ballet in the rain

Tonight, Eva performed a ballet for me out in the rain called The Glistening Swan. It was a ballet in 7 acts (maybe 8) and in it, Eva danced and jumped and had many arm flourishes and hummed and sang mmm hmmm mmm hmmm mmm hmmm and after each act she came in and asked if I knew what the moral to that act was and when I said I did not, she explained it all in detail. It was particularly fun to dance in the rain tonight because Eva has discovered that she can slide and glide over the wooden boards on part of the deck.

In The Glistening Swan, there are three characters, two men and one woman. The two men are in love with the same woman. One of the men asks her to marry him and she says yes and they dance and dance. When this man goes to sleep, the second man, who is miserable and jealous, turns the first man into a donkey. When he wakes up, the donkey-man jumps around and runs around and generally holds his head and brays like a donkey mournfully at his fate. The woman sees him and gives him a-"Hey, what happened to you, are you the man I said I would marry?"-look and then chases after him and pulls his ears and he is turned back into a human again. Easy peasy.

Of course, the evil-magician-man turns donkey man back into a donkey after he sees that he is a human again. And when the woman sees donkey-man is a donkey again, she gives him a-"Hey Buddy, what is up with you?"-look, over and over, holding her head and leaping in the air. And donkey-man grabs his head in dismay as he realizes once again he is a donkey and not a human. Over the course of the next several acts, the woman chases the donkey and he chases her and there is much leaping and sliding and finally the woman succeeds in putting the antidote in his ear, but instead of turning him into a human (going through his whole body, Eva explained to me) it only turns his ear into a human ear. And the chasing continues through the second ear and finally to his head.

I was worried donkey-man would remain part donkey forever because at this point, Samuel joined in as the donkey and began running around but he soon left the production because the direction was not adequate. Then Jack joined in and ran around. Luckily for donkey-man, however, Eva continued to the end and the woman kissed the man's ear and hugged him and gave him the final antidote and he was, once again, a human. And they danced off happily together. Ta da!