Reviewed by Judy Richter
The old adage that the show must
go on has become the new mantra at the 76-year-old Oregon Shakespeare
Festival in
Ashland. When a major structural beam suddenly cracked on June 18 during an
understudy rehearsal, the 42-year-old Angus Bowmer Theatre was immediately
evacuated, declared unsafe and closed for an indefinite period. OSF just
recently announced that the opening is scheduled for Aug. 2.
Festival
officials, artists and actors scrambled to make other arrangements as the 8
1/2-month season was nearing its peak attendance. Consequently, performances
were shifted to the historic Ashland Armory and a theater on the Southern
Oregon University campus in Ashland while a large white tent was erected in the
festival's neighboring Lithia Park. The tent opened for its first Bowmer in the
Park performance -- a matinee of Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County" -- on July 7.
While
curious patrons filed in and looked for their seats, all of the festival's top
brass along with several reporters observed from the sidelines. Artistic
director Bill Rauch was greeted with a loud ovation as he spoke before the show. "So
many people have made this possible," he said, noting that the decision to
use a tent had been made just 13 days earlier and that this was the play's
fourth venue.
Christopher
Acebo, associate
artistic director, designed a black-walled unit set to serve all tent shows
with the addition of various set pieces and props. After this performance and
several subsequent ones, the audience was asked to fill out a brief survey
about the experience. There's not much to be done about the raked seating,
which accommodates 598 people, just below the Bowmer's capacity. The narrow
seats are hard plastic with no arm rests. They're attached to one another, so
if someone nearby in the same row shifts position, other seats are jostled.
Perhaps
the most obvious problem during "August: Osage County" was balancing
the acoustics while running the air conditioner. Consequently, it was hard to
hear some of the actors some of the time. However, during the changeover to
that evening's performance of Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure," the sound system was
completely redone, Rauch told the audience. The result was greatly improved
acoustics.
Besides
the two plays already mentioned, a new adaptation of Molière's "The Imaginary Invalid" is running in the tent. Carlyle
Brown's "The
African Company Presents Richard III" begins previews July 20. The smaller New
Theatre is the
venue for Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and Tony Taccone's "Ghost Light." The outdoor Elizabethan
Theatre is featuring two Shakespeare plays, "Henry IV, Part Two" and "Love's
Labor's Lost"
along with Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance." A new work, "Willful," begins previws Aug. 7 and
involves several sites.
In
the meantime, the festival has added some Monday night performances of
"Julius Caesar" in the New Theatre, "The Pirates of
Penzance" in the outdoor Elizabethan Theatre and the recently closed
"To Kill a Mockingbird" at a theater in Medford, just north of Ashland.
Following are capsule reviews of the six plays I saw during my recent stay in
Ashland.
AUGUST:
OSAGE COUNTY
As
already mentioned, this inaugural production in the tent had some technical
problems, mainly acoustical, but the performances were magnificent in Tracy
Letts' "August:
Osage County,"
winner of the 2008 Tony Award for best play and Pulitzer Prize for drama. The
actors, most of them longtime festival veterans, gave no indication of being adversely
affected by all the differing venues and the changes in sets and blocking that
went with them. Their success is a tribute to the chemistry and rapport that
these actors have developed during their years of working together.
Letts
sets this three-act drama in the small town of Pawhuska, Okla., about 60 miles
northwest of Tulsa in 2007. In short order, the Weston family and others gather
at the family home upon learning that its patriarch, Beverly (Richard Elmore), is missing. The gathering
turns into a wake when he is found dead, an apparent suicide.
The
family includes Beverly's prescription-drug-addicted and addled wife, Violet (Judith-Marie
Bergan) and
their three adult daughters: Barbara (Robynn Rodriguez), Ivy (Terri McMahon) and Karen (Kate Mulligan). Also on hand are Violet's
sister, Mattie Fae (Catherine E. Coulson); her husband, Charlie (Tony DeBruno); and their 37-year-old son,
Little Charles (Brent Hinkley). Joining Barbara are her estranged husband, Bill (Bill
Geisslinger),
and their 14-year-old daughter, Jean (Savannah Edson). Karen is accompanied by her
fiance, Steve (Jeffrey King). Observing the goings-on is Johnna (DeLanna Studi), a local Indian woman whom
Beverly recently hired as a live-in housekeeper and cook.
