osf | Dangerous Common Sense

Snow in Midsummer

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Snow in Midsummer

By Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
Based on the Play The Injustice to Dou Yi That Moved Heaven and Earth
by Guan Hanqing

Directed by Justin Audibert

Snow in Midsummer may be the best production of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival season. It certainly is the best production most likely to be overlooked by old-chestnut-seeking, casual theater goers.

One reason Snow is a candidate for audience neglect is that it’s a new play that hasn’t been vetted by Broadway. Another reason is that the publicity for Snow makes it sound intellectual and good-for-you. You learn that it’s an adaptation of an ancient and traditional Chinese story, clearly on the OSF playlist to further diversity and expand the cultural horizons of the audience, and its all-Asian cast sets off my pandering alarm bells.

But even before the curtain goes up, you start to realize your assumptions were wrong. Snow is modern, engaging story. Instead of what I feared, stylized Chinese Theatre from the 1200’s (the time when the original playwright lived), we are dealing with people in a very modern setting, magic, pollution, and, most importantly, an incredibly tight mystery complete with a important ghost and up-to-date social commentary.

Jessica Ko. Photo by Jenny Graham.

The problem with talking about details of the story, even the general plot, is that the writing is incredibly, rewardingly tight. Not only does the gun shown in Act I get fired before the end of the play, a toothpick that is shown onstage in Act I is also used before the final curtain.

So, I cannot say too much about the characters or action without sharing the knowledge I had acquired by the end of the play.

It’s hard to banally mention the toothpick without calling it the mass-murdering implement it becomes in Act II.

Well, there are no toothpicks in Snow. But the complexity of the characters and plot are real. And, satisfying. Surprising. Obvious. Meaningful.

The simple story is of a factory town in modern China that is suffering from a three-year drought. The current factory owner, Handsome Zhang, (Daisuke Tsuji) plans on selling the factory to Tianyun (Amy Kim Waschke) who arrives in town on an inspection trip with her young daughter, Fei-fei (Olivia Pham). Just before Tianyun makes her entrance at the village watering hole run by Mother Cai (Nastsuo Ohama), Handsome uses the venue to propose marriage to his long-time boyfriend, Rocket Wu (Will Dao). Plans are interrupted by Dou Yi (Jessica Ko), the ghost of a woman wronged by the town.

That description doesn’t sound engaging. It certainly does not match the captivating and exciting real-life two-plus hours of theater. The playwright, director, and cast have managed to take the drab-sounding outline and use it like a Russian doll with layers and layers of additional meaning and connection. Each scene goes deeper into the town and people. Revelation after revelation hits you, each feeling inevitable as soon as they are shown. The story deepens, characters add dimensions and change.

Snow in Midsummer masthead photo from OSF

Román Zaragoza, Jessica Ko, Olivia Pham, Amy Kim Waschke, Moses Villarama.
Photo by Jenny Graham.

World-class acting is one of the reasons Snow works so well. Five major roles are filled flawlessly.

Jessica Ko as Dou Yi flows between simple storytelling and fantasy scenes, sometimes mid sentence. She is contained and on track every moment. She is also delightful in the stage-setting, opening-curtain interaction with the audience. At that point we don’t know who she is, but the extra moments at the start with her reinforce the goodness of her character.

Will Dao has similar mastery over his this-life and next-life moments as Rocket Wu. In earlier moments, he makes believable the effects of a ghost on his terran-world physical body, all the while sharing with the audience his character’s nature and strengths. Later on stage, he is a perfect balance of eatherial and the practical, with some comedy thrown in. And, this leaves out his first moments as a focused, but somewhat shallow, enthusiastic fiancee.

The complementary dichotomies keep on coming!

Head of Ox being repaired in the Production Shop

The riskiest writing in Snow was giving much of the action and revelatory dialog to the Fei-fei, a grade school student. Frankly, I would never have the guts to hand so much of my play to such a young person. How OSF found Olivia Pham for that role and integrated the first-time actor so well is a stroke of luck/skill/something wonderful.

Pham is perfect. Neither precocious nor silly, this kid plays a kid extremely well. Believable and clear. And, that is a good thing because she has critical dialogue and carries key scenes.

As the new factory owner and Fei-fei’s mother, Amy Kim Waschke, creates her own magic by masterfully revealing layers of her character. Her tightly wound portrayal righteously adds tension as her words also move the story along. An excellent performance.

The fifth major player, Daisuke Tsuji’s Handsome, is just as wonderful as the other top characters. Again, we are shown his outside doll early on and then learn more and more and more as the play goes on. Tsuji’s Handsome is a control monster throughout the play, and we keep learning through his final scene just how intent he is on controlling everything around him.

