The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

Last May I wrote this post in which I described my desire to complete reading all of William Shakespeare's plays in a year. At the time, I'd only read a dozen of the 37 plays definitively attributed to Shakespeare, and assumed I would easily finish the other 25 in a year. Riiiiiigght. It is now exactly 10 months later and I have only read another four plus I've just started the fifth. 

I have realized that I really prefer watching Shakespeare's to reading them -- which I don't think is terrible, because, honestly, they were meant to be watched! I have been lucky enough to attend several performances since then, including two plays at the Blackfriars Playhouse at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia. And I'm going back in April! In exactly one month I'm going to Staunton for a two-play weekend: Romeo and Juliet and The Comedy of Errors.

With that in mind, I decided to brush up my Shakespeare and give The Comedy of Errors another try on audio. I'd started listening a few months ago and just couldn't get into it, but I tried again, with an audio download from my library (I like the Arkangel Audiobook series). It's Shakespeare's shortest play and I easily finished listening to it in a day. 

For those who don't know the plot, it's basically a slapstick farce about two sets of twins and a lot of mistaken identity. Possibly Shakespeare's earliest play, it's set in Ephesus, Greece (now modern-day Turkey). Egeon, a merchant, has been arrested and has one day to raise bail or be executed for the sin of being a Syracusan who dared set foot in Ephesus (due to some bad blood between the two places). The Duke of Ephesus asks why he has taken such a risk, and Egeon gives us some back story. Many years before, Ephesus had a wife and twin sons, plus another set of twin boys, born the same day as his own children, that he had bought as bonded servants from their impoverished mother. However, one of each set of twins, with his wife, had been separated from him in a shipwreck and never seen again. He raised his son Antipholus and the servant Dromio, who have since gone off seeking their lost brothers. Five years later Egeon is searching for them when he arrives in Ephesus. 

The Duke takes pity on him and gives him one day to raise a thousand ducats or forfeit his life. Meanwhile, Antipholus and Dromio, both of Syracuse, have already arrived, not realizing that Egeon is looking for them, and more importantly, that both of their identical twins have been living there for years -- and are also named Antipholus and Dromio. (Apparently, the younger of each pair of twins remained with Egeon, and took his brother's name when they go out searching for their elder twins).

Since the older Antipholus and Dromio have lived for some time in Ephesus, they naturally have established relationships, including wives. Naturally this causes confusion and hilarity ensues when the second Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse arrive. It's all very slapsticky and yet it never occurs to any of these people that there are two pairs of twins, including the pair that are literally looking for their lost twin brothers. And are they identically dressed? I'm extremely curious to know how this play is staged -- I'm guessing very few theater companies have been able to cast two actual pairs of twins in the principal roles. It was a little confusing the first time I tried to listen to the audio version -- you have to be able to remember which voice goes with which part but eventually I got it. I suspect it would be easier watching the play instead of just listening. 

I did like the play but it really doesn't have that much depth to it. It's one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, and you really don't get much of the metaphors and themes of the later works. But it is a pretty fun read if you like slapstick and mistaken identities. I'm very much looking forward to my weekend in Staunton when I can see it performed live.

The Blackfriars Playhouse at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA

This is my Pre-1800 Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge; also my Turkish read for the European Reading Challenge.

Shakespeare in a Year?

 

Last year just before COVID hit I wrote this post about a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., and all the upcoming Shakespeare plays I was hoping to see 2020. Well, we all know how that's turned out. (Really, I've been extremely fortunate I don't know anyone who's been seriously ill and I'm fully vaccinated as of this week.) Nevertheless I've really missed the theater, and I've tried to fill up some of my time by reading and watching streamed plays and movie adaptations. 