Letts
reveals the relationships within this dysfunctional family with a combination
of sometimes explosive confrontations, scathing humor and shocking revelations.
Bergan as Violet and Rodriguez as Barbara give especially powerful
performances, but everyone else is terrific, too.
The
production was directed by Christopher Liam Moore with sets by Neil Patel, costumes by Alex Jaeger, lighting by James F. Ingalls, and music and sound by Andre
J. Pluess.
MEASURE
FOR MEASURE
Because
the central ideas in most of Shakespeare's plays are so timeless and universal, they lend
themselves to re-imagining. Oftentimes this works, but sometimes it doesn't.
Such is the case with "Measure for Measure." Artistic director Bill
Rauch alters the
setting to a modern American city with a sizable minority population. On paper,
the idea seems OK, but in this case, it's a concept gone awry, largely because
some of the acting doesn't measure up to the festival's usual high standards.
This is especially true of Stephanie Beatriz's stilted performance as the central
woman, Isabela, the novice nun who must choose between losing her virginity and
saving the life of her brother, Claudio (Frankie J. Alvarez).
The
cause of her dilemma is Angelo (René Millán), who has been empowered to
enforce Vienna's laws during the absence of the duke, Vincentio (Anthony
Heald, one of
the stronger performers). One of those laws calls for the death of those who
fornicate before marriage, as was the case with Claudio and his fiancee, Juliet
(Alejandra Escalante).
Those
who are familiar with the play know that Angelo is foiled in the end, but I
didn't stay to see it happen. I left at intermission, as did a few others in
the audience.
THE
IMAGINARY INVALID
The
festival is presenting the world premiere of an adaptation of Molière's "The Imaginary Invalid" by Oded Gross and Tracy Young. The production features
original music by Paul James Prendergast with lyrics by Gross, Prendergast and Young. Young
also directs.
She
updates the action from Molière's 17th century French Renaissance to the 1960s,
though still in Paris. She also incorporates some of the techniques of commedia
dell'arte, which was in vogue during Molière's time. However, the result is
often too broadly played, with mugging and other antics milking the audience
for laughs -- with mixed results.
The
usually superb David Kelly, who plays the central character, Argan, is caught up in
this silliness. As a hypochondriac who tries all kinds of remedies from quacks,
Kelly's Argan also is central to the numerous bodily function jokes, most of
them silly rather than clever.
The
story involves Angelique (Kimbre Lancaster), Argan's younger daughter, who wants to marry
Guy (Rodney Gardiner), a musician, while Argan has already promised her to the dorky
Thomas (Daisuke Tsuji), a medical student. In the meantime, Argan's second wife, Beline (Terri
McMahon), is
scheming with his attorney (U. Jonathan Toppo), to take control of Argan's
money, thus shutting out Angelique and Argan's other daughter, Louison (Nell
Geisslinger).
Things are set aright by Argan's servant, Toinette (K.T. Vogt), and his brother, Beralde (Jeffrey
King).
The
right-on '60s costumes are by Christopher Acebo, who also designed the set.
Lighting is by Lap Chi Chu with sound by Prendergast, projections by Michael K.
Maag and
choreography by Ken Roht.
An
example of a concept that works is Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in the intimate New
Theatre. Directed by Amanda Dehnert, it uses only 11 actors, with seven of them playing a
variety of roles. The title character is played by a woman, the marvelous Vilma
Silva. She is
ably complemented by Jonathan Haugen as Brutus, Gregory Linington as Cassius and Danforth Comins
as Mark Anthony.
Even though she is assassinated before intermission, her ghost is omnipresent
during the latter half. Likewise, the actors often sit along the sidelines.
This concept seems to work especially well on Richard L. Hay's simple set, which configures
the playing floor with the audience on four sides.
