By Morgen Limbach and Sarah Rabel
I’m Sarah Rabel, a Community Shakespeare parent. One day, six years ago, in a barn on the south end of Lopez Island, surrounded by eager children (my son included) and a friendly crew, I offered to be the company’s volunteer coordinator. Since then, every autumn I enter a world of nymphs, royalty, lights, fabric, flowers, and paint. A world of laughter, of “e-nun-ci-a-tion!” and of constant creativity: a world of magic.
Richard Carter, director and co-founder of CSC, deftly leads a cast and crew through the wilds of The Bard. Come November we find ourselves, much like Puck and Oberon in this year’s production of “Shakespeare In Hollywood,” magically transported into a “brave new world,” and we work to bring it all to life, for each other and for the audience.
This season, an endearing Puck played by sixth-grader Morgen Limbach sets the stage….
By Morgan Limbach: I’m Puck, a mischievous creature. One day, I make a mistake and perform a spell wrong. My master Oberon and I end up in Hollywood in a fake “wood near Athens” on a movie set, in the 1930s! During our one day in Hollywood, we are very near to performing a movie about ourselves. Of course, while we are in Hollywood, I make everyone fall in love with the wrong person by using a magic flower!
At first, my master is happy. He falls in love with a movie star named Olivia, and she falls in love with him. Unfortunately, I accidentally make Olivia fall in love with an actor, Joe E. Brown. Oberon gets really, really mad at this and sends me off to find the antidote flower. Once I find the antidote, he tells me to put it in all the lovers’ eyes. Then Olivia falls in love with him again! He and I are about to perform in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and everything goes right again. But just when everything is getting exciting, 24 hours have been used up, and Oberon and I must leave the world of mortality and go home again to the real wood near Athens. However, during our time in Hollywood we meet some funny people, and do lots of funny things.
So if you like funny plays, I say, “Come unto these yellow sands (California, where) Two fairies, both without much dignity, Muddle up fair Hollywood, Where we lay our scene of: ‘Shakespeare In Hollywood!’”
Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m.; admission by donation.
Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 17-18-19, student admission is $10 and $15 for adults. Tickets are available via www.communityshakespeare.org and Paper, Scissors on the Rock. All performances at Lopez Center.
