We tried the Best Western Hot Tub this chilly morning. Works fine. Drove into town to see Midsummer Night's Dream this afternoon. It was pretty good, but the director was setting it "modernly." I'm trying to figure out if having the fairies be men in tutus doing dances to disco music worked. In the end, I got tired of it. But that gives you some idea of the experimenting they are doing with the comedies here at the Festival. The play is pretty brutal for a comedy, but in the end all is well - and having the female lead speak with a Valley Girl accent worked pretty well. I have to give this one mixed ratings.

Dinner was at the Ashland Bistro Cafe, right around the block from the theaters. Its a nice places, seats about 40. We had 6pm reservations, arrived early, and got a good table and good service. I had spagetti & meatballs. I thought I was going to have duck, or a pork chop, but they had this Chianti and Mary Alice likes pasta, so we both got pasta and bottle of chianti and had a great time. I found a major typo on the wine list and the matre d' was also the menu person so that worked out well. It's a bit daunting to tell the maitre d' that the winelist contains a mispelled wine name, especially for someone who spells as I do, but I am nothing if not bold. We lingered for about an hour, but still had time to kill so we went to the OSF bookstore and broused. Near 8 we entered the outdoor theater grounds and picked up blankets and infra-red headphones. It was cold, but not as cold as Friday night which set some local records.

The play was Comedy of Errors, and it was set in the old west, with a narrator. Lots of slapstick. The idea is that twin brothers, served by another set of twin brothers, have been separated in early childhood and unbeknownst to brother A and servant ("Groomio") A who live in this town, Brother B and servant B, arrive seeking them - but also not knowing they live in this particular town. So we get brother mistaken for brother, groom for groom, with, as they say, hillarious consequences.

But the director took out so much Shakespeare, and added in so much old western things - like quite a few songs - that it really seemed like a western farce with some lines from Shakespeare in it. Nice enough, I guess, but if you saw it on TV you would only watch it once. I feel like we lost some of the qualities of the play, and its a thumbs down for me. We saw the last performance, so, dear reader, this review is of only academic interest to you.

A nice touch since the end of the play also marked the end of the season's performances in the Elizabethan theater, which is outdoors. After Comedy ended, about 10 p.m., all of the actors in the plays presented in the ET this year came on the stage and lined the aisles of the theater holding candles. Then one intoned Shakespeare's lines about theater all being air and fantasy, evaporating into nothingness, and they blew out the candles. Perhaps you had to be there, but it was a moving moment and a nice end to our Shakespeare Festival 2008 visit.