Entertainment and exercise week

Our son visited us from Berkeley from Friday July 30 to Sunday August 8, so we crammed in an entire summer’s worth of entertainment in just over a week.  We also got a lot of exercise (though not a full summer’s worth).  The steps log from Project Baseline is rather useless for estimating how much we walked, because it does not let me see more than 7 days—then it chunks arbitrarily into weeks.  I can see that we had two big days lately (about 22,000 steps on Tuesday Aug 3 and Saturday Aug 8) and a couple of medium days (about 9,000 steps on Thursday Aug 5 and 11,000 Sunday Aug 8), but I can’t tell how many steps there were on July 31 and Aug 1 (though I’d guess around 10,000 each, based on what I remember of mileage).  I think that the Secret Walks that my wife and I have been doing have increased my walking substantially, as July had about 215,000 steps and no previous month (since last September, as far back as the crippled Project Baseline steps log will show me) had more than 125,000.

Santa Cruz Shakespeare: RII Saturday July 31 8 p.m.–10 p.m.

On Saturday, we walked the 3.7 miles to the Audrey Stanley Grove carrying our picnic dinner in backpacks in order to see RII, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard II performed by 3 actors.  M.L. Roberts performed as King Richard II, and Mike Ryan and Paige Lindsey White performed all the other roles.  I don’t remember ever seeing a performance of Richard II, and the only speech from it I recognized was the tell-sad-stories-of-the-death-of-kings monolog, which my son memorized once for a Shakespeare conservatory.  This reduced-cast version was surprisingly understandable, with the costuming by B. Modern really helping the audience keep track of who the actors were playing (good acting was also essential, to make the body language of the different characters distinct). The set was rather minimal and consisted mainly of banners hiding what was clearly a set for the other play and a few grates to remind the viewers that Richard is in prison and having flashbacks (part of the adaptation of the play).

We all felt that the play was highly successful, and the audience gave the performers a standing ovation.  Some of the appreciation might have just been for having live theater again, but we joined the ovation (something we don’t always do—only when we feel that the performance really has been outstanding).

I had forgotten to pack my hearing aids (which I only noticed about a mile from our house—too far to go back and fetch them), but the new sound system that they installed this year seems to work well, and I had no trouble hearing and understanding any of the actors.

Casts were kept small this season to avoid the possibility of a Covid-19 outbreak among the cast and to keep within budget—there was no season last year to provide the forward funding for this year, and ticket sales were limited because social distancing kept the capacity to about 1/3 of normal.  They are, for the first time, streaming the shows so that people can watch at home (for $25/stream).  I don’t know whether they will continue that option in future years, but it is good for this year, when seating capacity is reduced and many potential audience members are still nervous about even socially distanced groups of people.

After the play, we did our usual routine of catching Lyft home, since we don’t like walking either the Audrey Stanley Grove Trail or Upper Park Road in the dark.  We had to wait a little, as there were few drivers available, but it worked about as well as in previous years.

Cabrillo College Pirates of Penzance Sunday Aug 1 2 p.m.–4 p.m.

On Sunday afternoon, we took a bus out to Cabrillo College to see Pirates of Penzance, performed outdoors in the little amphitheater, which I don’t think Cabrillo has used for a production for over a decade before this year. Cabrillo also had socially distanced seating (which in the small amphitheater meant a very small audience), but they had a full cast and a moderate size pit orchestra.  I don’t know what precautions they took to avoid an outbreak during rehearsals, but the performances were all in only one weekend, so they did not have to worry about maintaining a Covid-free cast for very long.

I quite enjoyed the performance (though I’ve seen Pirates many times, including by D’Oyley Carte Opera Compnay when I was child).  This performance had a lot of energy and ok costuming, even if the set was really minimal and the stage a bit too small for the size of the cast.  The sound engineer was not sufficiently rehearsed during tech week, as he drowned out part of the Major General’s song by misbalancing the orchestra and the singer in the first act, and left off Mabel’s mic at the beginning of one song in the second act.  There were also a couple of songs added to the second act (one from Ruddigore and one from H.M.S Pinafore)—I’m not sure exactly why they were added, as the performance did not really need to be lengthened.

My wife, who is an opera fan, said that the singers were quite good for a local production, and that Mabel hit all the high notes.

After the performance, we had to wait quite a while for the bus back to Santa Cruz: the 71 buses are an hour apart on Sunday afternoons.

Arboretum walk Tuesday Aug 3

On Tuesday, we did a long walk in our Secret Walks series, which I covered in a separate post.  After the walk, no one felt much like cooking or going out to dinner, so I just got takeout from Sabieng Thai, which is just a 2-block walk from our house.

The Green Knight Thursday Aug 5 1:15 p.m.–3:30 p.m.

On Thursday, we did something none of us has done since before the pandemic—we went to a movie theater!  We deliberately picked the first matinee of a movie that we were interested in, but which was unlikely to have a large audience.  Indeed, there were only three other people in the audience.

