Dowbrigade

Every summer I take my foreign law students to Shakespeare in the
Park, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Comnaly’s effort to increase the community’s
culture level. Every year I arrive ready for the bard, with bread
and fruit, blanket and pillow, water and wine. However, I have yet to
make it to the fifth act, due to chronic, progressive back pain which
makes it excruciating to sit cross-legged on the ground for three hours.

So last night I was supremely proud of my perspicacity
(actually, my wife’s) in finally purchasing those light-weight low-rider
folding beach
chairs. What comfort! What style! However, sitting so close to the
ground I could’t find my students in the record-setting crowd of thousands. Accordingly,
at the end of every scene I would stand and quickly scan the audience looking
for foreign lawyers, and then plop back down in my chair.

"Don’t plop down in your chair" my wife whispered savagely
as I did so. At the end of the third scene, just after
the Weird Sisters predicted greatness for Macbeth, I plopped my last
plop, and the new seat collasped irredeemably flat, spilling the guacamole
of the purple-hairded patrons of the arts seated behind us. It was
hard to enjoy the play after that. I have still never seen the last
act of a Shakespeare play….

excellent review from the Boston Globe