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***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The fourth play that we saw during this sojourn in southern Utah was a musical adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo<\/em> on the stage at Tuacahn, near St. George.\u00a0 Very near to Snow Canyon State Park.\u00a0 The setting among the red rocks at Tuacahn is so magnificent that I sometimes think that I don\u2019t really care whether the play is any good.\u00a0 Fortunately, though, The Count<\/em> was quite enjoyable.\u00a0 My only real complaint is that the very personalized schemes of vengeance that I seem to recall from the novel and that I certainly recall from various film versions of the story were collapsed into one single devastating manipulation of the Paris stock market.\u00a0 I found it quite underwhelming.\u00a0 In the end, too, Edmond Dant\u00e8s and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s are back together again.\u00a0 That\u2019s not how the novel concludes, but several of the film versions end so.\u00a0 For obvious reasons, audiences tend to prefer the happier ending (with Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Our fourth play back in Cedar City, at the Shakespeare Festival, was a really fun production of Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s The Pirates of Penzance<\/em>.\u00a0 (I always get a kick out of the fact that Sir Arthur Sullivan, the co-creator of H.M.S. Pinafore<\/i>,\u00a0The Pirates of Penzance<\/i>, and The Mikado<\/i>, also wrote the music for the hymn Onward, Christian Soldiers<\/em>.)\u00a0 It was, as it ought to be, boisterous and energetic.\u00a0 My only complaint is that the enunciation in the singing was often somewhat unclear, so that the audience (if I\u2019m a representative sample) missed out on some of the famously sharp wit of the lyrics.\u00a0 A problem in repertory theater companies like the Festival\u2019s is that, while the singing is generally good, it\u2019s usually not great<\/em> \u2014 and that problem had an impact on the 2021 Cedar City Pirates<\/em>.\u00a0 But would I recommend this production?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Great fun.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That evening, we saw Shakespeare\u2019s\u00a0Pericles, Prince of Tyre<\/em>, in Cedar City.\u00a0 (All the rest of the plays this week will be in Cedar City.\u00a0 We saw only one at Tuacahn.)\u00a0 I had thought that I had seen the entire Shakespearean canon, but Pericles<\/em> rang no bells with me.\u00a0 However, although we saw plenty of flaws in it, my wife and I enjoyed it considerably more than we had expected to do.\u00a0 (Our very drama-savvy friend Scott Woolley, who now lives here in Cedar City and on whom I\u2019ll have just a tiny bit more to say below, tells us that Pericles<\/em> is actually his favorite among this season\u2019s shows.)\u00a0 It\u2019s full of familiar Shakespearean tropes but seems uneven and perhaps just a bit disjointed.\u00a0 One explanation that has been proposed is that the play was pieced together from actors\u2019 memories after Shakespeare\u2019s death, rather than published from a written text.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n On Friday afternoon, we saw Ragtime<\/em>.\u00a0 I had forgotten how powerful and affecting it can be.\u00a0 Again, a strong performance.\u00a0 My wife and I think that this may be one of the best seasons, overall, that we\u2019ve attended here.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve been coming faithfully, to every play, for decades now.\u00a0 With one exception, when we were at the BYU Jerusalem Center.\u00a0 (See below.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Last night, we watch a production of Shakespeare\u2019s Richard III<\/em>.\u00a0 I was just a bit worried about this one, because Gary Armagnac\u2019s performance in the title role here in Cedar City was, in my view, one of the greatest pieces of acting that I have ever seen.\u00a0 And, for a while when Aidan O\u2019Reilly came out on stage as Richard, Duke of Gloucester (the future King Richard III), my disappointment was confirmed.\u00a0 But he grew on me.\u00a0 Richard actually seemed to become more deformed as the play progressed and as his catalogue of murders grew.\u00a0 By the end, I had begun to regard Richard as possibly mad \u2014 an excuse that I had never felt to extend to him before \u2014 and as emotionally damaged by those around him in his childhood.\u00a0 I think that it was a very good, very thought-provoking, performance, and, overall, a fine production.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n By the way, according to the Wikipedia entry for Gary Armagnac, \u201cMr. Armagnac was Artist-in-Residence and Director of Education for five seasons with the Tony Award\u00ae Winning Utah Shakespeare Festival (USF). His work on stage there included the title roles in Richard III<\/em> and Pericles<\/em>, Iago in Othello<\/em>, and Sir Toby in Twelfth Night<\/em>. He also directed productions of Macbeth<\/em>, Hamlet<\/em>, and Romeo & Juliet<\/em> that toured to communities throughout the southwest.\u201d\u00a0 So have<\/em> I seen Pericles before?\u00a0 Maybe even with Gary Armagnac in the lead role?\u00a0 Or were we in Israel that year?\u00a0 Well, it turns out that USF did Pericles in 1997.\u00a0 Which means that we did see it.\u00a0 We had simply forgotten.\u00a0 Completely.\u00a0 Which means that we have, indeed, seen the whole Shakespearean canon.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n While down here, we\u2019ve had dinner with Scott Woolley three times, and twice with his family.\u00a0 Last night, at his house.\u00a0 He\u2019s an old friend that we\u2019ve both independently known since before our wedding.\u00a0 (In my case, since before my mission<\/em>, which ended several years before our wedding.)\u00a0 As a matter of fact, he was there<\/em> at our wedding in the Salt Lake Temple.\u00a0 We\u2019ve really enjoyed spending some time with him lately.\u00a0 Many years ago, his parents included me in a family trip from their then-home in the California Bay Area up to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon.\u00a0 I was hooked, and I decided then and there that I wanted to make such things a part of my own future family life.\u00a0 (I hope, by the way, that the revelation that I actually have friends doesn\u2019t drive one or two of my critics into some sort of health crisis.)<\/p>\n<\/a>