saavedra77 | 'Tis new to thee/my music for free ...

So, 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 ....