Saturday was a beautiful day here, Shoebloggers. So what did I do with it? I spent it all—from 8:00 to midnight, with one half-hour break in the middle—in Central Park picnicking and frolicking, but mostly waiting in line for and then attending the Public Theater’s “Shakespeare in the Park” production of Hamlet.

The day was fun, the play was fine, but in addition to some melodramatic overacting and questionable directing choices (why, oh why is Ophelia singing her crazy lines… so… very… slowly?), there was one horrid crime of production that I could not overlook. A pair of shoes.

Yes, readers, I was distracted from Shakespeare by a pair of shoes.

Hideous pink wedges, to be exact, worn by Lauren Ambrose-as-Ophelia along with this little sundress, which you can’t see too well in this photo. Trust me, the dress is the exact same color as that shawl and the exact same color as Lauren’s pretty pale skin. It is not a good fashion look.

But fine… they wanted to dress Ophelia in shades of pink all the way through the play, even though she’s being played by a redhead, who’d probably look better in other colors anyway. Whatever. Questionable costuming choices I can handle. But not bad shoes.

I’m sorry to not have a picture of these nasty baby pink numbers to show you readers, but I present two shoes that, if hybridized, would create something quite close to the Ophelia monstrosities.

The first is the Paris Hilton (yes… *shudder*… that Paris Hilton) Hamptons wedge. The second is the Corso Como Pet. Please don’t be fooled by the fact that the Pet platforms are actually cute (because they are). They are here to provide the strappy quality of the Ophelia shoes. But the color and the overly-girly styling and the wedge are all in line with that terrible Hamptons.

Lest you think, gentle readers, that I was alone in this, I will point to the fact that I was there with two friends, both of whom agreed. One is a regular Shoeblog reader herself. The other is her boyfriend who reads Shoeblog only when I point him to the posts about superhero movie shoes or Converse All Stars. And even this non-shoe-fanatic man was distracted by the Pink Meanies.

So, I ask you, what in god’s name was the reason for taking a woman who started out in a snappy trench-coat with gloves, a pretty head scarf, and boots like these classic, elegant Delman Dharma’s

to something that looked like the sickeningly sweet dream shoe of a vat of cotton candy?

All I know is that “to sleep, perchance to dream” will only be the rub if the dreams aren’t populated by such egregious footwear choices as the one picked by the costumer for this production.