Goldwyn did it again. This is the third (and so far last) of the "Our Kind" plays -- based on SCA stereotypes. Actually, as I hear from those who were at Goldwyn's first performances, some of these "stereotypes" are actually real people -- he really aimed the characters at specific individuals in many cases. We decided not to take that tack with the productions, though. Instead, we made them a bit more generic.

Synopsis: This play is based very loosely on Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Mistress Laurel is visited by her old mentor, Mistress Mentor, who is now dead, and a ghost (wearing <gasp> rags), and given the usual spiel about how Mistress Laurel will be visited by three spirits. Well, she sees herself in the past as a newbie at her first event, in a horrible outfit, etc. She sees herself in the present bowing to Queen Cupcake!, and in the future, she's a Duchess, and has her own costume police (at this point she's the oldest living Laurel).

After the last ghost has done his bit to try to scare Mistress Laurel into changing her ways, she calls all the ghosts out on stage, grills them, tells them it didn't work and that it was a bad idea. She asks "Who came up with this moth-ridden plot, anyway?" to which response she gets "Charles Dickens", and she responds with "When?" to which she hears "1843", and she cries out with glee "Not Period!", and leaves the stage humming "My Awards Go Jingle-Jangle-Jingle" ...

Incidents: There were, amazingly, no real problems with this one. On the other hand, performing at 12th Night is a bit of a hassle all on its own -- most of the day is taken up with court, and people really aren't all that interested in sitting in front of a stage again!. That said, we started out with a small audience, but by the end of the show, the room was full! We were pleased as punch ...

The previous night we were allowed in to rehearse on the stage, so we had some idea how to place the small amount of props and such that we had. (Tangwystyl loaned us her camp bed for this ...) The folk hanging banners in the hall while we were rehearsing had a difficult time concentrating on getting the banners hung ...

Theresia had an odd schedule at school, and we didn't get her at more than one or two rehearsals. On the other hand, she was fine. When she did her bit with the sword, swinging it around gleefully, on the backswing on the last one she got caught up in the curtain. Well, of course, she played with it and hit the curtain (as a sort of "take that") -- but this also included Aldith's elbow. Luckily Aldith wasn't really hurt (and also wasn't very loud when she cried out) ...

Video Tape: Yes. Pretty good, for the most part. This video was done by Randy, the owner of the Mongolian General Store ... only real problem was that he wasn't familiar with the show, and kept panning in weird ways ...

DVD: Now available as part of the "Our Kind Trilogy" -- the DVD includes these two plays and "A Nightmare on Laurel Street", contact Hirsch for details (probably $5-10, just to cover the cost of the discs, the case, etc. and any postage would need to be tacked on).

Photos: We have photographs by Hal Ravn at the West Kingdom History web site: Our Kind III Photos.

The Script:
A Nightmare on Laurel Street: Acrobat

The Cast: