I could've stayed home Tuesday night and watched the early-evening speeches (pre-Hillary) at the Democratic Party Convention. I could've watched the Yankees play the Red Sox, a masochistic exercise this season for any Yankee fan. (Yep, they lost again.)
But instead I joined my wife at Edgerton Park for outdoor theater: The Elm Shakespeare Company's presentation of "The Matchmaker." It was written more than 50 years ago by Thornton Wilder, who lived in Hamden and was a regular in downtown New Haven at the Anchor bar-restaurant.
We love Edgerton. It's a 10-minute walk from our house and we regularly exercise our energetic Springer spaniel, Olive, in its spacious expanse. The park is a perfect setting for live theater.
You bring a blanket or a lawn chair, wine or whatever, munchies or sandwiches. At the end of the evening, you make a donation to keep the thing going. And this must be kept going, so don't be cheap about it.
My wife and I were on our blanket and our teenage daughters were somewhere else in the crowd, because they wanted to be with their friends, and be cool. But they weren't too cool to go see "The Matchmaker," which is a good thing.
I hadn't expected to like it very much. I'm not big on romantic farce. Indeed, in the early going I told my bride, "This is very broad," and I didn't mean it in a good way.
But it quickly grew on me. The performers, directed by James Andreassi, were so good, especially Lisa Bostnar as Dolly (this play at one point was the popular "Hello Dolly!"), Michael Peter Smith as the stiff tightwad Horace Vandergelder and Raphael Massie as Cornelius Hack. And the writing was fine, because, look, it's Thornton Wilder.
As you watch this play, you can hear the night creatures buzzing and chirping around you, and the occasional Amtrak train off in the distance. Sit back, relax, take it all in...
Even our kids liked this show! We got them away from their computers and TV sets for a few hours and exposed them to live theater.
We still had time to get back to hear Hillary, and it was good for my mental health not to be watching or listening to the Yanks-Sox game.
You oughta go out to the park. You've got the rest of this week, through Sunday (Aug. 31), for these 7:30 shows. "Matchmaker" will be performed again Thursday and Saturday. "Hamlet" will be put on by this same group of players, tonight (Wednesday) as well as Friday and Sunday. We plan to head back there to get our shot of Shakespeare.