'Tis new to thee/my music for free ...
Jul. 19th, 2005 05:08 pmSo, I went to see an outdoor performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest, in Volunteer Park, on Sunday: the temperature was in the low '80s, the music was African-accented (lots of drums), the staging kind of vaudevillian. The play's Prospero was unfortunately uninspiring, its Caliban merely sulky, but Miranda was a charmer, and Ariel positively flew.
Now, to me, this play's finest moment is when the sheltered Miranda discovers human society for the first time, marveling:
Oh wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t!
And Prospero replies ruefully:
‘Tis new to thee.
But I'm a rueful kind of guy. :-)
This time through, though, I was entertained to note the parallel language in what you might call Shakespeare's take on online file sharing in The Tempest:
This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where
I shall have my music for nothing.
Also, too bad the production company hadn't seen this article in time to plan the production, accordingly: it would have been amusing to see the play performed in that ol' fashioned Elizabethan twang ....