August 30, 2010

Reading The Double Falsehood online in preparation for performing it at Montford and at NC Stage. I have no reason to doubt the story that it was adapted from unfinished manuscripts by Fletcher and Shakespeare. The verse is hackneyed but the prose has some life in it. I am to portray Don Bernard, and to the point I’ve read I have the most of the jokes. An indulgent father, again. I missed the role in real life.

Got a tour of the Masonic Lodge downtown, which is now going to rent its facilities out, largely for theater. Its interior mysteries seem rather boyish, though no less charming for that. The theater has forty exquisite painted backdrops, all portraying some Masonic allegory (Egypt, Solomon’s Temple, the Gates of Paradise, etc), but which may be adaptable to other things, or simply beautiful to look at even if nothing to do with the action onstage. There’s the old fashioned light board where you have to stand on a box and physically pull the handles to dim or brighten the lights. Hazel liked that a lot. She said, “That’s the kind I learned on at Chapel Hill.” All very dusty and frayed.

Lord Krishna’s birthday.