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"I always think I'm right, but I don't think I'm always right."

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"You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."
Gandalf to Frodo, 
LOTR i.2

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"Oh, miracle -- thus to be able to give what we ourselves do not possess, sweet miracle of our empty hands!"
Diary of a Country Priest

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"This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can; satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now."
Knightly to Emma

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My writing is like Shakespeare's.  At lease in the sense that I use many of the same words.

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"I Got Better ..."

Broke a string after winning the first set in a match on Saturday.  Switched to my "backup" racquet and won only 4 more games in 2 sets.  I wish I could say it was the racquet instead of the hack holding it.  And all props to my opponent, who played well. ABTL: 4-4.

During play I also began feeling some pain in my lower back, but I shrugged if off.  With my old body, something always hurts at least a little, and everything is out of warranty: you just can't get replacement parts.  

But as the day wore on Saturday, the back pain got worse and worse.  Now, I have some back pain in my history, but nothing like this for many years.  By Saturday night I was not getting around at all, and I pretty much had to remain horizontal all day Sunday and most of Monday.  Happily, I now seem to be much recovered, and so Tuesday I'm back at work.

So with all that immobile time, I finished reading Gilead (on which more another time), and then started the Gene Wolfe Book of the Long Sun series.  I got through the first volume and part of the second, but I'm running out of steam and might not go further.  The Wolfe novels are highly regarded by some smart fellers I listen to, so I've been meaning to give them a look.  I understand that Wolfe is a Roman Catholic writer, and his protagonist, the Patera Silk character in these novels, is a celibate priest-like character.

We watched In Good Company.  The Dennis Quaid character was not likeable enough to get me rooting for him.  I grant the difficulty of the storyteller: there's a line somewhere between having realistically flawed characters who nevertheless win our sympathy, and realistically flawed characters who lose it.  The Quaid character lost mine.  On the other hand, the Topher Grace character was very well done. 

I looked at Primer again with daughter Bess, pausing to let her fill in how she's worked it out.  It was more interesting, and I understood more this time.  It is also an incredible movie for something made on a budget of $7,000.  (Desperate to save film expense, the director (/actor/writer/composer) used lots of rehearsals and only a very few takes.  Plus nobody got paid...)  I still think that the movie works just about as well if you just give up on all the paradoxes of time travel (let alone big chunks of character motivation: what in the world was so important about that party?) and just feel the hopelessness of the web these two guys weave for themselves.  I recommend it as impressionism.

American Religion Unmasked

An opinion piece by Amy Sullivan, editor of the Washington Monthly, gives one of the clearest pictures of the essence of American Religion that you will find.  She complains that conservatives, in a couple of instances Baptist and Catholic, are breaking all the rules when in one way or another they dare to disqualify church members based on their political behavior.  The heart of her complaint:

This is a debate conservatives are going to lose. Because you don't have to be liberal or conservative to be offended by the idea that a political or religious leader can decide whether your faith is good enough.

There is the serpent's telltale fang mark: "nobody can tell me whether or not my faith is good enough."  See, in the American Credo, all beliefs are equally valid as long as they are sincerely and honestly held.  Thus it is an American Blasphemy to say that any church court or official has the God-given duty to say that certain practices are inconsistent with obedient faith.

Okay, I agree with her insofar as it is inappropriate for a political leader to make an ecclesiastical pronouncement (including George W's lamentable religious claim that "Islam is a religion of peace").  And it may or man not have been wise for the Baptist or Catholic officers to do what they did in certain particular instances.  But poor Amy is taking her umbrage at something else.  The thing that damns you in her court is that you dare to believe that anyone has the right to tell anyone that in light of his observable behavior, his Christian profession will do him no more good on the day of judgment than a bag of worms.  

Ace Bandage Tennis update:  After an 0-3 start (which understandably dismayed many of my loyal readers) I have turned things around a bit and my record now stand at 4-3.  That feels much better, but obviously doesn't really mean much.   One day as I approached a match, I found myself fretting about the possibility that I might lose.  I immediately corrected myself so that I might fret instead about the possibility that I might by too shy of hitting the ball.  It is important to fret aright. 

