On Saturday, I pulled off a huge surprise for Meredith, which was more spectacular for my having thrown it together in about twenty-four hours.

On Friday, I was looking for “Shakespeare Festivals” on the internet, and I ran across the Maryland Shakespeare Festival, which is going on now through April 1st. The reviews I had found focused on MSF’s take on Shakespeare, which caught my eye. MSF tries to explore Shakespeare by recreating, as best they can, the conditions that Shakespeare’s actors would have encountered. Since theater was a primary form of entertainment in the late 1500s, plays had to be produced quickly, and theaters usually performed plays in repertoire (with several shows alternating during a limited time frame). So, Maryland Shakespeare decided to try to emulate that by having four plays in rep, and by staging the plays for the first time after only three days of rehearsal. They use no sets, and they perform in the same space in which the audience sits, and with the lights up so that they can interact with the audience. It sounded intimate and pretty unique, so the more I though about it, the more I wanted to see it. Since Saturday was “my day,” I asked Mer if she had plans for Sunday. When she said she did not have specific plans, I got busy getting tickets and finding a B and B in which to stay. Having done all of that, I told Mer she needed to be ready to go with an overnight bag by 9:00 a.m. on Saturday. She was intrigued.

We had a cool but pretty day for travel. I programmed the GPS to get us to the B and B, which was near Frederick, MD, about a five-hour drive away. Mer heard the GPS announce that there were “toll charges.” Since our local toll road is Route 80, an east-west road about fifteen miles north of our house, she boldly declared that she now knew we were not going south. That made me smile.

Mer was guessing our destination based on road signs as we headed east, passed the Pittsburgh area, and stopped to eat lunch at a diner around 12:30. She was mystified that we had already been traveling for over three hours and were not yet at our destination. She did not think I would go more than two or three hours afield on a normal weekend. We had a great lunch, including splitting a huge piece of “gob cake,” which was like a large slice of whoopie pie. We got back in the car and continued on.

I was quite gratified, and gave Mer some gentle grief, as we hit the Pennsylvania-Maryland state line. I think Mer’s reaction was, “No way! Maryland? Really?” It was fun. We continued on without incident to the B and B, which was a gorgeous place called Stone Manor. We got there at about 3:00, got checked in and unpacked, and got freshened up for the evening. I wanted to get into the town of Frederick at around 5:00 so that we had time to eat a leisurely dinner before the 8:00 show (about which Mer knew nothing). Mer still had no idea of why we were so far from home, even if it was pretty.

We went into Frederick, about fifteen minutes away, and I actually found a parking spot right next to the church where the play was taking place. Happily, there was so much to see that Mer missed the small signs advertising the plays. We walked a block to the main north-south shopping/restaurant district, and proceeded to The Brewery for supper. We got there just as they were opening up the upstairs dining area, so we had that to ourselves for about ten minutes. They were playing upbeat swing music over the speakers in the restaurant, so Mer and I took advantage to dance to one song until more people came along to the upstairs. I choose The Brewery based on its menu, which had a lot of comfort food on it, but it was a pretty restaurant as well, with a high ceiling, wood floor, big windows that overlooked the main street, and old letters from the 1800s as framed decor. I was impressed.

We left the restaurant at about 6:00, and I was glad we had gotten there at about 5:00 – there was quite a wait at 6:00. We still had about ninety minutes to wander, so we wandered the shopping district; I thought (mistakenly, as it turned out) I needed a toothbrush and toothpaste, so it gave us a reason to look at the shops. Along the way, we found a shallow canal that runs through Frederick, and that has been turned into the centerpiece of a stunningly pretty park and walking area. Near the downtown, the canal area is all bricked in and has four pedestrian-only bridges of different and interesting designs. It was well lit and romantic, with discreet lighting. We were both charmed and walked the length of the bricked-in area. We practically had it to ourselves since it was in the upper 30s and few people were out strolling. After I found and bought my supplies, we continued to wander the town. We found a chocolate specialty shop that was run by an ex-professor of foreign languages. He liked making chocolates better. I bought some chocolates for us for the next day, and we wandered some residential streets, impressed by the cute houses and apartments we could see. We walked to a nearby park and walked around the carillon in the park, and then went back to the car to stash our wares.

We got to the church at about 7:25, and the doors to the performance opened at 7:30. The ticket sellers were affable and chatty, and I liked them immediately. When the doors did open, Mer and I got front-row seats. On the way into the church, I had explained what was going on, and Mer was curious and excited to see the play. Saturday’s performance was the Maryland Shakespeare Festival’s premiere of All’s Well That End’s Well.

All’s Well is a comedy, but has some darker moments. The heroine of the play is a great character whom the audience loves. She loves a young man above her social circle. She cures the king of France of a disease, and as a reward he marries the woman to the young man she loves. He scorns her and runs off to wars in Italy, where he quickly lusts after another woman. Through cleaver tricks arranged by the young heroine, everything turns out well in the end.

The experience was pretty great. The play may not have been perfectly polished from a text point of view – there were occasional times when actors would start to talk over each other, and there were a few repeated lines, but as a piece of theater it was magnificent. The play was fresh to the actors, and they engaged the audience well, including occasionally interacting with us. Add to that the fact that I have never read, and only once seen, All’s Well That Ends Well, and it was engaging theater.

It was uniformly well acted. The lead heroine was very well cast, as she captured my sympathies right away. The king of France had a wonderfully deep voice, and the comic figures of the play were not afraid to play up the physical humor the play allows. Mer and I both enjoyed the evening immensely.

Which was good, considering it took us five hours to get there.