My life in semi-quarantine has recently brought me to Shakespeare. One of my online book groups read Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet, which I loved, and around the same time I signed up for an online class about Shakespeare in context at the Shakespeare Theater Company in DC. We didn't study his works much from a literary aspect, but it inspired me to start reading the plays I'd missed. Which is a LOT -- of the 37 plays commonly attributed to Shakespeare, I'd only read seven. Since I started the class in March I've read five more, bringing me up to a dozen, so I have quite a ways to go. Here's what I've read so far in total:

• As You Like It
• Hamlet
• King Lear
• Macbeth
• The Merchant of Venice
• Measure For Measure
• A Midsummer Nights' Dream
• Othello
• Romeo and Juliet
• The Tempest
• Twelfth Night
• The Winter's Tale

It then occurred to me that I could possibly finish all the plays in a whole year, maybe even by the end of 2021! (I'd also like to go back and reread all the plays we read in college, but probably not until after I've finished the whole list). Right now I'm trying to alternate comedies and tragedies -- I'm a bit intimidated by the histories and will probably do those last, in chronological order by monarch. 

All the plays are available for audio download through my library in various editions. I really like the Arkangel Audiobook series, which has full cast recordings with amazing actors, mostly from the Royal Shakespeare Company. I've been alternating listening to the audio versions with reading the plays online and in print, often with the help of No Fear Shakespeare. 

David Mitchell as William Shakespeare. The cast includes Gemma Whelan and Rob Rouse.

Just for fun I've been watching Upstart Crow on Britbox -- if you haven't heard of it, it's hilarious, starring David Mitchell as Shakespeare. It's by the same creator as Blackadder and there are lots of in-jokes about Shakespeare and they satirize current events as well. 

And I'm also hoping to make a trip to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia! They're already started their summer series -- two of the plays are indoors (socially distant) at their recreated Blackfriars Playhouse, and there's also an outdoor production of Macbeth. It's about a two to three hour drive from my home in suburban DC, so I could easily go in a weekend!

Bloggers, which Shakespeare plays are your favorites? And do you have any favorite stage or screen adaptations? 

Private Lives by Noel Coward

I've been really trying to read more plays the last couple of years, for several reasons. First, because I've really gotten into theater; because I realized it's a whole genre of writing that I've largely ignored; and finally, because they're really quick reads (every year I set a goal of 100 books to read and I'll admit I have read plays in December so I can make my quota -- silly, I know, but I can't help myself). 

I'm also always looking for things to listen to while walking, and while browsing the library's Overdrive catalog, I saw that there were some Noel Coward plays with full-cast recordings. In December I listened to a recording of Coward's Blithe Spirit, which I loved but never got around to reviewing. I also found Private Lives, a short play which is one of his most popular, so I was happy to find it. I listened to the entire thing in the course of a day, over two walks, as it's just over an hour long. 

Basically, it's the story of two British couples: Elyot and Sibyl, and Victor and Amanda. We first meet Ellyot and Sibyl, a couple on their honeymoon in a resort in Deauville, on the coast of France. They've just arrived and Sibyl somehow brings up the subject of Elyot's previous marriage to Amanda. Little do they know that Amanda has also just remarried, to Victor. . . and they're also honeymooning. . . in Deauville. In the same hotel. In fact, Amanda and Victor are in the next suite, and they share a balcony. To their mutual horror, Ellyot and Amanda encounter one another, and, aghast, try to convince their respective new spouses to leave the hotel and honeymoon in Paris instead -- without admitting that their exes are in the next room. Basically, it's a bedroom farce and naturally all goes wrong, setting up comedic events in which the couples have to decide whether or not they're better off married -- and to whom.

This sounds like the setup for a fun and rollicking farce, and in parts, it is. However, I wasn't prepared for the fact that there's a history of domestic violence in the relationship between Amanda and Elyot -- and it occurs again, and it seems like it's played for laughs. (There's also a lot of bickering and shouting that also would have made me really uncomfortable, even without the domestic violence). The play was originally written in 1930, and hopefully, domestic violence is taken much more seriously now. I don't know if Private Lives is still performed regularly and how it's addressed. I know there's a film version from 1931, and there's a recorded version from the West End, but I haven't watched either of them. I may have to try them and reserve judgment. Parts of the play are very witty and some of the characters get in some real zingers when they're arguing, but mostly it made me really uncomfortable. But I did love Blithe Spirit so I'm not going to give up on Noel Coward just yet. 

