February 24, 2007 – Opening Performance Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalThe Cherry Orchid by Anton Chekhov Symbolism alert! Or, as redozdachs said as I prepared to come up for opening weekend, “This is your first chance to say ‘good-bye’ to Libby Appel for the last time.” Yes, Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Artistic Director Libby Appel is retiring this season. Her very talented but very self-satisfied, self-congratulating Presence will soon no longer permeate through all sectors of the Ashland stage. She choose to direct this Chekhov classic about change, loss, and growth as a parting gift. What a schmaltzy, in-your-face symbolic choice. As much as it pains me to say [...]

February 23, 2007 - Opening Night Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalAs You Like It by William Shakespeare One of the best aspects of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is its de-monumentizing of Shakespeare.  His plays are put on stage without the pomposity that lets the audience know that they are seeing high culture which is good for them.  The normal OSF attitude is "Shakespeare today, August Wilson tonight, you decide what you like." Well, OSF didn't follow that rule this time.  Not with this As You Like It, and as a result, I liked it very little. The production is [...]

August, 2006 Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalCyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess) is a perfect play for my tragedy-loving and comedy-disliking personality.  The story is a tear-jerker, full of honor, unrequited love, bravery, more honor, more love, and ultimately death. The title character, played by Marco Barricelli, is so honorable and acts with so much integrity, that even disaster lovers like me squirm in our seats hoping for a last-minute rewrite that delivers the girl and a long life to the hero. […]

August, 2006 Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalThe Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare If you’re going to produce an over-the-top romp 400 years after it was written, you should do it with the energy, skill, and good fun that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival gives to Merry Wives. Will’s16th Century sit-coms generally do as little for me as the 21st Century ones that I delete unwatched from TiVo.  Yet, OSF makes the scheming and put-ons of MW a simple good, fun night in the outdoor theater. […]

Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The farce at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this season relies on word play instead of physical humor and timing. Still, the company manages to over-act and put on stuffy English accents to keep alive their tradition of doing b   r  o  a  d comedy. There's not much to say about this good production of a clever but well worn play.  It was good to see Kevin Kennerly as Algernon in a break from his murderous roles of past years (Booth in Topdog/Underdog and Levee in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom).  [...]

Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Intimate Apparel by Lynn NottageI got teary-eyed watching Esther Mills and Mr. Marks appreciate the swath of fine fabric, Yes, their unrolling of a piece of cloth was that emotional, complex, and full. I didn’t feel manipulated.  There were no “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” sniffling heart-string tugs.  It was just that what wasn’t being said on stage — what couldn’t be said on stage — was just that potent. Intimate Apparel’s surface story is easy to tell. The play is about a mid-30’s single Negro seamstress of women’s undergarments [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalUP by Bridget Carpenter After Larry Walters had his 15 minutes of fame flying a balloon-lifted lawn chair from his LA-area home in 1982, he dropped from the cultural radar. After the talk shows and the one-trick motivational speeches were over, the man still had a life to live. But, he lived back down on the ground and he didn’t surface again in the public stratosphere. So, what happened? […]

Real life is too full of happiness and fun for me to want to see most comedies and other frivolous stuff on stage. Anne Frank is a perfect topic for a theater production: the horror is tightly wound and is inescapable, and it looms from the opening moments. The dread in Anne’s saga lends itself to melodrama, and the play version of the diary dips into the genre fulsomely. The grinding of events and the knowledge of the bad end coming control the two-hours-plus production.  […]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Gibraltar by Octavio Solis The components of this OSF-commissioned play are outstanding.  The stories have depth and subtilty.  The acting performances in the intimate New Theater are world-class wonderful. The technical elements – set design, costumes, lighting – range from flawless to inspired.  I left the performance feeling that it was my fault that the play didn’t come together in my mind. […]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Belle’s Stratagem by Hannah Cowley This OSF season is sorely testing my claim to like only death, destruction, and tragedy on the stage. First The Philander and now The Belle’s Stratagem have forced me to leave the theater grinning happily at the feel-good, happy-ending entertainment.  I can salvage my self respect only by mentioning that in both cases the plays were instructive of how old our “modern” ideas of women’s equality and liberal mores are.  Belle’s Stratagem was written in 1780 and is centered on two plots:  in the title story a woman figures [...]