Off to the Revels

[fbhjr]

For many years, we’ve gone to see The Revels about this time. I always try and get the performance closest to the actual solstice, and last night was the one.*

It is always a fantastic show. Each year they try and do a different culture/time frame. This year was England in the 1840’s. They’ve picked ones I like more than that. (The Balkans last year were beyond phenomenal.)
But, to say I like this one less that others is only to argue different flavors of perfection. There has never been one of their shows I wouldn’t go see again if given the chance.
Of course, the weather this time of year can be tricky, and this year is no exception.
Usually we take the subway into the city. But, strange as this may sound, that isn’t always the best for snow. We’ve been stuck on subway trains where the tracks froze and we could only go 5 mph on the way out of the city. It was a long ride home that night...
So, we drove all the way into Cambridge. Although some of the roads were very slick and I had to driving using vector analysis, most were OK.
We found a parking garage and set off for the restaurant my wife had picked.


Now, despite accidentally ending up in Kentucky once, I have a reasonably good sense of direction.
But, it doesn’t work in Cambridge. Don’t know why. I often attribute it to being the birth place of my mother and that messes up my senses. (Like in Lord of the Rings, no light would work in Mount Doom as it was the seat of Sauron’s power, even though he didn’t live there...)
So, we wandered around some. We left 4 hours early for the 45 mile drive, so we had time.
Harvard Square is well decorated at Christmas time. But, my favorite decorations were the colored lights in the tree.


About this time, we realized that the Thai place we were trying to find was no at the base of that tree as I thought it should have been.
The good part is you can’t spit in Harvard Square without finding a place to eat. So, mustering my saliva, we went into the building next to the tree.
It had a Japanese place, a Korean place, and Indian place, and some other place that said it was open, but didn’t look it.
So, we had Indian food.

It was very nice as it was on the second floor and we were given window seats to the show of Cambridge driving.




My wife had wanted Thai food, but agreed that it was better to get some food then circle Harvard square, spitting into the wind, and hoping to hit a Thai restaurant.


(Can’t you see how happy she is there? Also note, she’s wearing the bracelet I got her at the Met last spring. That’s a good sign.)

The food was very good. The couple next to us was very amusing. Watching the traffic made me thankful I wasn’t in it.


(Here we have one car double parked on the right, another on the left and a bus trying to get past them on froze roads while it is snowing. I don’t know why sports networks don’t cover this...)

Anyhow, after dinner, we set off across the Harvard campus to get to the Revels.


There had been a lot of snow.


The performance is in Sander’s theatre in the memorial hall.


The hall was built to memorialize the students from Harvard who died in the Civil War. Built more than a hundred years ago, it is tight and crowded on the inside. (The theatre is only a small fraction of the hall.)


As I said, the performance was wonderful, as always. You can’t take photos or video during it, so nothing there. (These all come from stills off of my new little video camera if you couldn’t tell. Great video. Only so-so for stills. But, easy to carry around in a pocket!)

It is very crowded there, and the seats they give you are only about 1 foot wide. I am wider than that. So, it is tight seating.
Several years ago, we bought an extra ticket for someone to go to it with us. They couldn’t make it. So, we started the tradition of buying 3 tickets for the 2 of us. Yes, it is expensive. But, it is our big holiday thing.
And, it is crowded in there.


We then had to get the car out of hock. I know parking in there is expensive. But, when the check out of the garage tried to bill us double, it was a problem. The woman who worked the register had to manually override the computer to get us the right cost. But then, the computer wouldn’t open the gate to let us out. So, she had to go over to the gate, open up the control box, and use the override to get it open.

The temperature was down in the teens as we drove home, and the roads were starting to freeze over. We got home about 11:30 and I was glad to be here.
But, it was a good time. I am, as always, happy to go to that show to kick off the Christmas time.
And we had a good time stomping around in the snow and eating Indian food too.

*Just before the second act, one of the musicians comes out to teach the audience its singing parts for the second half. He is VERY good and it is one of the high points of the show. This year as part of it he said “and, this is the actual longest night of the year. But, you knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you got tickets to the show.” I was very far from the only one in the audience who nodded yes to that.

Comments

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Saturday? Eep! We were pretty contentedly snowed in that day. :)

I'll ask J about the url of the site that had the themes starting in 1995- it was pretty cool to have them all in one place.

The only other events we've been to are the Props Days- but they are so much fun! We keep thinking we should do more, but we always end up with so much more to do than time to do it in... plus, we don't really know anyone else going, so that's a bit of a drag.

I did miss one year in our span- I was ill- but J and K went, and I think she brought a friend along. Disappointing for me, though...

I did quite like this one- it was really coherent, which some aren't. It was also nicely seasonal. While I liked the gypsy one as a show, for example, I didn't think it was especially seasonal, and the stock pieces didn't fit very well. (Unlike the pre-Columbian one, which was amazingly coherent, we thought, despite the vast cultural spread; they did an amazing job of integrating it all, esp. the symbols.)

My absolute favorite, though, was the Lapp/Finnish one- I think it was the third or 4th year we went. Just- breathtakingly magical. They had these AMAZING and varied puppets... Although I do love many of them!