I'm counting this as my Classic Play for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

Challenge Link-Up Post: Classic Play

Please link your reviews for the Classic Play here. This is only for the Classic Play category. This includes any play that was written or performed at least 50 years ago, and should be a work that was originally created for the stage (not a book adaptation).  Plays are eligible in this category only.

If you do not have a blog, or somewhere public on the internet where you post book reviews, please write your mini-review/thoughts in the comments section. If you like, you can include the name of your blog and or/the title of the book in your link, like this: "Karen K. @ Books and Chocolate (The Importance of Being Earnest)."

Shakespeare in Washington, DC

One of the best things about living near Washington D. C. is all the amazing culture that is so close to me. In addition to the the history, great museums, monuments, and restaurants, there is a wonderful theater scene -- more than 100 live theaters within a two-hour drive, from small community theater companies to the National Theater and the Kennedy Center. 

I've been to a couple of events at the Kennedy Center, which is stunning, but what I like most are smaller theaters. One of my favorites so far is the Folger Shakespeare Theater, part of the beautiful and historic Folger Library, on Capitol Hill. It's closing soon for a major expansion and renovation, but I was able to get a ticket for the current production, The Merry Wives of Windsor. 

I've been reading classics on a regular basis for more than ten years now, but my knowledge of plays is sorely lacking. I've only seen three plays performed live (Hamlet, The Tempest, and Romeo and Juliet). I did take a Shakespeare class in college, but that was a long time ago, and to be honest I can't even remember exactly which plays we read! (I know there were four tragedies and four comedies). However, I am quite sure that I haven't read The Merry Wives. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor trailer

DC also has a regional theater company specializing in Shakespeare, though they perform other plays as well. The next play for the Shakespeare Theater Company is Timon of Athens, about which I know absolutely nothing (apparently it's not performed very often, but this production is gender-flipped and set in modern Greece). Much Ado About Nothing is scheduled for May, which sounds fun. The 2020/2021 season includes The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It, so I'm looking forward to both of those.

Timon of Athens trailer

So here is my question for all my dear readers who are well-versed (or slightly versed) in Shakespeare: how important is it to have read the plays before attending the productions? Normally, I don't like to know too many details about a play before I see it, for fear of spoilers. But Shakespeare is something else entirely. I haven't read any of the plays for years, and I don't want to be completely lost before attending. 

Readers, what would you suggest? Read the plays, or be surprised? And has anyone read or seen Timon of Athens? 

I Am a Camera by John Van Druten: Not Just Cabaret Without Music

In the past few years I've discovered how much I enjoy the theater. I do love movies, but there is something indescribable about seeing a live performance. I've been trying to see at least one play whenever I visit my daughter in New York, and since we've lived in Europe I've made a few trips to London, and I try to see shows on the West End as well (you can get half-price tickets the same day as a performance, and everything is first-rate). There is an excellent English-language theater in Frankfurt, which is just over an hour's drive away from me, and every season one of the four or five plays they perform is a musical. This year it's Cabaret, which I had never seen. I got tickets for myself and my daughter and we went to see it after Christmas. 

I also realized that my reading of classics is woefully lacking in plays, so I decided to add that category this year to the Back to the Classics Challenge. Written in 1951, I Am a Camera is the original play which was later adapted as the musical version of Cabaret. I was really quite surprised to see how much the musical differed from the original play (which was itself adapted from Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin). 

The original play is in three acts, set in Berlin in 1930. All of the action takes place in a boarding house owned by Fraulein Schneider, in a room first rented by a struggling writer named Christopher Isherwood. The title of the play comes from the first line of the novel Christopher is trying to write:

I am a camera, with its shutter open, quite passive. Some day all of this will have to be developed, printed, fixed.

Isherwood takes English-language pupils to pay the rent, but since he's nearly broke he moves to a smaller room. Through one of his students, Fritz, he meets Sally Bowles, an English cabaret singer. She's looking for a new place to live and takes over his old room, and they become friends. 

Sally lives a rather fast life, and always seems to be hungover, struggling for money, and though she and Christopher never become romantically involved, he's always there for her. He observes the highs and lows of her life over the course of about a year, with the looming backdrop of growing anti-Semitism and the Nazi party. 

