By: Tim Treanor

Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
Mistress Page to her husband, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V, Scene 5.

Every city boy, and every city girl, should spend a weekend in the country, watching Shakespeare.

It had been nearly a month since I last put electron to electron for dctheatrereviews, and the itch to pass judgment had been gnawing on me mightily. I was watching my neighbor cut the grass – an activity which always fatigues me – and I felt compelled to make an observation to Lorraine.

“He’s cutting the grass in one direction, and then turning around and cutting it in the other direction, so that the grains are going in all different directions,” I said. “I would have made a different choice.”

“Um-huh,” Lorraine replied.

Later, I was listening to our dog bark. “Annie’s barking doesn’t sound authentic,” I complained. “Really, it’s more like bark gestures.”

“That’s it,” Lorraine said, slamming down the pastafazool. “We’re going to the country, where you can review everything.”

The following Saturday we set out to Staunton, Virginia, with our friends James and Christine Beard. James is an excellent actor (Much Ado About Nothing, Headman’s Holiday) and superb writer whose one-man show, Mamas Don’t Let Your Cowboys Grow Up to be Actors, we are producing at the Fringe Festival. Christine was of late pastry cook at the Inn at Little Washington and will assume the same position at the Fairmont Hotel, in Big Washington. I enjoy traveling with people who are smarter than I am, and taking credit for their insights. It helps to explain my marriage.

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