Photo by Bullneck

I am tickled by an email I just received from the Shakespeare Theatre Company advertising a special deal for tonight’s screening showing of Richard II. The Company was forced to cancel all its performances for yesterday and skipped today’s matinee as well, and reasonably so. For tonight’s 7:30 show, the Company is offering a special snow-day offer of $10 for any seat in the house. As if it is the snow and not, you know, the Super Bowl that might keep people away tonight.

Now, I am all too willing to believe that true drama nerds might not know the Saints from the Colts. But surely someone at the Shakespeare Theatre Company knows that tonight’s the Super Bowl, and it strikes me as wishful thinking for the organization to imply that the house would be packed tonight, if it weren’t for this dreaded snow. The Bard himself had something to say about wishful thinking. From Richard II, Act I, scene ii:

O! who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

In any case, ten bucks is a super-cheap deal for the first play of the Henriad. I feel sorry for anyone who paid full price before today. (Mostly because that person is missing the Super Bowl.)