Culture

We did some fun cultural things this weekend.  Today, right after Ava's baptism and lunch, we went to see The Fisherman and His Wife, a play at BYU.  Each year, BYU's Theater For Young Audiences puts on two shows, a contemporary play and a Shakespeare play.  We love going to these plays.  They involve the young audience so well; Blythe played a doctor in last year's Shakespeare play.  The play today was about a fisherman who throws a fish back into the ocean, and because of his act of kindness, is granted three wishes.  His wife makes him wish for more and more and more, to the point that they are both miserable.  His final wish is that his wife be happy, and they wind up back in their small house, just the two of them, without wealth or grandeur.  It was marvelously well done and the kids loved it.  I always enjoy taking the kids to fun productions.  They are very good audience members.

This is the fish, the wife, and the fisherman.

I like this picture because you can see the great fish costume.

It moved very fluidly on the actor's head.

This is Blythe with the sea horse who helped the fish.

Her costume was great too, but you can't really see that from the picture.

With my mom, Kent and I went last night to a movie at the BYU library.  It was another selection from the BYU motion picture film archives, a collection of short movies of O'Henry stories.  There were five stories.  "The Cop and the Anthem" is about a hobo who fails after multiple attempts to get put in jail.  "The Clarion Call" is an eerie story of a detective who realizes a former friend is a murderer, and what he must do to arrest him.  "The Last Leaf" is the story of a woman who contracts pneumonia after the end of an affair and wishes to die.  With the help of an eccentric artist neighbor, her life is saved.  "The Ransom of Red Chief" was my favorite.  Two men kidnap a boy with the intent of getting money for his return, and wind up paying his parents to take him back.  It was wonderfully funny.  And the last story was "The Gift of the Magi," a well-known Christmas story of a poor couple who sell their most prized possessions in order to buy their spouse a gift.  It was fun to see these movies, each with really exceptional actors.  We are enjoying the film series quite a bit.