When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
     But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
     All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.

Analysis

Sonnet 30 is a maudlin reflection on sad memories reconciled by the realization of the gift he has in his friend.

When Will quietly and remembers the past, he feels down about all the things missed out on, and time wasted. He cries for friends who are dead, for hurts in loves that are long over, and other losses. Then he mourns the things he’s done mourning, feeling the pain anew. But when he thinks on his dear friend, while doing all of this, all is restored.
 

Will’s Wordplay

The sonnet begins by using courtroom metaphors: “session”, “summon up” (as a witness), and “cancell’d” (as a debt).

“love’s long since cancell’d woe” is the sorrow once felt over the loss of close friends; loss that has dulled over the years but now returns as Billy thinks of the past.

“The Sphere”, Battery Park, Manhattan

A marvel, and proof of the resilience of art, The Sphere is a large metallic sculpture by German sculptor Fritz Koenig, displayed in Battery Park. It once stood in the middle of Austin J. Tobin Plaza, the area between the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan. After being recovered from the rubble of the Twin Towers after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the artwork faced an uncertain fate, and it was dismantled into its components. Although it remained structurally intact, it had been visibly damaged by debris from the airliners that were crashed into the buildings and from the collapsing skyscrapers themselves.

Six months after the attacks, following a documentary film about the sculpture, it was relocated to Battery Park on a temporary basis—without any repairs—and formally rededicated with an eternal flame as a memorial to the victims of 9/11. It has become a major tourist attraction, due partly to the fact that it survived the attacks with only dents and holes.

The Sphere is 25 feet high and cast in 52 bronze segments. Koenig considered it his “biggest child”. It was put together in Bremen, Germany and shipped as a whole to Lower Manhattan. The artwork was meant to symbolize world peace through world trade, and was set to rotate once every 24 hours. Its base was a popular lunch spot for workers in the trade center on days with good weather.

ACTOR – Alan Cox

Alan most recently appeared in Hannah Eidinow’s production of Playing with Grown Ups at the Brits Off- Broadway festival at 59E59, where he previously performed the critically acclaimed Cornelius by J. B. Priestley. His work in this neglected classic, which started at London’s Finborough Theatre, was described as “monumental” by The Guardian and “Wonderful!” and “Virtuosic” by The New York Times. His other theatre work includes seasons at the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Chichester Festival Theatre. He made his West End debut in Strange Interlude, and recent appearances include The Creeper and The Importance of Being Earnest. Off- West-End he appeared in the London premieres of Longing, The Earthly Paradise, The Flu Season, The Rubenstein Kiss and Passion Play. His film credits include The Dictator, Contagion, August, The Auteur Theory, Mrs. Dalloway, An Awfully Big Adventure and Young Sherlock Holmes. A long list of television credits include starring opposite Laurence Olivier in John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father in 1982 and as Alan Bennett in the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore dramatisation Not Only But Always.

DIRECTOR – Brendan Averett

Brendan Averett started acting as a senior in high school after his father suggested he take a drama class as an elective – perhaps to get Brendan to do something constructive with his silliness. This small breakfast table suggestion changed his life forever. After graduating from high school, two years of studying biology at San Jose State University and doing theatre on the side, he abandoned his childhood dream of becoming a genetic engineer and moved to Los Angeles to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena.

After graduating in 1993 and stage managing a couple of shows, Brendan continued his study by attending the British-American Drama Academy’s “Midsummer in Oxford” conservatory program. Upon returning, he landed his first acting job playing Pistol in Henry V. Since then, he has performed in 39 plays – almost half of which have been productions of Shakespeare.

He is the 2003 Fellow for the Chicago Associates of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada, attended the festival’s conservatory program and went on to perform for two seasons there. He has performed at many theaters across the nation including Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum in Los Angeles, The Goodman, as well as The Court Theatre in Chicago, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Saint Louis Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Yale Repertory and The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park. He performed in Julie Taymor’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as Ionesco’s The Killer, directed by Darko Tresnjak, for the inaugural season at Theatre for a New Audience’s new space – the Polonsky Shakespeare Center

Brendan also directed Sonnet 141 and starred in Sonnet 148. He is an Associate Producer on the Sonnet Project.