The Thespian Society.  This seems to be the week for every department's end-of-the-year program at LHS.  Last night was the drama department.  The "theater geeks" at Lincoln High are a very talented group.  They have won several state competitions, and they have an evident love for one another, strong sense of community, and pride in accomplishment.  Son Joe has been in a couple of musicals and the Midsummer Night's Dream this Spring, so he was one of the 30 inductees into the Thespian Society.  Every inductee performed a short monologue, lit a candle, signed the roll, and received a certificate.  (So this was not a brief event).  The parents booster group, the Drama Moms and Dads, did a silly 20-minute 10-minute skit, and gave one of the seniors a $300 tuition scholarship for college.  There were awards for best male and female actors in various categories, plus the student awards: Drama Queen, Diva, Golden Hammer (?) (tech), Drama Stud ... the current holder chooses his or her successor.  

I'm just thinking out loud here about the oddity of the "drama community."  I have enjoyed my own participation in theatrical endeavors through the years.  But it takes no special insight to observe that there's something about the Drama Group that always seems to attract more than its share of the, er, alternative crowd.  Of course there are plenty of "regular" kids in the drama group, and there are plenty of healthy things that people enjoy in the playing/performing experience, but I often wonder what is is about drama that also attracts the true "theater geek."  You memorize your monologue, you go out there and make a fool of yourself in front of everybody -- hey, this is painful: why do it? 

I think a good part of the attraction comes from the sense of community (everyone is applauded), and from the sense of importance: We are doing Art and We are Making a Difference.  Those are heady feelings, perhaps especially for those who feel marginalized in other areas, such as academics or athletics.  They can find success, acceptance, and importance in drama.

Which can be idolatrous temptations.  While there's nothing wrong with the acceptance and approval of friends, and there's nothing wrong with the sense of accomplishment that comes from making a good thing (such as a poem, song, or play), these good things can take on a creepy quality when they become the things that you seek first, instead of things that can be enjoyed as secondary effects.

(Okay, I'll post it, but I'm NOT satisfied ...)

Evidently (and not surprisingly) there is more to the movie Primer than I took away from my first viewing.  (See May 23, below).  I now gather that if you watch and follow carefully, you can put together a whole lot more of what actually happens as things get out of hand for Abe and Aaron.  Daughter Bess now owns a copy and has worked things out a bit with a few more viewings.

To which I comment only that it's fine if the movie makers want to sell us a puzzle.  But I think they overestimate the amount of information that they are actually able to communicate as the movie plays.  These are unfamiliar names and faces for the moviegoer, and when you show us a guy in a dark room in profile, it is unreasonable to expect us to recognize him as the same guy we glimpsed in a group shot ten minutes ago.   You, the movie maker know these faces and details of composition well, because you have been working with them for months.  But you have to condescend a bit more if you want the average guy to follow you on a single telling.

The only way I could enjoy my first viewing was to give up on the impossibly obscure details and go with the general impression.  And the movie worked for me at that level.  Now as a separate exercise, it may pay to go back and work through the puzzle with a few more viewings.

But is that really the kind of thing a movie is supposed to be?

Maybe these are movies by and for the Final Fantasy generation; those who have the patience to play and play and play while they keep searching for the key is that gets you to the next level.

I have become a codger.

Hamlet and the Gilmore Girls.  Last night I had half an hour open between thing 1 and thing 2, so (I know, instead of reading my Bible and praying) I put in our copy of Mel Gibson's Hamlet, which is my favorite version.  I was stuck by the strong resemblance between Helena Bonham Carter's Ophelia and Alexis Beldel's Rory.  Truly striking.  Striking I was struck.

Thing 2 was LHS's vocal music finale concert and awards night, which for some reason was held at Plymouth Church (UCC) (home of the $2.2 million Lied Organ and where the prayers in the back of the hymnal include Native American prayers to the Great Spirit).  

Anyway, this was the other side of Joy Night, about which I did not blog last week.  Joy Night is LHS's annual student talent / skit show, which every year seems to have fewer and fewer examples of actual talent and wit, and more and more of the tasteless and crude.  (If I ran the circus, I'd cancel Joy Night completely for four years and then reopen it with actual guidelines and standards.)

Anyway 2, it was quite pleasant to hear each of the groups sing, and they actually sang things like Handel, and Mozart, and Beethoven.  Three cheers.  Son Joe won the Baritone award in his group and also earned a Letter with one bar.  Last Saturday, Daughter Anne had two tickets to a concert by Lincoln's barbershop chorus (The Lincoln Continentals), and she took Joe.  Joe has a strong bass voice, and has made some noise about organizing a barbershop quartet with some LHS pals.  (Maybe Joe and Dad could both join the Lincoln Continentals next fall ...)

