There’s not a lot going on in this sleepy hamlet of Vientiane, so when I get word of anything remotely interesting coming to town, I jump on it. Last night, a little crowd gathered in a small conference room at the Novotel to see Daniel Foley, who has performed his show “Shakespeare for Dummies” in more than 60 countries as part of his Performance Exchange project.
Foley shuffled on to the makeshift stage, held up a drink and told the audience, “We’ll get started in just a minute …” He pulled off his slacks to reveal a pair of jodhpurs and then wiggled in to a fitted velvet jacket with lace trim, and the transformation was complete.
The first half of Foley’s presentation featured random facts about life in Shakespeare’s time, interspersed with theatrical interpretations of historical events and bits from the Bard’s plays. He asked for volunteers and must have heard my psychic message: “Pick me! Pick me!” I was brought on stage to be Juliet. Mike, the husband of our school nurse, was singled out to be Romeo. Foley told me to kneel on a satin-slipcovered chair (aka the balcony), look longingly to the back of the room, and recite those famous lines: “Romeo! Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” So I did. Then he asked me to add a bit more drama, so I hammed it up with some drawn-out r-rolling and gesticulations. Then he asked, “Where did this play take place?” and the audience answered, “Verona!”
“Well, Romeo and Juliet must have had Italian accents then!” he exclaimed.
So I said my lines again: “Rrrromeo! Rrrromeo! Where-a-fore art-a thou, Rrrromeo?!” Mike then parroted Foley’s recitation of the “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” speech in a cheesy Italian accent and over-the-top gestures. We got a lot of laughs.
Mike must have made a good impression because it turned out to be The Mike Show for the rest of the evening. He took the stage again and again to play a Roman soldier, act out a speech from Othello, demonstrate stage combat, and more.
We all filed out of the conference room for a fancy buffet dinner, followed by a Shakespeare quiz, which Foley warned we “couldn’t win!” He tossed out lines, and the audience tried to guess the play. I knew ONE quote from Macbeth and a few from various comedies. Luckily there were several Shakespeare scholars in the room eager to show off their knowledge. During the Q&A, I did a few mental eyerolls when people asked pretentious questions framed in such a way to spotlight their obvious superior intelligence.
Mike and I asked Foley for a photo after the show, and I had to snicker when the deputy ambassador from Burma hopped up on the stage to pose with us.
