No kydding, Tom...

Jayzus. Old Tom liked his tragedies on the exterminatory side of murderous. The body count in the Spanish Tragedy, dude! Close to the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan I’d say. Except that instead of getting it right at the start, you have to wait for it for two and a half hours...  
So, today I saw another one of my kids getting his throat slit on stage. It is strange how you get used to all sorts of things, I barely bat an eyelid this time.
The production was good. An awful lot of work went into it, that’s for sure. The costumes were good, the set worked really well. The kids really worked their young arses off. But I am not sure it was the most judicious choice of genre for a Youth Theatre troupe. I found the play unwieldy. The language lacked in beauty or subtlety (not surprising that Kyd, the predecessor, has been overshadowed by Shakespeare).  It was looong in places.
Still, the kids really were lapping up the applause and cheers at the end. I was applauding and cheering too. They’ve worked so bloody hard at it, they did deserve a big round of applause. And it was great to see them all standing there (miraculously undead, seconds after the killer zombie on steroids ending) and feeling proud for what they had achieved.

The tickets said “dress to impress” and for sure the audience did. Well, the part of the audience I’m related to did.