amusedWe were lucky to even receive an invitation. It came via
ceolnamara, who isn't involved in the RenFest at all. Apparently, this thing is supposed to be open to the public, but when you only get to hear about it second hand by someone who isn't at all involved, you can tell they aren't getting the word out.Actually, I admit I wasn't even expecting them to have tickets for us. I'd sent in my cash, but after calling to make a reservation, I didn't hear anything back for a couple of days, and then I got an email with where to send the check a few days beforehand. So I had my check book with duplicate check in hand as proof of payment, just in case. Thankfully, I didn't need it.
Though scheduled to start at 7, Rennies never run on time. The show perhaps started around 7:25. They could have used a bit more rehersal (and some work on projecting their voices in most cases), but in the end, it was about what I expected and it came off pretty well.
For $48, Tina and I received dinner and a show. They did (thankfully) provide a vegan option to Tina, and actually fended for her pretty darn well, bringing her two plates, one with veggies (which had obviously been cooked in butter, so I sacrificed my hunger and wolfed those down in addition to my own dinner) and the other with a lovely pasta salad. My own dinner was probably the smallest helping of chicken I'd ever seen (certainly more the size of a chick than a chicken), but the addition of Tina's butter-soaked meal helped a lot.
The show itself was rather tedious. . . not because of the acting or the bad accents or anything else that the players did. . . but rather what they didn't do: there was a lot of downtime between acts, music, dancing, etc. By the time the whole thing was over, I was litterally nodding off, and thought it must be almost midnight.
I made what I thought was the conservative guess that we'd only been there for about 5 hours. It turned out that we were there for about three, because it was 10 PM when we got to our car. So instead of actually taking forever, it just felt like it.
All-in-all, though, it was a good show. The food was delicious, the actors were managing to get into character pretty well, and I got to sit next to Tina for a whole night and smile and chat and talk with her, pretty well to the exclusion of everyone else. The servers kept me pretty well stocked with water (though I went easy on them and didn't drink as much as I usually do when I'm out), and
singingwren was absolutely beautiful in her garb (it's always nice to have a hot server).And if they advertise it next year, we'll go again :)
