Oh, for a muse of mosquito repellent

Managed to stir early (for me) this morning, ventured into the city to hook up with stakebait, sdelmonte, and various other folks for the Public Theater’s Henry V. I wound up in a little group of my very own, and snagged two tickets.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been getting a lot of comments — not just from otherdeb who hadn’t seen me in a year, but from negativeq, who sees me pretty often — on how much weight I’ve lost, even though (1) I’m maybe five pounds lighter than I was in November, and (2) I’ve actually gained a few pounds in the past couple weeks since it’s been too hot to exercise. I’m inclined to ignore such compliments, but today I tried on a size XL t-shirt, and it actually fit me comfortably, the first time that’s ever happened. I didn’t buy it, was insufficiently fond of the design to shell out $22, but I dithered for a while over the decision.

While most of the group was getting dinner, cadhla, camwyn, ladymondegreen, and I checked out a used book and record shop across the street, where I scored two CDs — Elvis Costello’s When I Was Cruel and Ani DiFranco’s Dilate — for five bucks, total.

Penguin Books gave out free copies of the play, and I got through the first few scenes. I’d have preferred to familiarize myself with the whole text before seeing it performed, but life just didn’t work out that way.

I left a number of messages on bugsybanana’s phones, but she never showed, so my second ticket went unused. (I gave it back at the box office, but nobody ever showed up to fill the seat next to me.)

The biggest laugh of the night came before the play actually started. The stage was decorated mostly in chairs, set up in rows at the start. As the audience settled in, actors in Elizabethan costume slowly wandered onstage and took seats as if they were an audience, but with their backs to us, as if we were all watching the lake behind the stage. Suddenly, a loud cellphone rang out. Then another, and another, and a raucous chorus of them, all coming from the speakers over the stage. Made the point rather effectively. Then one of the men in costume stood and posed, and another pulled out a large camera and snapped a photo of him. One of the ushers berated him for taking a flash photo, and confiscated the camera. (Which got used later in the production as a prop.)

I enjoyed the production, but my lack of familiarity with the text made me wonder about some bits. At one point, the chorus gives a speech that I think referred to arabs, but I haven’t been able to find it searching through an online text of the play.

The performances were good. Liev Schreiber made Henry convincingly awkward during his courting speech to Katherine (something I remember drcpunk complaining about), and Bronson Pynchot played Pistol broadly, with a thick Queens accent.

I found myself attacked by mosquitos a few times during the evening, something I’d never noticed previous years, but all the rain we got this spring has made this a very bad year for the little bloodsuckers. (Or a good year for them, and a bad one for us.)