Esther 6:13.  Yet another place where the King James beats all the modern versions for faithfulness to the original text.  Haman's wife and friends warn him that if this Mordecai, before whom he has begun to fall is of the seed of the Jews, then he will surely fall before him.  Given that "seed" is such a loaded theological term (seed of the woman, Gen 3: seed of Abraham, Gen 12; seed of David 2 Sam 7), you'd think the translators would consider it worthwhile to show the word to us in English whenever they can.  But alas, they don't.

Lemony Snicket.  Visually very stylish and fun to watch.  As these three unfortunate orphans encounter Jim Carrey in one outrageously villainous character after another, the movie maintains playfully morose narrative tone that is so determined to promise a sad ending, you're all the more pleased that you never quite believe it.

Primer.   A couple of guys in a garage scratching around for a high-tech startup concept stumble into a time travel device.  At first they are very careful: they go just one day into the future to see what the stock market will do and then they come back and pick a winner.  But their resolve not to mess up anything during the time when their time traveling selves might cross paths with their regular-time selves breaks down.  They get careless.  Next they think they can actually get involved.  And pretty soon things are completely out of control; they're literally not sure whether they're coming or going and their efforts to do or undo what they didn't do or should have done on one of their other trips are hopelessly confusing.  

And I think that's the point.  As yet another exercise in the what-if's of time travel, this movie seems to say "you'll never be able to resolve all the difficulties, no matter how smart and careful you think you are."  The movie doesn't let us know what the science is (naturally), and the movie doesn't seem all that concerned to let us know exactly what is going on.  It just lets us watch these guys get in so deep and then feel how desperate they are to get out at any price.

Back in 1998, the first year of my adult "return" to the tennis of my youth, I fell in with a hitting partner from the tennis team at Lincoln Northeast High.  He was always better than I, but we were matched closely enough that our hitting sessions were worthwhile for both of us.  

After a few years of stop and go tennis on my part, I recently ran into him again, and he is a much improved player.  He's 23 now, and as I understand it, he's ranked in the top ten in the state of Nebraska for men's open tennis.  Tall, athletic, strong; I mean, he's *good*.  But he seems glad enough to hit with me early on Monday mornings, and my goal is to get the ball back often enough to keep it worth his while.  

He can run me side to side and up and back at will, and he just doesn't miss many shots.  It's quite a workout.  Well before the end of the hour, I'm spent.  If his shot isn't close enough to me, I just don't have the legs to chase it.  I told him I'm playing Martin Luther tennis: "Here I stand, I can do no other."

 

May 19

Music Man Junior at Norris tonight.  Daughter Anne has helped direct that production and this will be my first visit to Norris.

Daughter Kate went to the midnight showing of Star Wars Episode III last night with a friend who had tickets.  In preparation, she brought home a DVD of Episode II in order to refresh the story.  Kate observed that one sign of a bad movie is that it reminds you of another movie that you really wish you were watching instead.  The chomper scene in the droid factory reminded us of the chomper scene in Galaxy Quest when the Sigourney Weaver character complains "this episode was badly written!!"  And so, Episode II.  It plays like the overview of a story rather than as a story.  The grand scale and special effects have completely taken over.  The DVD's Making Of documentary is more interesting than the movie itself because the documentary offers at least some actual human interest.  The deleted scenes illustrate the problem.  The story was even broader and more thinly spread than the release version, and by cutting some of the broadest and thinnest, the producers had the illusion that they were "tightening" the story.

No.  Galaxy Quest is a tight script.  Nothing wasted.  Episode II is a mess.  Nothing necessary.

Sick yesterday.  Ugh.  Very unpleasant.  I lay in bed all day.  I did some experimenting, and I assure you, moaning actually does help.

I got some new tennis shoes.  I love the Racquet Corner, which is run by the father/son team of Bob and Ron Schultz.  It's a tiny little store, but they have everything you really need, plus a very friendly family atmosphere.  They care about you and your tennis, and they make the right kinds of suggestions.  If I weren't a tennis player, I might take up the sport, just to have a nice little store to visit every so often.  I took out a couple of loaner racquets from the sale bin, which offers both previously owned and discontinued models at about half price.  The Wilson Tour 95 hits like a brick.  One of the Volkls is better, but still not as good as my Pro Kennex 5g (which, alas, Racquet Corner doesn't stock.)  I did buy some lead tape to add some weight to the frame at the 3- and 6-o'clock positions.  That perimeter weight helps stabilize the racquet on off-center hits (my specialty), and also gives a little more pop to your strokes.  Gusty wind today; I have a match at 5:30.  I'd really like to beat this guy, who beat me in straight sets last year.

