Spring is truly upon us here. We may get a few weather surprises in the next few weeks, but the trees are budding, pansies are blooming, and bulbs are forcing their way toward the sun. Landscape crews have been out in force for the last couple of weeks, prepping gardens and medians for the floral explosion that is not far away.
Our old friends the Carolina Wrens have resumed their annual twiggy assault on the canoe. We pulled out the detritus of avian house-building the other day, but I would bet they already have a cozy little base-camp reestablished by now.
Last night, we got out to the aforementioned Folger Theatre production of Macbeth. It’s the second time I’ve seen the play – the first time was in London, in 1990, and that production was pretty crap. The script is so much larger than life, contains so many famous lines that have morphed into cliche, the themes and ideas are so huge – one man’s descent into inhumanity and madness infecting an entire country – I suppose it takes some really extraordinary acting to keep the whole thing from lurching into absurdity and pantomime.
This production had that extraordinary acting. It also had really scary witches, stage magic that was seamlessly and beautifully integrated into the action, buckets of fake blood, and lots of heads in bags. The Folger itself is a beautiful, tiny theatre, very Tudor, making you feel like you’ve entered a little bubble of time and space in downtown DC.
There was a light, misty rain as we walked back to the Metro, and the moisture brought on springtime scents of mulch and ozone. Murder, mayhem, and flowers – ah, spring.