, makeup, backgrounds, and these days even CGI. 

Both of these films knocked it out of the park given what they had to work with. 

The 1935 was just coming of an incredibly successful stage production with literal tons of dirt hosting a small forest on a rotating stage to bring the enchanted forest to life. They had a full orchestra (100piece) and a ballet company.

 The 1999 went all out on Roman tinged bacchanals with heavy prosthetic use, imaginative and colorful costume design, choreography and a lite hand on the fairy lights. They were shooting in Italy and you just can’t top that for scenery.

I’d give it to the 1935 version here. They were stuck with practical effects but they did so much with them. 

In the above scenes  you get a feel for the boundary pushing of the Reinhardt and the relative comfort of the Hoffman choices, reflected in Bottoms transformation above. 

Lastly, for me, there is pure watchability. 

The 1935 is very long, it’s 2 hours 33 minutes of Theater brought to the soundstage. It introduces a few scenes like the wedding processional and mixed in some choral and orchestral beats. 

 The 1999 was just under 2 hours even with its tribute processional and smaller musical breaks (banging use of opera here). 

I loved both Titania's but especially Anita Louise who is radiant. 

But Michelle Pfeiffer is always stunning. 

Oberon are always meh for me because I don’t like the character. 

Puck is my sticking point. 

The obnoxious delivery and the godawful vocalizations coming out of that child make me want to throw things at the screen. Oooo I hate it. 

Tucci is funny and quick and enjoyable. 

I cant find a good clip but...

"This is the man, but not this the maid."

...

The lovers are all entertaining and interchangeable. Hippolyta  is background, I prefer 1935 Theseus. 

But I love the 1999 Mechanicals. They are sweet on top of 1935s bumbling. Klein and Rockwell grant some much appreciated grace and complexity.

Make no mistake, this is a hammy and silly play. For me it’s perfect for Klein who can be the cheesiest while still underneath it all connecting with his audience. I love his work. 

In the same way that Rooney drags down the 1935, Klein elevates the 1999.

If I were recommending a single version to a modern audience who didn’t know the play it would be the 99. But I liked the 35 very much and if it weren’t for Rooney would happily watch it again. 

Regarding the play itself. 

The theory of its origin is a little fragmented. It was probably commissioned as an entertainment for a noble wedding and then latter that season or the next made its way out into the Globe and common production. 

This is a quintessentially Elizabethan play and there is some possibility it was created for her for a holiday revel. Either way it’s light and fluffy and sweet and fun. James didn’t love it and it fell out of full production until the Victorians brought it back. 

Midsummers Nights Dream - 4 stars for fun. Minus one for needlessly confusing semi twin plot conventions. 

Mom score - 2 stars for Titania taking in the son of one of her deceased followers to raise. She wasn’t what you’d call an attentive guardian though. 

Donnie – A Midsummer Night’s Dream ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hi, all! My name is Donnie and I’ll be your guest blogger for this week. Here’s a list of my Shakespeare credentials: 

That’s right: I’m a nepo baby. I only got this gig because I know the bloggers. 

This week I’m covering A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the 1999 fantasy romantic comedy. Before I get into it, though, let me briefly (lol) frame my perspective. I am a baby Shakespearean “scholar” (heavy emphasis on the quotations). Even though I was a huge reader growing up, I never liked Shakespeare in school. I thought the language was indecipherable and my impressions were based mostly on the pop culture depictions of overly dramatic soliloquies while holding aloft a skull. 

I became interested in Shakespeare a few years ago after going to Sleep No More, an immersive theatre experience that draws a lot from Macbeth. (Honorary mention to Mariam’s recommendation to read Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, which inexplicably gives me intense nostalgia for the unique college experience of being an English major that I never actually had.) 

[Sleep No More]

Then, I stumbled upon the Folger Library editions of Shakespeare’s plays, which I credit entirely for their ability to make Shakespeare accessible and understandable to someone like me. 

I picked up A Midsummer Night’s Dream and imagine my surprise when I find that I’m reading a teen romcom with a B-plot of a man transfigured into a literal ass. Delightful! Who would’ve thought that Shakespeare was such a talented and versatile writer?

I’m rambling. Let’s get to the movie. 

I unexpectedly completely adored this movie. In my opinion, MND is a little goofy. I mean, it’s about four young people in love (and they behave about as crazily as you’d expect young people in love to behave), a fairy land with a ridiculously smoldering king, a mischievous and sometimes inept trickster fairy, quite a few love potions, and a man who becomes half-donkey and hooks up with the fairy queen. It’s silly. But I think if you can embrace the unseriousness, you’ll find that MND leans into the camp so thoroughly that it’s genuinely a super fun romcom. I was literally laughing out loud at the performances and how director Michael Hoffman injected even more comedy into the cinematography without adding lines. 

(Aside: this movie was surprisingly(?) horny, featuring, among other things, mud wrestling and a scene where we see Hermia lying down to sleep and Lysander’s hand comically slowly creeping under her arm to grab her breast. I was rolling on my couch laughing.) 

