Renaissance Faire gets real, but not that real

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT BEACH -- It was like Renaissance times without the beheadings.

Knights and ladies, kings and queens, friars, popes, peasants and

jesters roamed the courtyard at Ensign Intermediate School Friday eating

spareribs nearly the size of their wrists and jousting with pillows.

It was the annual seventh-grade Renaissance Faire, which is a colorful

and educational culmination of student’s study of that time period.

“It makes it a lot more fun and the foods good,” said Adam Dobkin, 12,

a purple and green clad jester who jingled as he talked.

The air was heavy with the rich smells of food as students milled

about in full costume seemingly oblivious to the racket of crashing

plates and shoots from the jousting.

Amid the many era activities such as hair braiding with ribbons and a

dice game known as farkle, one of the favorites was jousting with pillows

while kneeling on bales of hay.

But the absolute longest line at all times was for the Plates O Wrath

-- an entirely made up game with the purpose of making up to children for

the lack of actual violence in jousting, said Joe Fuschetti, a physical

education teacher and event organizer.

The game allowed students to write names, such as their strictest

teachers’, on a plate and throw it against a wall.

The racket from this unstopping popular event actually added a sort of

authentic noisy village feel to the entertainment taking place on a

stage, where students performed Shakespearean plays, read sonnets, danced

and sung.

Parent’s decorations and student’s costumes, many of which they sewed

themselves for the faire, showed a medieval flair in keeping with the

events the teachers spent months planning.

But students were also eager to share their newly learned knowledge of

the times.

“It was the 1400s and the end of the 1300s -- the middle ages,” Alex

Flores, a 13-year-old friar, said of what he learned. “It was a very

religious time.”

His classmate, Shannon Forsythe, 12, had slightly different views of

the time period noting there were many artists.

Others noted that common entertainment of the times should have been

R-rated, for intense violence.

“There was a lot of people, if you did something wrong, they either

called you a heretic or chopped off your head,” said Megan Louvier, 12.

“King Henry was just mean,” agreed Taylor Deschenes, 12.