The Wandering Monkey

So, last night I had dinner with my mom and stepdad. All week my mom had been talking about going to see a free performance of Shakespeare's "As You Like It". My stepdad and I were still on the fence about this, but we decided to go at the last moment.
The performance was at Chico Hot Springs, the same place that has the natural hot springs heated pool. The play was held outside on a small stage about 15 feet wide. It looked like a pretty typical stage, with a wall behind it that had doors for the players to enter and exit.
The play began, and as it is with Shakespeare's old English, no one could really understand what they were saying. Then, the weather started to get threatening. A few drops of rain fell, waking up my stepdad from his sleep ;-). Then, the wind started blowing. REALLY blowing. I thought the stage was going to flip over. Everyone took shelter in the porch of a nearby building. The actors handled it really well. They kept doing their lines as long as possible, but that began to get comical in its own right. Finally, they stopped somewhere in the third act and covered the scenery and loudspeakers.
To keep us entertained, one of the actors began telling jokes off the top of his head. And he invited people from the audience to do the same. In time, the wind and rain let up, and the audience returned to the lawn.
That actor said, "When we last left 'As You Like It'..." and they took up the scene where they had left off. The audience cheered!
By this time, my ear had grown accustomed to the old English, and I could understand everything the actors were saying. But in the fourth act, the rain kicked in again. The audience made the same mad dash for cover, and the actors scrambled to protect their scenery and audio equipment. One actor took to the center of the stage and shook his fist at the wind and declared, "As God as my witness, we WILL finish this play!!"
They did, finally, to the applause and delight of all.
That evening, I headed out to check out the local bar scene, and I met up with the actors at the Chico bar. I played foosball with the Jester and said hello to the Melencholy Man and the main character, Rosalind. It turned out that with the exception of the Jester, most of them actually lived in the Chicago area.
I spent the night hanging out with them and the locals. I had a good amount of the local brew, Moose Drool. I encourage you to try it if you are ever in the vicinity of Bozeman, Montana.
Cheers to the Montana Shakespeare in the Park players!
http://www.montana.edu/wwwmtsip/

-J