For me, the stand-out performances were Calista Flockhart (Helena), Kevin Kline (Bottom), and Stanley Tucci (Puck). Flockhart kills as the unchosen maiden character. She’s so dramatic and her facial expressions cracked me up. There’s a scene where Hermia and Lysander reveal that they’re going to run away together (in between bouts of making out) and it cuts to Flockhart giving the perfect eye roll in response to their excessive PDA and declarations of love. 

Kline is just superb as Bottom. I feel like Bottom must be a tough character to play because he’s almost always used as stupid comic relief, but Kline plays it so earnestly and somehow also gives the character some dimension. Puck also has a lot of dumb comic relief moments, and I think Hoffman directs more comedic mood into his scenes as well, but I love Stanley Tucci and so I thoroughly enjoyed watching him ham it up. 

I could lightly critique the pacing, because I think there are times that it’s difficult to juggle the two main storylines and it’s a little jarring to wrap up with this abridged performance of Pyramus and Thisbe by Bottom and co. after the lovers’ storyline is already wrapped up. Also, I will admit, I don’t quite understand why Hoffman chose to feature bicycles so heavily. But honestly, I had so much fun watching that I can’t really complain. 

In my book reviews, I always try to make a targeted recommendation. So here, I will say, I can confidently recommend this movie if you like over-the-top romcoms, dramatic teens, or theatre kid camp. Read the Folger Library edition first so it’s easier to follow the story. 

I have one last topic, if you’ve made it this far and somehow you’re still willing to read more. After Missy’s Macbeth post, I’ve been thinking a lot about how well Shakespeare writes his characters, and especially male characters. I still don’t feel like I have a complete answer, but I have to say that I think Hoffman does an excellent job of translating the four young lovers into modern day (okay, fine, ‘90s) sensibilities. 

They’re just SO dramatic. Hermia is prepared to die (or at least run away) to be with Lysander. Helena begs Demetrius to treat her like a dog just so she can be with him. The dudes…honestly, the dudes kind of seem like they just want girlfriends in general as opposed to specifically Hermia and Helena. We can blame some of that on the love potions, but I’m not going to lie and tell you I never saw that happening in high school. 

So yeah, they’re crazy. But I think of college and my first love, and yeah, everything DID feel dramatic and it’s maybe even possible that I, too, did some dumb things in the name of love (stories for another time). So these characters feel mostly believable to me, if a little cliché and gender-conforming. Shakespeare looks at these characters he’s crafted in 1595 and sums it up: “Lord, what fools these mortals be.” Watching in 2025, I would say – some things never change. 

Mariam-Richard II ⭐⭐⭐.5

Maybe I'm cheating with all the half stars, but it's how I feel!

I didn't get through the whole audiobook not because I didn't try, but because I was in so many meetings these past few weeks that I didn't have enough lab time to listen to it. But I could tell it was difficult and dense. It's a LOT of political context that I didn't have and I didn't figure out till I watched the play that Richard was using the royal we and so I had an incorrect understanding of what was happening for whatever I did hear.

The lectures did give me some understanding about religion and English royalty that I didn't understand. Namely that the king is king because God made him so. So there's a lot of guilt about overthrowing a king (unless you're a heathen, I guess) but then...would he have been overthrown if God didn't want a different king? The chicken and egg argument about fate and free will. 

It took me FOREVER to watch this play because of life, but also I got a free version and it used to play 6 ads in a row at every commercial break. 

3.5 because the boring parts were boring but the good parts were really good. Ben Whishaw was excellent as Richard II. I think Richard II was boring to everyone, not just me. If he could say it in one sentence, he said it in ten because he had so many FEELINGS. I sympathize. I'd use five but still. 

The most brilliant part was when he actually gave up his crown. He took forever to do it. He came in dressed like this:

And THEN called himself Jesus but worse off. "So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve, / Found truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none."

He really pushed the Jesus metaphor which given the whole God appointed the king thing was probably his best strategy. I couldn't tell if he really believed it or it was his defense strategy. 

At some point he did this:

Then this:

Henry was looking down at him like this:

I laugh every time I see this picture. When I tell you I was enjoying myself immensely...

At some point Northumberland whose eyes have nearly rolled out of his head from all the drama says that procedurally Richard has to read his own crimes out loud. 

Richard clutches his eyes and sobs, "I can't, my tears are blinding me."

Then he can't help himself, gives everybody a withering look and says, "But not so blinding that I can't see y'all MF'ing traitors."

Northumberland: Oh then maybe you could read the list of crimes.

Richard: *clutches eyes* *sobs*

Northumberland looks dead into the camera like you have got to be kidding me:

You know, he actually never read his crimes out loud. It was fantastic. 

