Shakespeare Festival St.Louis

Time has been flying here for us between trips to Carbondale and Farmington.  We have also been busy with doctor's and dental appointments, a well as physical therapy for myself.  Our motor home has also chosen this time to go ill with several items, including the refrigerator and television, malfunctioning.  This certainly is the place and time for everything to get repaired, as St.Charles is where we bought our motor home and the best place to have it repaired.  Also, we have my sister Julia's home nearby as a place to reside when our home is in the shop.   Consequently, for a variety of reasons, we will continue to stay in the St.Louis area for one more month.  The weather is getting quite warm here, but it still is home and not a bad place to be if that is necessary. 
And St.Louis has many outdoor activities to engage in if we are looking for something to do, one of which is the Shakespeare Festival annually put on in Forest Park during the end of May.  This is its fifteenth year of the free festival, hard to believe that so many years have passed since we first started attending!  This year the outdoor production is Anthony and Cleopatra.  It always helps me to read a synopsis of any production written by Shakespeare before viewing it on stage.  The Post Dispatch helps with that by printing it in the paper, as well on a wall near Shakespeare's Glen at Forest Park. 

  Another opportunity to review the story of Anthony and Cleopatra before the show is by attending an abbreviated production of it on a small stage.  Teen-aged children play the various roles, and I think they did a good job of tackling a Shakespeare play!  Pictured below is the arrogant Cleopatra with her ladies-in-waiting.

Because of the chance of a large crowd and limited seating we usually arrive at the show site a few hours before the production starts. A 90-minute Green Show is traditionally a prelude to the evening's main performance and includes featured local musicians and clowns, a family activity area,  and jugglers.

Those young jugglers are good, and they also juggled knives.  Anyway, the production finally started and it was a good show.  I knew nothing regarding the story of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, must of missed their story in world history class and never saw the movie in which Elizabeth Taylor starred.  But it is a great love story filled with romantic angst and political intrigue. The language of Shakespeare is difficult to understand but I love the magic of words in any shape or form, and he is a master of them.  It was a 2 and one-half hour production, we were tempted to leave at intermission but stayed to the end.  We just had to see if the  frustrated lovers could triumph over the machinations of Caesar and live happily ever after!   If you live in St.Louis do go and see this awesome show and hey, it is free!  It runs until June 14.