If you've seen the musical, you might be surprised at how it's changed from the original play. Some of the major plot points about Sally are there, but in the musical, she and Christopher become lovers. All the scenes in the original play take place in the boarding house -- there's nothing in the cabaret and in fact, Sally is hardly working as a singer at all. 

In the musical, the landlady has a sweet but probably doomed romance with one of the boarders, a Jewish fruit-seller, which isn't in the story at all -- she's actually anti-Semitic. There's also a sub-plot in the play about Christopher's student Fritz, and his love for a Jewish girl Natalia, the daughter of a department store owner; and there's an interesting plot twist about Sally in the third act. 

Despite the changes, I do feel like the musical captured the characters of Sally and Christopher, and their struggles and feelings of desperation in prewar Berlin. The growing threat of the Nazis and the rise of Fascism is equally present in both versions -- it's not exactly the focus of either story, but it's definitely an important factor. I really liked both versions -- the English Theater in Frankfurt is first-rate, and I'm hoping to see more plays there this year before I return back to the U.S. 

Here's the video preview of the production in Frankfurt. 

I was also very happy to find an online version of the script for I am a Camera through a website called Archive.org -- anyone can sign up for an free account and check out digital content, from libraries worldwide. I've just started using it but I've been able to get some items that I would normally have found through Inter-Library Loan, which is tough to get overseas. I highly recommend it if you have trouble finding rare items. 

A Roundup of Victorian Mini-Reviews

Or more precisely, a round up of mini-reviews of Victorian and Victorian-related works. (I like my title better). Anyway, I'm making really great progress on my Victorian Reading Challenge -- so far I've finished 16 of the 31 categories I want to complete and written reviews for nearly all of them. However, I've gotten behind on posts for the past few weeks and since three of them seem to go together, I thought I'd write up some mini-reviews and get on with it. 

Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome. This sequel to the beloved Three Men in a Boat has J and his friends George and Harris reunited for a summer bicycling tour through Germany. A good chunk of the book is devoted to the preparations for the trip (made more complicated by the wives and children of the three, who are not joining the party) and the usual funny asides when an incident reminds J of a funny story. Though not quite as fun as the original, this book has some great moments. It's pointless to describe them, so I'll just include one of my favorite passages. Sadly, the dog Montmorency isn't included in this story, but I had to include this bit which does include dogs.

This quote is a bit long, but it's one of my favorites from the whole book:

. . . in Germany most human faults and follies sink into comparative insignificance beside the enormity of walking on the grass.  Nowhere, and under no circumstances, may you at any time in Germany walk on the grass.  Grass in Germany is quite a fetish.  To put your foot on German grass would be as great a sacrilege as to dance a hornpipe on a Mohammedan’s praying-mat.  The very dogs respect German grass; no German dog would dream of putting a paw on it.  If you see a dog scampering across the grass in Germany, you may know for certain that it is the dog of some unholy foreigner.  

In England, when we want to keep dogs out of places, we put up wire netting, six feet high, supported by buttresses, and defended on the top by spikes.  In Germany, they put a notice-board in the middle of the place, “Hunden verboten,” and a dog that has German blood in its veins looks at that notice-board and walks away.  In a German park I have seen a gardener step gingerly with felt boots on to grass-plot, and removing therefrom a beetle, place it gravely but firmly on the gravel; which done, he stood sternly watching the beetle, to see that it did not try to get back on the grass; and the beetle, looking utterly ashamed of itself, walked hurriedly down the gutter, and turned up the path marked “Ausgang.”

As I'm currently living in Germany, I found this very amusing. Germany is a nation that takes rules and regulations extremely seriously. 

I'm counting this as my New To You Book by a Favorite Author.

Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird. I was inspired to read this after finally watching the new Masterpiece production of Victoria, which had a lot of comments on one of my favorite non-book blogs, Frock Flicks, at which historical costume experts discuss (and sometimes destroy) historical film and TV adaptations. Yes, Lord Melbourne wasn't nearly as dishy as Rufus Sewell, but Queen Victoria was a little bit in love with him. Overall the book is well-written and engrossing, but I got a little bored with Victoria's life towards the end, but maybe there really wasn't that much to say; at that point I think the lives of her children are more interesting -- I recommend Victoria's Daughters by Jerrold M. Packer, which I reviewed a few years ago.

