It was about 10 AM when my colleague Anne Marie popped the
question.
"You doin' anything after work?" she asked me.
When I told her that I didn't have any plans, she invited me
to join her for a performance of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's
Dream". The performance, which was by a troupe from London's Globe
Theatre, was at 7 PM at Akershus Castle.
My invitation stemmed from the fact that Anne Marie had a
spare ticket, and the circumstances that led to her having a spare ticket were
sad indeed. Anne Marie and some of her lady friends had agreed to go to the
Thursday performance together. I think there were four in the group initially,
and then two backed out. That left Anne Marie and one friend who still planned
to go; I'll call her Miriam. At this point, there was apparently a
miscommunication. It was Anne Marie's understanding that Miriam wanted her to
buy the tickets, so Anne Marie went to the ticket office and bought a pair.
Things went south a day or two before the performance, however, when Miriam had
to cancel. She had some work obligation or something. When Miriam cancelled,
Anne Marie asked her to pony up the money for the ticket. Then things got a bit
nasty. Miriam denied that she had ever asked Anne Marie to purchase a ticket on
her behalf, and she refused to pay. The ticket in question cost 350 kroner
(about $53) so it wasn't an insignificant amount of money. And as you might
have guessed, the incident caused some bad blood between the two friends.
There was a silver lining to this cloud, however, (at least
for me) because like a phoenix, my free ticket sprang forth from the ashes of
this smoldering friendship.
After I accepted Anne Marie's invitation, we both had a full
day of work, which started to creep past 6 PM. When we finally left the office
and caught the bus down to the castle, we arrived 10 minutes before show time.
The seating for the performance was open seating, so Anne
Marie and I should have been relegated to the back rows for arriving so late.
This was not the case, however.
When we walked into the courtyard where the chairs were
arranged, another of Anne Marie's friends, Angela, beckoned to us from the
front row.
"Up here, Anne Marie!" she waved, "I've saved
you some seats!"
Angela was a member of the Oslo Shakespeare Society, and I
believe that she was the one who tipped off Anne Marie about the performance in
the first place.
The seats that she was holding for us were front and center,
and I suppose that Angela must have arrived at least an hour early to secure
them.
As Anne Marie and I walked down the aisle, we looked a bit
conspicuous. The other members of the audience were staring at us, probably
wondering who we were, because arriving late and taking the choice seats is
totally a VIP maneuver.
The seating, however, was not very comfortable. There were
rows of folding wooden chairs, and the two chairs that Angela had saved for
Anne Marie and me were so close together that it was impossible for both of us
to lean back at the same time. Anne Marie leaned back in her chair, and I had
to lean forward. She was sitting on my left, but it was just as tight on the
right side, and I felt bad for squishing the man next to me.
After the usual greetings, Angela expressed a small concern about the show.
"This is the first time we've had this particular
troupe," she told us. "I hope they're as good as the one we normally
get."
And shortly thereafter, the curtain lifted.
The set-up was pretty intimate. There were only a few
hundred people in the crowd and the stage was low and very close to the front
row.
Sitting on the front row was cool, but I was apprehensive
about being singled out for audience participation. At one point, a member of
the audience was dragged onstage, but thankfully, the cast fished this young
man out of the middle of the pack.
The show itself was excellent. In a small, but not unheard
of, twist, Puck was played by a woman. She was dressed in a black leotard with
fish-net stockings, like a cabaret performer. She was sassy and well-proportioned, but when she came close to me, I couldn't help but notice that her
hands looked at least 20 years older than the rest of her body. Her acting was solid,
though, as was the acting of the other players.
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" has a few different
interconnected stories going on at the same time - stories of love and magic,
fairies and humans, and a play within a play - and we had many good laughes.
Ole Will's still got it after all these years.
The troupe was not completely faithful to the script,
however, as they sprinkled some Norwegian phrases into the dialogue now and
again. The timing was perfect, though, and the Norwegians ate it up.
All good things must come to an end, though, and soon enough we were
honoring the cast with a standing ovation. As the cast was bowing and we were
cheering, I thought to myself, "Wow - I wish I was talented!" (well,
theatrically, that is...)
Angela too was won over, and she decided that this troupe
was as good as any she had seen.
While we were filing out of the courtyard, Angela invited us
to the cast party which was being hosted by the Oslo Shakespeare Society. Anne
Marie had a dog with a full bladder waiting at home, so she opted out. And
since I didn't really know Angela on my own, I piggy-backed on Anne Marie's
excuse and bowed out too. I'm sure Angela would have welcomed me to attend the
party without Anne Marie, but I had the feeling that once I told the cast they
had done a kick-ass job, I wouldn't have anything else intelligent to say.
Later that night, I thought about the etiquette surrounding my free ticket. Since it had been given to me with no strings
attached, I was under no obligation to pay for it, of course. However, I had
enjoyed the show, and I thought it might then be appropriate for me to
reimburse Anne Marie.
The next day at work, I mentioned my dilemma to Anne Marie,
and she was adamant.
"I gave you the ticket so it wouldn't go to
waste," she told me, "and I won't take any money for it."
"Besides," she added, "Miriam's the one who
owes me."
Meee-ow! Good luck collecting on that debt.