• Beautiful wedding in the park Saturday morning.  Cool, sunny, slight breeze.  Perfect, with catered outdoor reception on the site.

• Niece Valerie Sharp graduated from Milligan-Exeter high school (graduating class size: 26); we went to the party Saturday evening, which was a cooperative effort in Milligan with six other grads.  Quite a mob.  

• Daughter Kate returned from a week's RUF conference in Florida.  Nebraska took three vans this year and is no longer just this tiny little group on the edge.

• I'm preaching from Esther 5-7 at Zion this week.  Our senior pastor is off to a conference in D.C., and so he swapped me for another date.

Okay, I'm not blogging because there are no cool movies or books to talk about.  And I can't really bring myself to admit that I have been watching the first season of The Gilmore Girls with Jana and Anne.  Anne bought herself the season one DVD's with some graduation money, and so that's what's on. What's more, I have been in full lazy mode, too lethargic by the end of the day to do anything but sit, and so I watch.  

And I have to admit that it's a pretty enjoyable series.  Especially since I have the retrospective information that the Sally Struthers character will fade from the cast and also that the huge dance instructor likewise will become scarce.  Like any series, it takes the writers a while to figure out what isn't working, and I'm glad they backed away from their initial impulse to people the town with so many way-too-colorful characters.  And by the way, as cute as this little town is, I don't believe there would be that many pedestrians around at all hours.  This New York stream of people doesn't feel right in a Mayberry town.  

Still, the show has a strong enough heart to make it work.  The most interesting aspect is the intergenerational dynamic that is provoked when the mom has to turn to her estranged socialite parents for the tuition money her daughter needs for tuition at the dreamed-of private school.  Grandma attaches strings to the money, and the family is forced to work through long-repressed dysfunction and offense.  Initially it seems to be playing out truly enough for the most part..  It does run a risk of devolving into soap opera, but it seems to be directed by people who are clever enough not to wreck it.  And my daughters still have a weekly Gilmore Girls party at Bess's apartment, so after five seasons, the saga survives.

Daughter Anne signed her contract to teach secondary vocal music in Auburn Nebraska next year.  She's happy for the job, and very pleased with everything she's seen down there so far.

"God, ..."

I preached yesterday at one of "those" Presbyterian churches, and generally things went well.  At least there were no Native American prayers to the Great Spirit or feminist invocations of "Christa" or anything.  I was reasonably sure that this was not one of those wacko churches when I accepted the invitation; and of course they put no limits on what I could say in the pulpit.  And the music actually included some old hymns, like "Sweet Hour of Prayer".  The people were friendly and made me feel like they were glad to have me there.

But one telltale mark that this is a "liberal" church is that the lay liturgist, who basically leads the service, (reading, I think, mostly from a script prepared by the pastor) began each prayer by saying, "God."    Never "Heavenly Father", or "Dear Lord," -- not even "O God."  Just "God."   Now, to be sure, there are many ways to address God in prayer, and the Bible shows us examples of more than one kind.  And God hears our prayers no matter how we address him.  It's not like if you use the wrong form of address then the call doesn't get through.  But the terms of address are not insignificant.  And this was such a consistent style that it made me think that there was some kind of Point being made.  My suspicion is that they're avoiding male terminology: nothing with "Father" in it.  (On the other hand, the congregation did pray the Our Father together at one point.)   And not even a "dear" or "almighty" or "O."    It felt very unnatural.

I mean, what would it say about my relationship with my wife if I always called her simply "woman?"  Never "honey", never "darling", never "beautiful..."

Chariots of Fire.  For Mother's Day, the kids got Jana the newly released widescreen version of Chariots of Fire.  It comes with a commentary track, plus a second DVD of special features.  I'm always interested in the "making of" features and it was fun seeing some of the recent interviews with the actors (except of course for Ian Charleson, the Eric Liddell character, who died in 1990.)  Tonight maybe I'll be able to watch the director's commentary.