I'm counting this as my Book About Queen Victoria (fiction or non-fiction).

A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde. Another drawing room comedy, but with more dramatic elements. Taking place over just a couple of days at a country house party, young George Arbuthnot has just landed a plum job with the worldly and sophisticated Lord Illingworth. His mother is dead set against him taking the job, because she has a Deep Dark Secret. The third play I've read by Wilde,  and though it has some witty moments, it's my least favorite so far. Here are a few of his trademark bons mots:

“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.”

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”

“To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!”

I'm counting this as my Play or Book of Short Stories for the Victorian Reading Challenge.

Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope. Third in the Barchester Chronicles, it's the story of Mary Thorne, the relatively poor niece of a country village doctor, and Frank Gresham, eldest son of the local squire whose family is pressuring him to marry for money. I was looking for a good audiobook and realized I could get Doctor Thorne (probably my favorite Trollope novel) via digital download from my library; also, I got my hands on a copy of the Andrew Davies TV adaptation and wanted to refresh my memory before watching the DVD -- I hope that wasn't a mistake! Nevertheless, I loved it nearly as much as when I read it the first time -- I did get a little disgusted by the snobbery and hypocrisy of the Greshams and their wealthy cousins, the DeCourcys, who believe that family connections are everything until they need a massive infusion of cash. A great story, though.

I'm counting this as my Victorian Re-Read.

So -- four more Victorians crossed off the list, only 15 left to go!

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

My final book for the Back to the Classics Challenge -- and naturally, the shortest read took me the longest to select. I don't normally read plays, though I've actually been going to the theater more the last few years since I started visiting New York, and because I have a daughter who's very active in her school drama club. I kept waffling between different plays -- Shakespeare? Agatha Christie? Ibsen? Finally, I settled on my original idea -- a play by Oscar Wilde. Since I read and loved The Importance of Being Earnest for a classics book group a few years ago, I'd been meaning to read more of his work. And I was really glad I chose Wilde, because even his more serious works have laugh-out-loud, highly quotable moments. 

The story begins at a society party in 1890s London. The hostess, Lady Chiltern, is the wife of Lord Chiltern, a prominent Member of Parliament. Among the party goers are her sister-in-law, Mabel Chiltern; her husband's best friend, Lord Goring, who is kind but idle; and Mrs. Cheveley, who wangled an invitation so that she could speak privately to Lord Chiltern. Lady Chiltern remembers Mrs. Cheveley from school, and the frosty reception makes it clear that she does not have fond memories of her old classmate. 

We soon learn that Mrs. Cheveley is indeed a bad lot, and is trying to blackmail the almost saintly Lord Chiltern into doing something corrupt. A man of impeccable reputation, Chiltern made a youthful mistake and now she wants him to pay for it. He's desperate to get out of the situation without losing his position, his reputation, and most of all, his wife's love. Lady Chiltern has elevated her husband on such a high pedestal that he's terrified of disappointing her.

The real star of the show is actually Lord Goring, who is witty and charming and has a handle on the situation; also, he has by far the best lines. This being Oscar Wilde, everyone has their share of bon mots, but Goring is my favorite character. Here's a mere sample of the amazing dialogue, an exchange between Lord Goring and his manservant, Phipps, at the start of Act III:

GORING: You see, Phipps, fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. 

PHIPPS: Yes, my lord.

GORING: Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.

PHIPPS: Yes, my lord.

GORING: And falsehoods the truths of other people.

PHIPPS: Yes, my lord.

GORING: Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is one's self.

PHIPPS: Yes, my lord.

GORING: To love one's self is the beginning of a life-long romance, Phipps.

PHIPPS: Yes, my lord.

GORING: . . . For the future, a more trivial buttonhole, Phipps, on Thursday evenings.

PHIPPS: I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had loss in her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality your lordship complains of in the buttonhole. 

GORING: Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England -- they are always losing their relations. 

