Three girls

Althea, Ella, Lola, and Talia, respectively wife and three granddaughters of friend Elihu. How lucky he is to have these young granddaughters. I notice a predilection for “a” endings here, sweet Italianate sounds.


Dear Friends and Family,

We had a lovely weekend with Arthur and Debbie, interrupted by a day in NYC. They left this morning, Monday 11 July. I am not sure when we will see them again: it's difficult for them: the drive from New Hampshire is onerous, I am sure. We celebrated Arthur's birthday last night, with dinner at MP Taverna. We have now visited this restaurant 3 times, once for a late evening snack, another time for lunch (I wrote about that the other day) and now once for dinner. We liked it a lot, except for the loudness of the music. We'll be there yet again for son Dave's birthday next week. Are we overdoing it? During the whole time Merwin was undergoing radiation we hardly went to a restaurant, and in general we prefer to eat at home, since I like to cook. This morning we chatted at the breakfast table, and I wondered when we three (Merwin was at the JCC for his pool class) would meet again.

Today Laury and Barry came over to chat about Shakespeare in general, and about Macbeth in particular. I learned that Barry does not like the play very much and, even worse, Laury does not especially like the play! And she and I are collaborating on an essay about the play! I would not like to work on a play I don't like, for example, say, Timon of Athens. I do admire Macbeth. Like is hardly the operative word, however, for this bloody business. How do you out there feel about it?

For our chapter, Laury and I have to decide on a way to write about performances within the narrow space of 30,000 words. That may sound like a lot, but it isn't at all. Thanks to Barry we came up with a way to do it, so now we have three possibilities. His quotation of some lines from the play (he is fantastic: as an actor, he memorizes lines and he remembers them for years!) led me to think that perhaps we could consider specific lines, from the play's beginning to its end, and discuss how various productions have interpreted them. The advantage of this method is that we can write about many productions occasionally, rather than completely. We can, for example, start with the opening lines of the play, “When shall we three meet again . . .” and discuss the most interesting/ exciting/dumbest/whatever versions of the 6 lines.

Our job would be to select key lines, speeches or parts of speeches or dialogue, and show how those lines have been interpreted in performance. I am rather taken by this approach, but I don't think we will be able to tell if it will work until we choose the lines and the productions. Just writing about it now excites my interest.

Nick has been working steadily on his presentation of hamletworks.org for Prague, without even knowing if there were be technical support for a PowerPoint presentation! So he had to work on two versions, a paper he would read And the PowerPoint version, double work. Finally today the word came from Prague that there would be technical support. Of course, he has to lug his computer and connections, and I do hope he brings the paper as well as his PowerPoint version, just in case. He has to squeeze in an enormous amount of information in the 8 minutes allowed!

What is truly wonderful about the Prague conference is that Hardin will also be there and so will Pete, and they will be able to talk about our MIT connections. I have read Hardin's witty and interesting paper, mainly about the other half of our collaboration (that part I have now left), the New Variorum Hamlet project. Jesús will be there also. Basically the whole Shakespeare world will be there!

Do I wish I could also attend? Not really. I am very much aware that it would be too much for me, and I can take vicarious pleasure in the opportunities the conference offers for highlighting our wonderful projects.

Love to all,
Bernice