We also went to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Fun enough, but with problems.  The sitcom punctuation music in the opening scenes at Arthur's house was a really bad idea.  

(Yes, and my ABTL record is up to 2-3 now.)  This week's match is against a guy who beat me last year in straight sets.  I'll have to be playing well to win.

Sometimes I read James B. Jordan and my eyes kinda glaze over and I suddenly realize that I'm thinking about other things.  But often enough, he points out something so obvious and clear that it evokes somewhere in me a delightful sort of "eureka."  Such is Jordan's discussion of "good and evil" in his essay "Merit Versus Maturity: What Did Jesus Do For Us?" in The Federal Vision.

The aspect that particularly prods my thinking is Jordan's observation that "knowing good and evil" is a phrase directly related to judicial exercise.  Jordan cites an impressive string of biblical texts to show that it is the king and the judge who are required to discern and pronounce "good" and "evil."  This supports his general thesis that God's restriction of Adam's access to this tree in the garden would have been only temporarily: Adam and Eve were immature and not yet ready to share the kingly office of adjudication with God.

Notice, too, how this makes Satan's temptation all the more insidious.  "In the day that you eat it you will be like God, knowing good and evil."   Well, yeah, they would.  And someday they would be "like God", exercising kingly judgments of good and evil -- just not yet.  

Intolerant liberals.  Again.  It's not so much the intolerance that galls; it's their silly, self-deluded hypocrisy: they are so pleased with themselves for having these lofty liberal values, but obviously they don't know that the word "liberal" means "allowing freedom."  And actual freedom is clearly the last thing in the world these academic thought police want to allow.  

Have they even read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?  Don't they recognize themselves as Dolores Umbridge?

Daughters Kate and Anne graduate from UNL tomorrow.  Kate will spend nine months in Marseilles France next year teaching English.  Anne will be teaching secondary vocal music somewhere.  She got a job offer yesterday, and has another interview today.  Tonight we have the graduation party, complete with the photo montage.  Selecting snapshots from the old albums is quite a task.

"Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?..."

Zing.  Writing about the euthanasia industry in Switzerland, Richard John Neuhaus brings together strands of Evelyn Waugh and Mark Steyn:

... Waugh expected socialist Britain to be in the vanguard of the death industry. He wrote, “Foreigners came in such numbers to take advantage of the service that immigration authorities now turned back the bearers of single tickets.” As it turns out, the lead has been taken by what Mark Steyn calls Eurotopia, the death-‘n’-sex boutique states of Holland and Switzerland. The London Daily Telegraph reports that “the Swiss are planning to crack down on ‘suicide tourists,’ including hundreds of Britons, who want to take their lives at a Zurich euthanasia clinic.” The report says, “Swiss officials are alarmed that most foreign patients spend only twenty-four hours in the country, meaning that there is little time for their cases to be checked fully.” Complains Zurich’s chief prosecutor, “We know nothing about them and we can’t say if it was a long-term desire to end their lives.” New rules will have staff “specially trained in their trade” and certified as “suicide assistants.” Deborah Annets, chief executive of Britain’s Voluntary Euthanasia Society, agrees that it is imperative that suicide “should be properly regulated.” After all, we’re dealing with civilized societies here, and it seems the decent thing to get to know something about the people you are going to kill...

(1)  "death-'n'-sex boutique states of Holland and Switzerland"  Yeowch!
(2)  Uh, weren't Holland and Switzerland leading countries on the Calvinist side of the Protestant Reformation?  It used to be that church historians could point with some force to the difference between the successful, prosperous, innovative northern (largely Protestant) states of Europe as contrasted with the poorer, more stagnant southern (largely Catholic) states.  Well, that comparison has lost its force.

Several readers have asked about my tennis game and how things have been going. (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha).  There's just one week left in the indoor doubles league.  Two weeks ago I won a game by hitting four serves, each as hard as I could, and each serve won the point.  I don't think I've ever done that in my life.  It's rare enough for me getting four first serves in play.  15, 30, 40, game.  (Although, to be sure, it wasn't Agassi over there ...)  This week I served the last game of the last set and won the point on the serve at 40-30 by kicking it short and wide.  It hit the sideline in the service box and bounced wide into the net curtain that hangs between adjacent courts before the return guy could get to the ball.  Yeah, yeah.  So if I'm such a great server, how come I'm off to a 1-3 start in the Ace Bandage outdoor league?