I like having a good guy and a bad guy and understanding everyone's motives very clearly. Shakespeare doesn't. I don't think he even believes in such a thing. I expected to dislike Richard but he was so out of touch and raised to be so that I couldn't totally blame him. I expected to be fully on Henry's side but he was so unsure of his cause that I couldn't throw myself behind him. 

In the end, it was a family feud and one cousin was mean to another (but in a way that took away his whole existence and livelihood) so then that cousin did it back and then a third cousin decided to kill one or the other of them and really, why don't you just keep everyone else who is trying to survive, out of it? Says the democratic and troubled American as she looks down her nose at aristocrats.

Missy and I had huge conversations about this era because my impression was that England was "squalid and squabbling." Also "dark and damp." All this alliteration is actually not from me. I'm pretty sure I've read the words "marshy backwater of England" somewhere. Our discussions have led me to conclude that it's a gradual build up of impressions from American literature. I read a lot of historical fiction as a kid and England IS the bad guy to a lot of people so it probably added up. 

But Missy who very much enjoys the culture of the Middle Ages pointed out things like whitewashed walls which I'm very taken with, the music and arts, the clothes, and dance. And that a lot of the lack of technology that other civilizations had such as clean drinking water, internal plumbing, and modern medicine were due to a decline in infrastructure and population in England right after the fall of the Roman Empire. I'm still thinking about it all. 

Ok, next. Midsummer Night's Dream. Our friend, Donnie will be joining us with this one. The choices are:

And:

Missy - Suplemental The Party

 Please play this music while reading this post.

We went to my clubs Midsummer Nights Dream Halloween party. We dressed as Elizabethan fairies.

We were either Moth and Mote or Moth and consort of Moth in the traditional mortal consort style.

Here is the program:

# 🌙 **Historic Haven: Midsummer Night’s Dream Halloween Masquerade**

### 🎭 *Saturday, October 31st – An Enchanted Evening of Mischief and Magic*

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**🕗 8:00 PM – Opening Toast & Feast**  

Welcome all! Raise your glasses to good fortune and protection from mischievous spirits.  

Dinner is served, and enchanted potions (a.k.a. booze) are offered as defense against evil spirits.

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**🌸 8:05 PM – The Flowers of True Sight**  

Gene begins the *Flowers of True Sight* game — seek truth among illusion and find who wears glamour still.  

Meanwhile, Steven wanders the hall with snapdragons, bestowing sparks of mischief and delight.

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**💃 8:30 PM – Dancing Under the Moonlight**  

The music begins — join hands, elves and mortals alike, for lively historic dances.

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**🎭 9:15 PM – The Mechanicals’ Play**  

A brief and comical performance by the “finest” troupe of actors in all of Fairyland.  

Prepare for laughter, chaos, and questionable stagecraft!

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**🔥 9:30 PM – The Pumpkin Fire Leap**  

Brave souls may test their luck and spirit by leaping over the flaming pumpkins —  

a time-honored charm for courage and good fortune.

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**🏆 9:45 PM – Costume Awards**  

Prizes bestowed for:  

• Best Costume  

• Sexiest Costume  

• Best Elf  

• Best Ass’s Head  

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**🎶 10PM – The Bard’s Ballad**  

Steven performs a *serious historical ballad* 

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✨ *Join us for a night of revelry, magic, and merriment in our enchanted indoor forest!*

This is the event we have been learning all those dances for. It was also the thing I have been crafting up a storm over. 

The projects that I am the most proud of are David’s moth pattern cloak and my matching French Hood pattern. 

It’s not exactly a French Hood but it was as close as a Walmart costume hat and hot glue could go. 

Both of these are much more Tudor than Elizabethan but I was working with older costumes that I was trying to bring forward by several decades. 

On the other hand fairy’s are probably very loose in their timeline fashion choices so maybe it’s more authentic than not, that the costumes were a little old fashioned. 

I tried to bring us up to date with neck ruffs and changing the profiles of the garb. 

Then of course wings and ears from cheap Chinese site dot com. 

I 3d printed and painted and assembled moth masks and antlers and a headband. A nice thing about printing is the ability to resize headbands to a customizable fit.

My husband is a dashing and long suffering kindly date. 

He also applied some mustache wax to go for an Elizabethan men’s grooming style. 

My friend Lucero also loaned us some earrings and rings and necklaces in moth themes. 

We had parent duty for the evening so my main goal was to make sure we made it for the dancing. 

We drove out to Frederick dressed fancy (driving in a hoop skirt is a whole thing) and found parking. 

We scuttled (cold October breeze in an hoop skirt is also a thing!) over to the club and joined the throng. 

It was a throng too. 

We saw many amazing costumes and dodged in and out of hanging greenery and sparkling beverages. 

We took part in 3 chaotic dances that taught me that I should have sewed in the Velcro patches on the cloak and that mask plus glasses plus ears was a dangerous amount of precarious balance. 

Poor David was very much not digging the crowd so we had a drink and left quickly. 

I loved the dancing and the crafting and the Shakespeare of it all.