On Being a Hipster and Coherent Shakespeare

I never thought I would say this, but I have genuinely liked a slightly abridged, American production of Shakespeare.  This past weekend I headed into Greenwich Village to see Fiasco Theater and Theater for a New Audience's production of Cymbeline and it was really good.

Of course, going into Greenwich Village, one cannot help but feel like a hipster.  The streets are lined with establishments of nonconformity.  And it turns out that hipsters travel in packs.  This I did not know. But lo and behold, I saw packs of 20-somethings cultivating their looks of disdain at the likes of you and I and their carefully chosen ensembles, designed to look like they were not quite so carefully chosen.  But I really can't mock.  I'm something of a hipster myself.  In any event, I had a delicious (probably fair trade and organic) lunch at a tiny little cafe and headed off to the Barrow Street Theater.
This Cymbeline will probably be the only Cymbeline I ever see.  It is very rarely produced and probably, rightly so.  It's called a problem play with good reason.  Every trope that Shakespeare ever used or created is in this show.  And that's not a criticism; Shakespeare was a great writer and knew how to use them properly.  However the plot of Cymbeline is so complicated that it is even a bit of a headache for the most dedicated of Shakespeare fans. Which is why I'm kind of glad they abridged this.  Which is not to say it was any shorter than your average Shakespeare fare, the Fiasco Theater company simply, judiciously took out some of the less relevant side plots.  This rendered the play far more enjoyable and much easier to understand.  Nor did they try to set it too complicatedly.  The set consisted of a sheet, two boxes, and a trunk, and it was perfectly done.  This minimalist staging framed the show without overwhelming it or rendering it incomprehensible as many productions seem to do.  They also set music to the show, which is something I greatly believe in.  I'm not calling for musical versions of every Shakespeare drama - that would be ridiculous, excessive, and silly - but they were originally performed with music incorporated into the transitions and when modern companies do it right I think it adds a lot to the performance.  It really was a wonderfully comprehensible production of an incredibly complicated play and I really encourage y'all to get tickets.

If I haven't sold you, let Ben Brantley of The New York Times help.  There are two reviews there; one is from the original production from earlier this year and the other is for the one that's currently on.  They're the same production, just in different locations

By Providence, I Find Myself in Providence

Continuing my saga of college visits, this weekend I found myself on the campus of Brown University.  Beyond that, I find myself lacking for words.  The thing is, and it pains me to say this, I didn't really like it.  Some of that may have something to do with the fact that I had the weirdest campus tour ever (more on that later), but I generally didn't get good vibes from the campus.  And it feels awful to say that because I really wanted to like the campus.  Brown has a really good Religious Studies program, and that is something that I am definitely interested in studying (my plan is a double major in RS and IR, and then go into international law if that makes any sense) so I was really hoping to like it. In any event, the campus itself was a little odd.  The students seemed all too focused; people didn't say "Hi!" to each other the way I've seen on other campuses.  It really gave the campus a cold, forbidding feel.  The architecture itself was odd too.  Most campus have one or two requisite modern monstrosities, but, generally speaking, they have a kind of look to which even new buildings conform in the general sense.  This is not so at Brown.  I wish I had pictures because all this would make so much more sense with them, but Brown's campus does not have a contiguous look and it lends a disconcerting sense of being lost to waking through the campus.  It's hard to tell where the campus begins and ends because it looks like a random collection of buildings.  I suppose it fits in with Providence the city, but it doesn't feel unified.

The campus tour matched this disconcerting sense of being lost too.  Our tour guide almost didn't seem to go to Brown.  Most tour guides will intersperse the fact based portion of their tour with personal anecdotes to make the tour seem interesting and to lend a sense of what it's actually like to attend their university.  Our guide did none of that.  Sure he threw in some interesting stories about the history of Brown, but I didn't here him tell one story about his personal experience attending his university.  He seemed apathetic and like he too was visiting the campus.  Additionally, he managed to go through the entire tour without mentioning athletics or student social life more than to acknowledge their mere existence.  Now I am by no means an athlete (in spring and fall I dance and in winter I am the captain of the Brunswick Girls Fencing team of which I am the only member), but I still like hearing about the existence of that kind of stuff.  I'm not going to join a team, but I plan on attending games to support my school.  And of course, there must have been other people on that tour who would be interested in playing sports.  Likewise, based on that tour, I have no idea what the social life of the average student is like.  I'm not talking about parties (although that would be good to know about), just basic social interactions.  I know I need a college where there is an active social scene on campus, i.e. the student body doesn't disperse into the city to entertain itself, otherwise I won't make friends.  And I'd like to make friends.  All of this is really tied into the fact that I don't think our tour guide used a single "I statement" in the entire tour, but I think the thing about the athletics and the social scene is especially weird.

All in all, I can't recommend Brown for myself.  Even setting aside the weird tour, it was objectively a little strange and just not for me.  But I have heard wonderful things about Brown from other people, so you really should go check it out for yourself.