Last Saturday was Mer’s day to plan, and it was very mellow. I got to run, watch a little of the Olympics, and then nap. In the early afternoon, we headed down to Aunt Mary’s new place to see the place and see if we could help a little.

Aunt Mary was about 75% moved in – it was amazing. She has some cool new furniture, and all of her older furniture was more or less in place. The smaller things, like dishes and pictures and such, were not yet in their places, but it was an impressive move-in for someone who had talked about eating in her new home on her birthday (the next Tuesday) with just a table and a few chairs.

Mer and I toured around and were very impressed. I hooked up Aunt Mary’s TV and video player in anticipation of her cable being hooked up in the following few days. Aunt Mary then mentioned she was going to replace the light in her bathrooms, and I figured I could help. It’s just three wires and a couple of screws – even I could do that!

I got the old light off the wall with no issues, and got the new light wired up and put the mounting posts in the wall socket. Up went the new light – just two screw heads to screw on and all would be well. Except for the tiny detail that the posts were not coming through the mounting holes. Down comes the light. The wires get undone. Screws get remounted. Wires get rewired. Up goes the light again. Still too short. After 20 minutes of futzing with a 10-minute job, I came to the conclusion that the mounting posts were too short. The electrical box was recessed in the wall, flush with the back of the drywall. The posts were the right length if the box had been mounted flush with the front of the drywall. Aunt Mary said she would try to get a longer all-thread screw for later in the week when Mer and I were coming back.

We left Aunt Mary’s new place, and Meredith started giving me directions. At first, we were headed in familiar directions – headed toward Hartville, then on to Alliance. But we kept going east through Alliance into territory I had not been in before. Then we started on short legs of road – three miles and then left, and then eight miles and then right. The roads started to look like good Maine roads – narrow, winding, hilly, and very scenic. This went on and on, and after about an hour and a half total, I found myself pulling into Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, home of Geneva College.

One of Mer’s former students now goes to Geneva College, and was in a production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Mer had decided we should see it, and I am glad that we did – I have never read the play, and only seen it once a few years ago in Cleveland.

But first things first. Mer had assumed that a college town like Beaver Falls would have good places to eat kicking around. She was wrong. After cruising around town for about 15 minutes and finding 4 pizza places and a closed Dairy Queen, we settled on a pizza joint right across from the college. It turned out to be very good pizza, but we were still amazed that a town with a college in it was lacking in even one obvious sit-down restaurant (other than the Korean place we saw, but I was more hungry than adventurous that night).

We drove the short way to the theater, which was a small space made out of a converted bank building. The theater was still closed for another 15 minutes or so. The theater is next to a Sheetz gas station, so we popped over and got a donut and a candy bar. We ate them in the car while listening to The Best of Bert and I, a CD of Maine humor. It was a great way to spend the time.

Once the theater opened, we went in and were seated. The theater really was small, seating no more than 70. The stage was simple, made up of the stage and two elevated platforms. During the play, minimal props were moved on and off the stage (chairs, a desk, and so on). It kept the focus on the players.

The director’s notes were very useful. The director decided to stress the Christian aspects of Measure for Measure (Geneva is a Christian college). That works well – the title of the play itself is taken from a saying of Jesus. The director was looking at the extreme of justice without mercy (in the form of the harsh Angelo) and the extreme of withdrawal from society (in the form of the convent novice Isabella, and to a lesser extent the Duke himself). To stress the universality of the nature of sin and the need for both justice and mercy, the director chose to clothe the actors in costumes from many periods. An especially good choice was in the difficulty of clothing the actors playing two prostitutes in the play. Being at a Christian college, and directing a play focusing on lust, the director could not have the girls in scanty costumes. Instead, he had them in layers of tights and leather and gauze and even ballet skirts. They were heavily made up, and even though they were fully clothed, there was no doubt about how they made their living. It was well done.

A quick summary of the play – the Duke decides to leave town, leaving an adviser (Angelo) in charge with the expectation that he will clean up the city, which is very wild. Angelo is a just man, and decides to enforce a law on the books that makes it a death penalty crime to have sex outside of marriage. The example is to be made of Claudio, who got his lover pregnant. Claudio appeals to his sister, an acolyte nun, to appeal to the just but merciless Angelo. When Angelo sees her, he immediatly falls in lust with her, and tells her he will release her brother if she sleeps with him. Meanwhile, the Duke comes back disguised as a priest, who manipulates and advises the various people in the play. Many other things happen, but it all works out, and Angelo is brought to understand weakness and the need for justice and mercy and even forgiveness.

The play was well acted, especially in the leads of Isabella and the Duke. The actor put on one accent for the Duke, and another for when he was the priest, and he did it consistently, which made it work. The other actors did very well, although some of them needed to be a tad louder and a few of them needed to slow down when speaking their lines. Mer’s student had a minor role (the pregnant lover of Claudio), but there is a thrill to seeing someone on stage whom you actually know. It was much fun.

We got to catch up with Mer’s student and the student’s boyfriend (who played the Duke), and it was good to talk with them. They are good people. We then had to leave, to take the hour-and-a-half drive back home. Happily, the way home was all highway, so the directions were pretty easy.