Taking Flight

Sorry, but I AM having serious withdrawal. I mean 6 weeks of going almost every day to one of the most beautiful houses on a beach FILLED with beautiful houses, and getting to work on the most beautiful poetry in the English language, and on, arguably, maybe the most beautiful of all the plays in the canon………well, even someone with a less addictive personality than my own might fall into delirious ecstasy.

Perhaps I overstate. I’m prone to it. But this summer residency at the Marion Davies House was truly sublime. Even when we couldn’t do some things because the historic status of the house itself might be damaged. Well, we just did what Salty Shakespeare does-----we went around and found another way. And often a better way.

But that wonderful sunken terrace on the west end of the house became a playground for us; and I’m pleased to say, I believe we used it to full advantage without harming it at all. I think the actress who owned it originally, in fact, was watching from somewhere and loving every minute of our improvisational antics. And in the last performance when Sam Hardie as Hamlet put his arms around a woman watching from the south wall, and said, “To England?” and she nodded and giggled-------well, it seemed like Marion herself giving approval to the whole affair.

I know. My imagination explodes. And now it’s over and I go on to taking a meeting in Starbucks today with a guy interested in bringing Salty Shakespeare to the Tube. Who knows. Salty Shakespeare is never planned. We go forward laughing into the darkness, stepping off cliffs and assuming we’ll know how to fly.

May all our flights be as exhilarating as the Annenberg. Thank you!!!


Nancy Linehan Charles
Artistic Director, Salty Shakespeare
www.SaltyShakespeare.org

 Photography by Margaret Molloy