PHIPPS: Yes, my lord. They are extremely fortunate in that respect. 

An Ideal Husband was adapted into a film back in 1999, and I vaguely remember seeing it in theaters, but I didn't remember at thing about it except that Lord Goring was portrayed brilliantly by Rupert Everett (he also played Algy in the film version of The Importance of Being Earnest, co-starring Colin Firth). I've already requested both DVDs from my library so I can view them again, and I'm trying to track down a copy of The Good Woman, an adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan set in the 1940s on the Amalfi coast of Italy.

Any other play recommendations, bloggers? 

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

My knowledge of classic plays is woefully lacking.  Aside from Shakespeare in college, I can't remember the last play I read.  And I hardly ever go to the theater.  I think the combination of spending a little too much time hanging around the drama club in high school, plus a work/study job in a small theater company in college, led to a kind of overdose of theater in college.  And I wasn't even a theater or English major!

I am lucky enough, however, to belong to a Real Life Classic Book Group. (Face to face!  With Real People!  How lucky am I?)  this year we have two classic plays on the reading schedule:  In December we're reading A Doll's House by Ibsen, and we had a quick and enjoyable read this month:  The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.  Our fearless leader, my good friend Amanda, is a huge Wilde fan, so I know we're going to have a great discussion next Saturday.

Basically, Earnest is a delightful, satirical romp about Victorian courtship.  Two young men, Jack and Algernon, are basically wealthy ne'er-do-wells.   But Jack has a little secret: he has an alternate identity, Earnest.  He calls himself Earnest in London, but on his country estate, he uses his real name, Jack, to appear respectable for his young ward Cecily.  Algernon is equally sneaky, using a fictional friend Bunbury to escape social obligations -- for example, Bunbury is conveniently ill whenever Algernon would prefer to avoid unpleasant relatives, etc.

Jack is in love with Gwendolen, Algernon's cousin, and intends to marry her; however, he is foiled by her formidable mother, Lady Fairfax, who is unimpressed by Jack's family history -- it seems he was a foundling adopted by a rich man after he was discovered in a train station luggage room.

Basically, the entire three act play is a farce with mistaken identities and misunderstandings, resolved by amazing plot contrivances and coincidences.  If it was meant seriously, it would just be ridiculous, but since it's all a joke it's hilarious.  Above all, it's the snappy dialogue that make this play a hoot.   Almost the entire play is worth quoting, but here's a sample.  In Act 2, Cecily, Jack's ward, is writing in her diary, and Algernon wants to know what she's writing.  [Algernon is pretending to be Jack's libertine brother Ernest].

Algernon: Do you really keep a diary?  I'd give anything to look at it.  May I?


Cecily: Oh, no. [Puts her hand over it].  You see, it is simply a very young girl's record of her thoughts and impressions,and consequently meant for publication.  When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy.  But pray, Ernest, don't stop.  I delight in taking down from dictation.  I have reached "absolute perfection." You can go on, I'm quite ready for more.


Algernon: [somewhat taken aback].  Ahem! Ahem!


Cecily: Oh, don't cough, Ernest.  When one is dictation one should speak fluently and not cough.  Besides, I don't know how to spell cough.

Though I rarely go to the theater, I do admit to watching film adaptation of plays, especially when they are chock-full of my favorite British actors.  Yes, there was an excellent adaptation several years ago, starring . . . Colin Firth, Judi Dench, Frances O'Connor . . . pretty much everyone who's ever been in a BBC production of anything.  And Reese Witherspoon.  The casting was brilliant, well  worth watching, if nothing else but for the dialogue.

Sadly, The Importance of Being Earnest was his final play; it closed after only 83 performances due to his scandalous legal problems.   A couple of months ago I also watched the excellent biopic Wilde, about Oscar Wilde's tragic downfall.  After reading this play, it makes me even sadder and angrier that such a talented person was ruined because of his personal life.   I highly recommend both movies and I look forward to reading more of his plays, and may even branch out to more classic playwrights.  The Russians are visiting The Classics Circuit in June, so hopefully it will inspire me to try more Chekhov.


This is book #6 for Our Mutual Read Challenge.