The further adventures of Nora and Dora
Nora liked to put on a negative, cynical attitude to please her only friend Dora. But secretly, she wondered why she pretended to hate Shakespeare so much as she had never, as she was only 7, seen or heard a Shakespeare play. So, without telling her only friend, she crept up to the cashier’s office one lunchtime with 30 RMB lunch money clutched in her hand, and instead of buying a plate of chips and slice of pizza she bought a shiny, beautifully designed ticket for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That night (it was 7pm, Wednesday, 25thNovember) Nora waited until it was dark to sneak into school without being seen by anyone, and darted into the theatre just before the doors closed to stand at the back where Flora and Fauna might not spot her and question why she was there. Then the show began. Nora had never in her life seen anything as wonderful – the lights and music (music by Chesterman, lyrics by Shakespeare – the Lennon/McCartney of fairy songs, the Rice/Webber of Elizabethan show tunes), the non-stop action across 5 stages, the speed and grace of the actors, the comedy and slapstick that left her laughing more than she had ever laughed before, the sinister fairies and the majesty of their king and queen, the remarkable skill of the actors in their ability to speak lines of Elizabethan English so clearly that Nora could understand everything they were thinking and feeling – it was an overwhelming and magical experience that changed Nora’s life forever. Nora is now an A-list movie star, lives in Hollywood, and has two Oscars and three Grammy awards to her name, and is still only 10 years old. And in celebrity interviews, she says owes it all to that night she gave up her lunch money for a ticket to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Dora didn’t go to see the play, out of spite. She grew up to become a cynical and bitter alcoholic, eventually dying a lonely death after being kicked in the head by a donkey in the tiny English village of Asses Bottom.
