The Shrew

A few weeks ago, I went with my friend, Margaret, to see the Taming of the Shrew ballet that was put on by Ballet Austin at the Long Center.  It was awesome!

Before the ballet, we decided to have dinner downtown at Bess Bistro on Pecan.  For those of you who don't know, Sandra Bullock is one of the owners of Bess Bistro in addition to Walton's Fancy and Staple that is across the street from Bess on the portion of 6th Street west of Congress.  Pecan Street is another name for 6th street because, like many of the streets in Austin, any street that is any street in Austin, has more than one name.  Just check out this list put together by one of the title companies I do business with below.

  

There were no Sandra Bullock sightings, however I have seen her there before.  Margaret and I enjoyed a really lovely, relaxing dinner finally finding some time to catch up on each others happenings.  We both had a fish dish and I ate everything on my plate because a) I was hungry and b) I couldn't take any of it home because we were heading to the ballet and there was no way I was leaving any of the yumminess on the plate!  For dessert, we had their dessert du jour that had a Nutella-like flavor and was so light and the perfect thing to have after dinner with some decaf coffee.

Both of us were a little apprehensive about the idea of Taming of the Shrew, that is seemingly Shakespeare-dialogue dependent, turned into a ballet and we were both in for a surprise.  The troupe was amazing!  They did such a wonderful job translating their emotions into movement that you could tell who was playing which character from the start and their was no confusion which ballerina was the shrew.  There were two lines spoken near the beginning of the ballet that honestly weren't needed, but it was fun to hear some spoken word at a ballet.

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the sets too, that through minor changes represented very well the various scenes in the ballet.  Many of the extras spent time easily moving props on and off the stage and a few pieces of the furniture were made of a translucent material that I really liked.  For some reason, the translucent furniture had a big impact on me because I think it served a really good purpose and yet it did not distract from the ballet.

 

Ballet Austin - Taming of the Shrew

I am winding down the year and will be doing on last list update this week.  I need to motivate in these last 12 weeks of the year to finish up the last of the Top 45!