Well, (aside from my short game, which I refuse to describe) the main problem is that when my opponent does return a serve, then we have to play an actual point, and my ideas about playing points assume that I can hit the ball where I want to hit it every time.  I aim for the open court --- but not just for the open court.  I want to win the point with an authoritative shot to the very corner.  And of course, "what I lack in control, I make up for by overhitting."  

And yet the joy of the sport for me is tied up with taking a full, looping swing at the ball, pumping up the topspin, feeling that solid connection with the ball, and watching that sucker land deep and true.  That happens just often enough that I am deaf to the voice of prudence, which keeps telling me that if I would not take such a big cut at the ball, I would have a better chance of keeping the ball in play.

Yeah? But what fun is that?

I think this is how Reepicheep would play tennis.

And after Saturday's match, I'm sure I'll be up to 2-3 ...

Psalm 2.  I have an opportunity to preach two services at a 100-year old small-town church this Sunday.  My philosophy is "Have Bible, Will Travel," so I like to say "yes" unless there is a good reason not to accept (such as particular duties at Zion, where I am, after all, an Associate Pastor). Even when the church that invites me is, er, "across the street" from the PCA.  Hey, if they're crazy enough to invite me, they deserve what they get: a sermon about Jesus.

Well, Psalm 2 is delightfully about Jesus in a way that is hard to miss, since Paul quotes "the second Psalm" at Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13) applying it specifically to the resurrection, Hebrews quotes it about Christ's exaltation and High Priestly role (chs 1 and 5), and Peter connects the raging of the nations against God's king explicitly to the collusion of the Romans and Jews in Jesus' crucifixion (Acts 4).

The Father has glorified the Son and has raised him above all rule and authority.  Rulers and authorities just hate it when that happens.

Collateral.

This was a well-done thriller.  Tom Cruise is a hit man who hires Jamie Foxx's taxi to drive him around during a one-night round of contract killings in L.A.  When Jamie discovers what's going on, he wants nothing to do with it, but it's not easy getting rid of Tom Cruise; especially alive, since it's pretty obvious to both of them that the taxi driver knows way too much.

Tom Cruise is very good as the guy who is dangerously over the edge.  I liked him in Vanilla Sky.  His character in Magnolia was amazing.  He's got the ability to make you believe that here is a guy who is not governed by the normal rules.  There are not many actors who can play the sympathetic lead (The Firm, Mission: Impossible, Minority Report) just as easily as they play the psychotic villain.  Who else does that?  That's more range than Hollywood usually allows its stars.

But the real dramatic movement happens in the Jamie Foxx character.  He has to figure out how to survive and what his responsibilities are.  There are moments when Cruise's power over him weakens when he has choices to make, and we see how hard it is for him to make them.  

Ocean's Twelve.

Disappointing.  It felt like there had been way too many re-writes by committee.  I can imagine a whole series of meetings in which the script just kept changing and changing and changing.  "Wait, wait: we could have them all get arrested and  ..."  "No, no: you need at least one more layer of deception: the caper we see has to be a smoke screen for the *actual* caper..."  "Okay, but what about the girl?..."  "I know!  We could give her a *father* ..."  "Hold everything!  Just got a call from Bruce Williss.  How can we work him in?..."   

And pretty soon the story mind has been folded over and reversed so many times, all you have left is George Clooney looking cute and a bunch of tense scenes that end up being totally unnecessary.  

Brad Pitt is actually quite good.

The LHS production of Midsummer Night's Dream was much better than I was afraid it might be.  Those kids worked hard and did a surprisingly good job of making sense of the Bard's language.  There were a few poor directing choices, and some of the acting was a bit self-indulgent, but all in all a very pleasant show.  

I would like to see a production in which the Theseus / Hippolyta pair are explicitly double cast with Oberon and Titania.  I think you could get some mileage out of that parallel.  It also occurred to me that Oberon / Puck could be played with a Laurel and Hardy "here's another fine mess" feel.  And since Oberon is invisible, why have him hiding (and upstaging things) during the Athenian's scenes?  Why not block him right into the dialog and show him not only observing but also pulling strings and suggesting responses.  Like, maybe have Oberon whisper into Helena's ear when Demetrius wakes up and first declares his love for her.  (Uh, is Oberon on stage at that point ...?) 

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