Not-Shakespeare in the Park

     I love Shakespeare and the fact that so many theaters get out to bring Shakespeare to the people via Shakespeare in the Park or Shakespeare in the Parking Lot programs, but I like the fact that the Apollinaire Theater, just outside Boston, performs works by other playwrights. Two years ago we saw Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. Sunday night, we watched Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
     I'm a fan of the Modernist Brecht who influenced the plays of one of the writers I'm studying, Gao Xingjian, the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. I was excited to see Brecht's play but disappointed that we missed the first act due to traffic heading south from the lakes region (evidenced by boats and jet skis in tow), the White Mountains (bikes), and the NASCAR races in Loudon (giant NASCAR trucks). No, everyone was not rushing to Mary O'Malley Park in Chelsea to see The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Oh, we were also late due to my husband cooking lobsters for our "anniversary weekend" dinner and cooking them too slowly, if that's even possible, but it makes me sound like a complete ingrate to say that, I know. Dinner was wonderful, and so was the play!