This
production emphasizes the pros and cons of Caesar's assassination with the
Brutus-led faction contending that she would become too powerful, to the
detriment of Rome. The Anthony-led faction saw Caesar as a true heroine who
cared for the welfare of the people of Rome. Banners outside the theater and in
the lobby emphasize this point with pictures of assassinated leaders throughout
world history. One side emphasizes their accomplishments, while the other
enumerates the suffering or deaths during their time in power.
Not
denoting any particular time period, Linda Roethke's costumes are mostly gray and
black except for Caesar's white gown. The lighting is by Robert Peterson with music and sound by Fabian
Obispo.
GHOST
LIGHT
One
of the festival's most intriguing offerings is the world premiere of "Ghost
Light" by Tony
Taccone.
Conceived and developed by Taccone and Jonathan Moscone, who also directs, it looks at
how the death of his father affects a 14-year-old boy even into adulthood. In
this case, the boy is Moscone himself. His father, George Moscone, was the
mayor of San Francisco when he was assassinated along with Supervisor Harvey
Milk in 1978.
The
action shifts from dream to reality and from that year to the present, when the
adult Jon (the excellent Christopher Liam Moore) is to direct a production of Shakespeare's "Hamlet." However, he can't decide
how to interpret the scenes with the ghost of Hamlet's father. This experience
leads him to come to terms with his own father's death.
He's
aided in this process by a longtime friend, Louise (Robynn Rodriguez); and the imagined Mister (Derrick
Lee Weeden).
Also involved are Basil (Ted Deasy) and Loverboy (Danforth Comins), two of Jon's imagined
boyfriends. Other principals are Peter Frechette as a film director, Bill
Geisslinger as a
prison guard (Jon's paternal grandfather) and Tyler James Myers as the young Jon.
The
festival commissioned this work as part of its American Revolutions: The United
States History Cycle, a "10-year program of commissioning up to 37 plays
about moments of change in United States history," the program says. Berkeley
Repertory Theatre,
of which Taccone is the artistic director, will present the play in its
upcoming season. Moscone is artistic director of another major San Francisco
Bay Area company, California Shakespeare Theater. The set is by Todd Rosenthal
with costumes by
Meg Neville,
lighting by Christopher Akerlind, music and sound by Andre J. Pluess, and projections and video by Maya
Ciarrocchi.
THE
PIRATES OF PENZANCE
The
outdoor Elizabethan Theatre is usually the venue for Shakespeare and other classic playwrights,
but two nights a week it bursts forth in song with "The Pirates of
Penzance"
with music by Sir Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W.S. Gilbert. Directed by artistic director Bill
Rauch with musical
direction by Daniel Gary Busby and choreography by Randy Duncan, this production incorporates
all the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan with some inventive new touches. For
example, "I Am the Pirate King," sung by the swashbuckling Michael Elich as the Pirate King, evolves into
a rock song, while the hymn-like "Hail, Poetry" segues into gospel style.
The
story concerns young Frederic (Eddie Lopez), a pirate apprentice who is forced to remain
with a band of pirates because of a technicality in his contract. Ruth (the
wonderfully versatile Robin Goodrin Nordli), the pirates' maid, is smitten with him, but
he's unsure, since she's the only woman he has ever seen. That situation
changes with the arrival of Major-General Stanley (David Kelly) and his lovely daughters.
Frederic is immediately taken with one of them, Mabel (Khori Dastoor), but of course more
complications arise until everything turns out well in the end.
Even
though most of the actors are better known for their acting than their singing,
they acquit themselves quite well. Standouts include Lopez, a fine tenor as
Frederic; and Kelly, who's a natural for the patter song, "I Am the
Very Model of a Modern Major-General." As Mabel, Dastoor has much operatic experience,
but her coloratura has an unpleasant edge.
Wearing
formal attire, the orchestra sits in the inner above, while Busby conducts from
the front row of the audience. The production is enhanced by Michael Ganio's set, Deborah M. Dryden's costumes, Jane Cox's lighting, and Kai Harada and Joanna Lynn Staub's sound. Also adding to the
enjoyment are seagull and bat puppets atop long, flexible poles carried by six
people in tuxedos.