Thanks to alt text for this great photo of the Guthrie. We only saw two plays at the first Guthrie Theater, but enjoyed our fourth one at the new one. After three sessions at the MLA conference on Thursday, I was ready to head downtown. This time we ate at the Guthrie rather than The Old Spaghetti Factory. It was a good time to celebrate the completion of the harvest with a special meal. I had the duck special which was very good. It had been a long time since I ate duck!
We enjoyed the movie, Shadowlands, (Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger) based on the life of C. S. Lewis, at an arts theatre next to the Arizona State University campus in Tempe years ago on the Saturday night before Easter when we spent spring break visiting Van 's family. Although the sheep and lovely English countryside scenes were not at the Guthrie, I think that I liked the play about as much as the movie. It was fun to be in the third row for a different perspective of the stage and actors. The movement of sets at the Guthrie is amazing. After seeing the Shadowlands movie, I read the C. S. Lewis book, A Grief Observed. Seeing the play after our one year of grief following the 2007 deaths of our mothers, was good timing. We looked at each other when Jack, (the C. S. Lewis character) talked about his mother dying when Jack was only eight years old. After Joy (wife of Jack), dies when her son Douglas was so young, I thought of how fortunate we were to have our mothers until they were 83 and 93 years old.
When Shadowlands ended, I thought about 1776, Third, and Little House on the Prairie, the other three productions we saw at the new Guthrie. I liked them all very much, but now would like to see another play on the thrust state where we saw 1776 after seeing the last three on the proscenium stage.
We enjoyed the twilight view of the new bridge from the Guthrie windows after seeing the collapsed mess of the old one when we saw 1776 in August of 2007 after Mom's death. Being the bridge collapse will always be associated with Mom's death in our memories, the new bridge is a great symbol of renewal and "Life Goes On."
