Widdershins

I wasn't sure to expect from Widdershins, to which I'd bought a ticket because I still feel a connection to many things Welsh. The play was excellent. You may think I say that all the time, but there's often 'good' and 'very good;' this one was excellent.

Actually, the acting was uneven, which I've experienced at some of the smaller, less formal venues (particularly Undercroft). The story, though, is what really made it, and enough of the acting was excellent and enough was good enough to really channel the story. I can't tell you a thing without giving it away, but if you're in the area, I highly recommend it. It's also very inexpensive, and, if you're in Old Town, walking distance (if you're in Old Town, also go see "His Eye Was on the Sparrow"). I will qualify my fascination with the story--the plot, I should say--by saying that there was something slightly sloppy and not quite right in the end. At first, I didn't believe it--not in a supernatural way, but in a human way, i.e., I wasn't comfortable with the sides being taken--but after thinking on it more, it hit me just how realistic it was. But I also felt that the performance would have done well to explore why it came down the way it did. I have my own interpretation, and I'd find the face-value one controversial.

I'll tell you what was lacking for sure: the behavior of the audience (and the alertness of the ushers). The Little Theater actually prints in its program a list of what not to do: unwrap candy, talk, etc. Because it's not obvious to some people. But people did it anyway. One person even blew his or her nose loudly, in the middle of the play! As for the usher, your job is not to read me my seat number from my ticket; I can do that myself. It's to hand me a program (which he did not do until I asked for it) and direct me to the best way to my seat, i.e. that which entails stepping over the fewest number of people (only after I'd stepped over eight did I see how few seats there were to the other side of mine).

The play was a little bit creepy in more than one way, which made the walk home through Old Town a little bit creepy. Some of the eeriness came from the sense of deja-vu from the night I got hit by a car--also a Friday, a relatively nice night. I crossed the streets very carefully (and flipped off any driver who didn't yield when it was my right of way). Actually, I need to stop doing that, if only because if I continue at this rate, I'm bound to flip someone off in front of a coworker. Crossing Cameron Street was especially odd, but there was something funny about the creepiness: it subsided as I left the older part of Old Town, even though Washington Street wasn't any less empty or quiet there. It wasn't a general creepiness I'd felt; it was the kind that's with you after you've just heard or seen a ghost story.