I heartily join you…!!! Beautifully said, Casey. Thank you so much for this.
Cheers and cheers,
c
From: Casey Caldwell <w.casey.caldwell(a)gmail.com>
Date: Friday, August 19, 2022 at 1:35 PM
To: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums <winedale-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Winedale-l] James, Laurel, and the Class of 2022 - Wrestling with the Angel
Hi, all,
I'm sorry I've been so absent from our conversations of late. The pandemic was
incredibly challenging for our family and then we've had a bunch of (great) life
events, but now I'm here!
I'm writing because I've just returned from the amazing final weekend at Winedale
completely inspired again by the play and work that the class shared with us. I was out
all day Saturday and Sunday, for Two Noble Kinsmen, Winter's Tale, Much Ado, and then
a second helping of Kinsmen. I've been away for a bit and returning for this weekend
was such a joy. The student's engaged creatively and earnestly with the cruxes
presented by Winter's Tale, the wit and clownery in Much Ado, and the erotic
ambiguities and wild riffing on Chaucer in Kinsmen. I was jealous of their ability to
energize a matinee audience soaking in that Texas heat, and deeply appreciative of the
engaging conversations we shared after their performances. The whole team out at Winedale
this summer is truly composed of heroes' heroes.
As many of you know by now, James is facing his own personal battle at Agincourt. Yet
it's not merely his own. James is facing this battle with Laurel and the few, the
happy few of the Winedale class of 2022. This summer was about Winedale and the experience
that the students' were meant to have, and James's challenge was in one sense the
same as always: to push and guide them in that process of self-discovery in and through
Shakespeare (and Fletcher).
I know that James is fond of challenge roles at Winedale—in my first summer, I rated my
musical ability a 0.5 out of 10 in our pre-summer survey of skills and he made me
Balthasar in Much Ado (!)—and this summer he himself accepted the absolute challenge role.
To continue mixing my metaphors (I blame/thank Shakespeare for the tendency), James
elected to wrestle with the angel this summer and, in true Winedale fashion, he's done
it as part of an ensemble. Beyond the various physical, mental, and spiritual limits that
we push past at Winedale, there is an absolute limit—the limit of limits that marks off
life's circumference from whatever is beyond—and I cannot think of a more
quintessential expression of how James embodies everything this program means than for him
to live at that limit and direct Winedale with passion and ability alongside the students,
Laurel, and the rest of the team out there. James wrestles with the angel at Winedale and
I can bare witness the immensity and beauty of the contest. To engage in the contest is to
already have won. Even in this, James continues to teach me.
Please join me in congratulating James on the amazing play that the Winedale class of 2022
undertook! All my love and admiration, James!
Cheers,
Casey Caldwell (Spring 2003; Summer, 2003, 2004; Summer 2009, 2010;
Reunion 2015)