James, Laurel, and the Class of 2022 - Wrestling with the Angel - Winedale-l

19 Aug 2022

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)