Home again home again jiggety jig. I wish I were jiggety. Tired again, still, always, again.

If I ever saw Man of La Mancha it was so long ago it's lost in the mists of my memory. I read Don Quixote about four years ago, in a new translation by Edith Grossman. I didn't enjoy it as much as i expected to. I was like someone coming too late to .Shakespeare's "cliches". Cervantes's highlights are so familiar that the best, immortalized parts came as no surprise. So the windmills at the back of the set of this musical production were overdone, especially when they started to move, and kept on moving. The set itself was versatile and busy, so busy I had trouble sometimes figuring out who was speaking as I looked for someone in that busy space.

The libretto is nicely structured, fitting together the bizarre, comic and touching parts of the novel, and the music, of course, is a pleasure. Several of the best-loved songs of 20th-century musical comedy resonate with me whether or not I remember the source. In short, I enjoyed the production.

I've said it before and will again, that we take in more stimuli, ideas, entertainment, information and just plain pastimes in a week than people used to enjoy (?) in a year. The trick is to sort it out, assimilate it and file it. Is it all grist for the mill? What kind of mill are you running?

Another day, another blogger. Not yesterday. I went to Stratford again despite my horrific cold and I should get good marks for repressing my cough for the sake of the audience. Lots of water and (ugh) Halls lozenges. Lear was good, though not worthy of the rave reviews I hear it has been getting. How many Lears have I seen? Lost count. Martha Henry was the best Cordelia I have seen and Jim Blendick the best Kent (a different interpretation). I didn't like the lighting of this Lear; it was too dark and therefore sometimes hard to hear or focus. And some of the directing was too pat, moving from set piece to set piece, nicely arranged, but too self-conscious. Everyone screamed a lot when Gloucester's eyes were put out.

Colm Feore was good. I think he must have taken some extra voice training to enable him to to do the wild competition with the thunder and lightning (which Stratford does bang up), and to howl. One of my favourite moments in Lear is the final scene between Lear and Cordelia. Bill Hutt was very touching in his.

I was feeling well enough to enjoy it. I'm glad I went. Tired, though. Still tired. Going back tomorrow, for Man of La Mancha and I'll be gone overnight, without my Little Mac. Will you miss me?