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Working in a booth, I don't have much time to see entertainment. Most of what I see is what happens on the street. Luckily, the entertainer's green room is right behind the Globe Stage, which is right next to my shop, so I get to see a fair amount.

The TRF theme this year is The Quest. To my understanding, every year there is a different theme, with a different plotline that is worked out over the course of the day.

I have only seen the conclusion to The Quest, so most of this is inference... but it seems to be the story of Don Quixote. The final act involves Don Quixote trying to rescue Dulcinea from an evil enchanter. The enchanter also manages to entrap the beloved of the court physician (I didn't manage to catch either name). And during the final duel sequence, some third guy came out of nowhere with his lady (and promtly got slaughtered, poor guy). I assume I need to see the first two acts to understand completely, but it's kind of cheesy and kind of cute, and I imagine that if I were more involved in it I'd be quite caught up in it.

As far as street entertainment goes, most of it is hit-and-run of course, though Scratch the Beggar does do his thing here. I really enjoy seeing the Well Washing Wenches do bits as they proceed down the lane, and there is a pirate who takes great delight in bursting into screams at the sight of various frightening patrons. The Fairy Godfather is bright and colorful and pink, and there is a lady with an odd wine-cork hat who leaves kisses on bald patrons' heads. I don't have much experiance with any of the Court(s) (of which several nationalities are represented), except for a few court ladies who come into our shop occasionally.

On the first weekend, the music shop across the way complained that E-Muzeki was drawing away their customers, so unfortunately, we don't get any street musicians in front of our shop any more. *pouts* And they were really good too.

The stage act I've seen the most is the final one, the Highland Ceilidh with Tartanic (a musical group). I'm not too keen on the script (or maybe just Tartanic themselves?). It's rather overblown and the sexual overtones are too blatant and spelled-out. I don't plan on making a trek across site to see Tartanic by themselves. The dancing is pretty neat (although seeing Heralds in Love done Scottish-style was odd), but there was a lot of ass-and/or-underwear flashing which I wasn't keen on, personally.

Since I so loved the commedia by I Arroganti in Minnesota, when I realized the Commedia at TRF is close, I took a break to go see it. I missed the first 5 minutes, and had to leave before the conclusion, but it left a similiar taste in my mouth as the Ceilidh. Most of the sex stuff was really overt. Worse, in my opinion, was that it was very self-referential. After a few repetitions of "It's as though I'm a character in some farsical Italian commedia" they actually pulled out the script to see what happened next and vowed to never let one of the characters write another one. I did get many laughs out of it though, and greatly enjoyed seeing phrases and situations that [livejournal.com profile] iarroganti brought up from Texas.

I managed to see the first half of Gypsy Dance Theater, and I thought it was awesome. There are 4 female dancers and 3 male percussionists. One of the drummers also sang/chanted a bit, and danced. The dancers all have different styles of dressing and dancing, which makes it very fun to watch.

I went about halfway across site to go see Istanpitta, who I also thought was great. *grins* I may be a bit biased though, because they played Quen Quer Que. *pouts* I couldn't dance though, because you really need at least a few people to dance it.... le sigh. Hopefully next time....

However, thinking of dancing, it looks like there might be a little bit I may be able to do at the Maypole dancing.... I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
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