I had a little trouble with the sound in the movie—it was certainly loud enough that I did not need my hearing aids, but a lot of the actors were whispering their lines and the background music was badly balanced, so that big chunks of the dialog were unintelligible in places.  The film was mostly an ok telling of Gawain and the Green Knight, though the addition of a CGI fox to the story seemed completely pointless, and pushing Gawain’s mother into the story was not really necessary (though it certainly worked better than the stupid fox). They also mangled the end of the story, to try to make it more ambiguous and relatable to modern audiences—I don’t think that worked very well either.

Overall, I’m glad that we saw the film, but I have no desire to see it again and I would not recommend it to anyone who was not already familiar with the story. It would be better to read a decent retelling than to get the story from the movie.

Bicycle ride in Wilder Ranch (Cowboy Loop Trail) Friday Aug 6 6–8 p.m.

On Friday, my son borrowed an ancient mountain bike from the garage (no suspension), and he and I took a ride out to Wilder Ranch, to do the short Cowboy Loop Trail.  We planned to do the loop clockwise, but we could not find the second entrance to the loop and went a ways up Engelman’s Loop before we decided that we must have missed it. Engelman’s Loop had very loose sand and gravel, which did not work well with the slick road tires that I have on my recumbent—I had to walk some of the steep parts, because my rear tire kept losing traction.  We came back down and did the Cowboy Loop Trail in the clockwise direction.

It seems that the Cowboy Loop is more popular with equestrians than bicyclists—we saw no wheel tracks but our own.  The trail is a narrow single track, with tall grass growing up on either side—on my recumbent my hands occasionally brushed the thistles and blackberries encroaching on the trail.  Luckily the large stands of poison oak did not encroach so much.  My son walked some of the twisty downhill parts and found the tall grass on either side of the trail a bit claustrophobic.

There were some nice vistas from parts of the trail, and the creek actually had water in it where we crossed near the end of the trail (in the counter-clockwise direction).

When we finished the loop, we found why we had not been able to find the upper turnoff to the trail—both the park map posted at the entrance and Google maps have the trail mapped incorrectly.  The creek crossing has been moved, and the trail now ends where it begins, not further up Engelman’s Loop as the maps have it.  I’ve given feedback to Google maps.

Santa Cruz Shakespeare The Agitators Saturday Aug 7 8–10 p.m.

On Saturday, we again made the 3.7-mile trek to the Audrey Stanley Glen, but we tried a slightly different route, going through the Church of Christ parking lot to Pacheco, rather than going up Elk.  Next year, we might try going all the way to Park Way, rather than using Old Vineyard Trail, though we’d miss seeing the remnants of the old zoo on Old Vineyard Trail with the entrance off Pacheco.

The Agitators is a two-hander, with Patty Gallagher playing Susan B. Anthony and Allen Gilmore playing Frederick Douglas.  These are two of my favorite actors from Santa Cruz Shakespeare, and they provided excellent performances.  One problem with the play is that it spans almost 50 years, from when they first met until after Frederick Douglas’s death.  That puts a heavy burden on the actors to convincingly play all the different ages (and on the wigs and costumes).  Patty did an excellent job of all but the youngest, and Allen of all but the oldest.

The play is very timely, despite being set entirely in the 19th century, as many of the issues of racial and gender equality have still not been resolved, 125 years later.  The play is thoughtful and inspiring, rather than being heavy-handed propaganda, and the dialogue humanizes the characters while still portraying them as heroes of their times. Some sections seem to have been taken from their speeches or writings, but a lot seems to have come entirely from the playwright’s imagination.

The audience was once again impressed with the performance, and we again joined in the standing ovation.

After the show, we tried to get a Lyft, but no vehicles were available—same for Uber.  We also tried two taxi companies—one offered a ride with at least a 45-minute wait and the other didn’t even answer their phone. We decided not to wait, but walked home taking Upper Park Road out, because Audrey Stanley Glen Trail is too risky in the dark.  The distance is only slightly longer (3.8 miles instead of 3.7 miles), but the road is quite narrow in places, so it is not a walk we would take when there was a chance of two-way traffic.  We got home a little later than we planned (around midnight), with a little more exercise than we’d planned.

Santa Cruz Antique Faire Sunday Aug 8

On Sunday morning, we walked our son down to the bus station to catch the Highway 17 Express bus to the Capitol Corridor train to Berkeley (he has enough Amtrak reward points to redeem that Amtrak is cheaper than BART, and the walk home for him from the Amtrak station is about the same as from BART).

After his bus left, my wife and I went to the Antique Faire downtown—the first in over a year (last one was March 2020).  My wife noticed that a couple of vendors were missing, but the fair was almost the usual number of vendors.  My wife did not buy anything, but I got a couple more Hawaiian shirts (I’m retired now—I have to dress the part!).

After browsing the fair, we had lunch outdoors at Cafe Campesino—our first time eating there.  My wife liked her gordita (cactus and green sauce), but I had mixed feelings about the mole plate.  The sauce worked well with the corn tortillas, but not so well with just the chicken—I was not able to include the tortillas in every bite.  Next time I eat there, I think I’ll try the tinga plate instead.