Lindsay Kemp, interesting man, worth looking up on Wikipedia, left England and made his name as in Spain, came back with a great version of Midsummer Night’s Dream in which he played Puck. I never saw a life performance but the film version was excellent.
Almost 20 years later, I’m in a park in Seattle watching it again, but this time no Lindsey Kemp but a version set in Los Angeles with a dog and hula-hoops. I am unaccustomed to hearing Shakespearean text delivered in a strong American accent so I found the event a trifle strange, plus I arrived in the middle, or possibly near the end so I was a little confused too. But then confusion is one of the themes of the piece I believe?
This afternoon’s performance was delivered by Wooden O Productions who interestingly enough won “ Best Shakespeare in the Parks, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine: best of the City 2007”. Naturally the question that this information raises is – exactly how many Shakespeare in the Parks are there? I have come across one other outfit so far just by wandering the green areas of the city, and a quick search on Google didn’t throw up any other contenders.
Then again we shouldn’t believe everything we read on the web, nor what we read in the papers. The director of tonight’s piece for example, Vanessa Miller has no mention on Wikipedia, which in comparison to Lindsay Kemp seems unfair as she is working in the park today and he is not. Intriguingly she is described in my copy of The Seattle Weekly as “actress/director/all-around badass”.
The Seattle Weekly is one of two (the other is The Stranger) free newspaper/magazines that are available from your local neighbourhood American style metal box newspaper dispenser. For this European it is a quintessential U.S.A. experience to open one of these and take out a newspaper, even if you have no intention of reading it. In fact you need to read both to get a fair idea of what is going on in the city, certainly in film and art though both, and this may be a fair reflection on Seattle, they are lop heavy with the music scene.
The Seattle Weekly is currently gathering votes for it’s own Best of Seattle of which it claims to be the originators and even uses a trade mark symbol in the same breath. The results will be published on Aug 8 in a bumper (and still free) issue that is every traveller’s essential aid. I am particularly looking forward to the results of the “Best in the category that we forgot to list” category. It should show us something interesting and unusual about the place.
Anyway, this afternoon Puck was spreading mayhem in an open-air production, viewable for free in The Seattle Centre. The S.C. is a downtown area of park and pavilions centred on the emblematic Space Needle Tower which remains from a former World’s fair and has a revolving restaurant at the top offering stunning, probably 360 degree views. But you have to pay to go up. An equally interesting, though free view is that of the rows of tourists lying in the grass at its base trying to capture a photo opportunity. In the daytime the Needle resembles a 1950's flying saucer on stilts, at night as dusk settles and its illuminated structure commences to glow it appears as a giant jelly fish floating through the early evening sea.
The Centre has something for everyone, though at times it can feel uncultured and tacky; there is a Science Centre (complete with butterfly house), more than one Sport’s arena, theatres, a Jimi Hendrix experience, fun fair, cinema and a fountain of polished stainless steel, big enough to enthral, that allows everyone to run through and under for impromptu bathing, the architecture is sometimes functional, sometimes inspired and an hour can cost you an arm and a leg or be free. Yesterday the Centre served as a marshaling area for the annual Seafarer parade that paralyses central Seattle and amongst the Chinese Acrobats, Pirates, Majorettes, Brass Bands and a myriad of different floats was one lady with a wheelbarrow and a spade.
It could have been one of Puck’s tricks.
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