osf | Dangerous Common Sense

The Happiest Song Plays Last

By Galen|2015-08-26T15:05:37-07:00August 25, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Happiest Song Plays Last by Quiara Alegría Hudes Daniel Duque-Estrada (Elliot) and Barzin Akhavan (Ali). Photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The Happiest Song Plays Last, the third installment of Iraq war veteran Elliot Ortiz's struggle with his combat experience and aftermath, fulfills the promise of the complex emotional saga. While nominally about Elliot, three characters have legitimate claim to be considered the lead: Elliot (Daniel Duque-Estrada), his cousin Yaz (Nancy Rodriguez), and Yaz's neighbor Agustin (Armando Duran). Even then, some of the deepest scenes center on other characters, Ali (Barzin Akhavan) [...]

2

Head Over Heels — World Premiere

By Galen|2015-08-23T16:50:34-07:00August 23, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Head Over Heels Play by Jeff Whitty Music and Lyrics by the Go-Go's Jonathan Tufts and Ensemble. Photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Head Over Heels is the latest saucy work from the razor-sharp, careful, sensitive, and insanely clever mind of Jeff Whitty. His inventive approaches to story telling are twisted and brilliant, and this Oregon Shakespeare Festival production exquisitely delivers pure fun. The play uses the Go-Go's songbook as the source of its music, although Music Director Geraldine Anello has dramatically freed some of the arrangements from the original signature driving beat when Whitty's [...]

0

Anthony and Cleopatra

By Galen|2015-08-23T16:00:53-07:00August 23, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare Derrick Lee Weeden and Miriam Laube. Photo by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival By far the best aspect of Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2015 production of Anthony and Cleopatra is the set. Scenic designer Richard Hay creates a clean, beautiful, symbol-filled space for the Shakespeare tragedy. The golden-royal triangles reprised in various forms work as ships, pyramids, and boundaries. The triangles are bold and colorful, and vivid Egyptian-themed props enhance the feel of empire and luxury. Hay does a great job. He skillfully keeps the physical on-stage material to a [...]

0

The Count of Monte Cristo

By Galen|2015-08-23T12:15:12-07:00August 22, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Raffi Barsoumian (Danglars) and Al Espinosa (Dantes). Photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival Who knew that a revenge melodrama could be so much fun? Oregon Shakespeare Festival presents a sharp, finely timed, excellently acted, satisfying evening of a classic payback story written as a book by Alexandre Dumas in 1844 and adapted for the stage as early as 1848. The version of the play OSF picked to perform is meaningful. This Count stems from an adaption by Charles Fletcher in 1868. The play was further adapted by James O'Neill who bought the rights to [...]

0

Sweat
Gallery
Sweat

osf, plays

Sweat

By Galen|2015-08-27T07:57:54-07:00August 19, 2015|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Sweat by Lynn Nottage | World Premiere Jack Willis, Carlo Alban, and K.T. Vogt in "Sweat".photo by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Sweat is Lynn Nottage's brilliant story of people and community in collapse. Before writing this commissioned American Revolutions series play, Nottage talked to residents of America's poorest city of 2001, Reading, Pennsylvania. Her work shares the residents' pain, losses, and self-immolation as their good jobs are eliminated in relentless, financially logical, corporate-mandated factory closings and union busting. I knew the story's outline coming into the theater. I expected satisfying liberal ranting and raving at the [...]

0

The Best Season Opening

By Galen|2015-03-06T13:53:26-08:00March 4, 2015|osf, plays|

Oregon Shakespeare Festival's season opening this past weekend showcased four excellent productions. It was the strongest festival start that I -- and my more experienced Ashland friends -- have experienced. Bravo! I hope to write full reviews of each performance. But, here are my snap judgements, listing the four plays in my overall order of enjoyment. Fingersmith by Alexa Junge based on the novel by Sarah Waters Syntax says: photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival This world premiere commissioned by the festival is full of "Wow" plot twists delivered with exquisite attention to language and the style of the times (1861). [...]

0

Family Album

By Galen|2014-08-17T13:28:35-07:00August 17, 2014|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival OSF photo by Jenny Graham Family Album Book & lyrics by Stew | Music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald Created with & Directed by Joanna Settle | World Premiere Artistic Director Bill Rauch has challenged the complacent, traditional view of theater in the past several years by including in the season a third musical in a format that is more performance art than legitimate theater. Rauch's leap has worked for me in past years. In 2012, Party People, was one of my favorite productions of the season, and last year's Unfortunates knocked around in [...]

1

Richard III

By Galen|2014-08-13T17:03:12-07:00August 13, 2014|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Richard III by William Shakespeare Rarely is an evening so thoroughly wrecked by the technology and crafts as is this production of Richard III. The new sound system in the outdoor theater made Richard inaudible to me in Row AA, Seat 5, while people on both sides of me had no problem hearing. Just weird. And a phenomenon widespread throughout the theater. More importantly, though, the decision to mic the actors is a huge mistake. The actors seemed to back off from expressing emotion as if overmodulation of the sound system required a muting of [...]

0

The Tempest

By Galen|2014-03-29T12:23:48-07:00February 23, 2014|osf, plays, Uncategorized|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalThe Tempest by William Shakespeare Director Tony Taccone should be ashamed. This Tempest not only lacked insight and sharpness, my group of friends was struggling at intermission to recall a more juvenile, poorly executed production. Most of us went back to junior high school to match the feel of the opening night evening. What a disappointment. The Tempest fails in the same way as last year's Lear. In Lear, the true goodness of Cordelia was not communicated to the audience so the father's spurning of his rebellious teenage daughter seemed reasonable and not the [...]

0

A Streetcar Named Desire

By Galen|2013-06-15T13:36:00-07:00June 15, 2013|osf, plays, Uncategorized|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalA Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams When a complicated, difficult story plays out flawlessly and naturally, the review of the performance can only lift up a part at a time. Any look back on OSF's A Streetcar Named Desire will fail to capture the depth and flow of the production which needs to be experienced as a whole. Each of the characters presented on stage felt strong and authentic. Danforth Comins (Stanley Kowalski) feels young, strong, frustrated, insightful, and horrible at just the right moments in just the right way. He would steal [...]

0