A Weird One--Oscar-Related

Mark Rylance with Tom Hanks in
Bridge of Spies

I didn't watch the Oscars this year--haven't done so in quite a while, to be honest. Odd how I'm slowly losing interest in things that had long interested me--sports, the Oscars, ice cream (okay, I'm not losing interest in this--just can't have it ... sigh).

But in the paper the next day I saw the winners of the acting awards, and there was Mark Rylance, who'd won Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Spielberg's Bridge of Spies. I was happy about that win--he really was something in Bridge.

I've been reading about Rylance for quite a while--he's by all accounts the greatest Shakespearean actor of his time and earns dazzling reviews for just about anything he does--including playing Olivia (that's right Olivia) in a recent performance of Twelfth Night (alternating performances with Richard III). (Link to Times review from 2013.) (Link to some video of Rylance as Olivia.)

Rylance as Olivia in Twelfth Night

He's the former director of the reconstructed Globe Theater in London, as well.

I've never seen him perform live, but in the films I've seen he just is the person he's portraying. It's astonishing.

So ... where's this heading?

Last night I had a dream--no, two dreams--featuring Rylance. In the first, he was somehow working for Allstate, and Joyce and I were visiting his office. I needled him a bit about how actors must have a hard time making it financially, and he sort of laughed (in a dismissive way, I confess). He sold us three policies. I have no idea what they were for, but he handed us three packets. And we were happy about the whole thing.

I remember asking him, too, if he'd ever performed up in Stratford, Ontario (where Joyce and I go for the theater festival every year). He sort of playfully dismissed me again, making a mildly disdainful comment about one of the producers up there.

I woke up. Made a quick male visit to you-know-where.

Back to bed. Back to sleep. And Rylance returned--only this time I cannot recall a single thing about it. I have a notepad by my bed for this very reason--to write down dream details. Nah, I thought last night, this is awesome--I ain't gonna forget any of it!

Well, I forgot all of it.

Maybe--when I grow up--I'll learn to do better.