Although the parts are not as big as the Big Five, other cast members have created real gems of personality and importance. Two deserve special call-outs: Christopher Jean in dual roles as Dr. Lu and Judge Wu well exemplified a/im-moral authority. I also loved Moses Villarama’s worried officer who gave us some needed relief from personality-less bureaucracy.

Monique Holt’s appearance as a deaf Worker Chen caused the creation of a town-specific sign language that is used when she is in a scene. That’s a nice creative thought, and Holt’s presence and the signing helps us see the unfolding story in yet another way.

I am tempted to declare writer Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig the real hero of the play because all of the elements of an compelling story are present, deep, and taughtly delivered. The play was woven, not written. Director Justin Audibert had a clear and focused vision of the complex narrative which maximized the seamlessness of the action.

Crafts excelled, too. Especially Scenic Designer Laura Jellinek’s mood-setting dry open spaces that switched quickly to anxious paranormal spots or hot expanses of execution. The heaps of dead crickets, including loose ones sprinkled on the ground, were exquisite! I think we heard those crickets dying and lots of other truly mood-enhancing background noises created by Sound Designer Paul James Prendergast. You don’t want to invite him to DJ your next upbeat party, but you do want him to work on your next stage production.

The second time I saw Snow, I saw and understood more. Even more dolls were exposed than I saw my first watching. Over and over I heard details of the mystery that were pointed to up front but which I went right by me on my initial viewing. I kept smacking my head, asking, “You didn’t pick up on that? Why else would have THIS happened if it didn’t mean that THAT was going to happen in Act II?” Don’t you do smack your head yourself when you reread a superb mystery?

The real reason to see of Snow in Midsummer is that it is a deep story brilliantly constructed. The mystery and the ghost aspects make tale stronger than your average moralistic classic! Snow benefits from all the its traditional high-brow lineage, the creative team’s diversity, and clear ethical teaching moment. And, Snow’s skilled storytelling executed so well by the onstage talent and crafts, overcomes its weighty pedigree.

Snow in Midsummer winds up being great fun.

Play rating:

By Galen|2018-09-07T19:55:21-07:00September 7, 2018|osf, plays|0 Comments

Oklahoma!

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Oklahoma

Music by Richard Rodgers
Book & Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Based on the Play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs
Original Dances by Agnes de Mille
Directed by Bill Rauch

Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been workshopping and mulling over this production of Oklahoma for five years, according to cast member Barzin Akhavan (playing Ali Hakim) when he spoke at a coffee in April.

OSF’s dream was to create an Oklahoma! with non-standard gender roles throughout the territory. Will Parker (Jordan Barbour) is hot for Ado Andy (Jonathan Luke Stevens) and Curly (a definitely female Tatiana Wechsler) is aiming for Laurey (Royer Bockus). There are plenty of mixed-sex couples, yet gender non-conforming, cross-dressing farm hands round out the territory’s population. And, transgender actor Bobbi Charlton stands out as a compassionate and wise Aunt Eller.

Officially blessed by Rogers and Hammerstein, Inc. after a staged reading at the Daedalus show in August, 2016, the casting configuration clearly is making a Statement.

The company has been sending out frequent updates about the suitability of the show with its gender-bending casting decisions. Company members and in-town cognizanti have kept up a steady stream of comments about the progress, the readiness, the freshness of the show. When we walked in for the first performance after Sunday’s opening, I realized that I was expecting to attend an “historic” theater event.

There were not just great expectations for the show, there were extreme expectations.

Surprisingly, at the end of the performance, I felt underestimated the importance and impact of the evening. This Oklahoma! isn’t simply meaningful because of the way it demonstrates that “Love is Love is Love”. It’s good fun.

It entertains with an unbelievably talented seven-person “orchestra” that fills the theater with memorable sound. Thanks to music director Gary Busby! There’s show-stopping choreography, truly emotion-grabbing excellent singing. And, thought-out and flawlessly acted performances by the cast.

The play is unquestionably deepened by the display of same-sex love and its unremarked-upon acceptance by all of the town. I found myself listening to the lyrics of “I Cain’t Say No”, initially to see how few words had to be changed to let it come out of Ado Andy’s mouth. Because I was listening I found myself reflecting how sexually open the 1931 play and 1943 musical was for what I thought were eras of Victorian prudness. If Ado Annie had been singing, I probably would have hummed along without really paying attention.

That hyper vigilance to the story, relationships, and character veracity stayed with me throughout the evening. I spent energy contemplating exactly what Laurey could do about the unwanted attentions of her psycho ranch hand, Jud (Michael Sharon). I also wondered if Jud’s behavior was more menacing because Laurey was a lesbian. I decided that he was plenty scary regardless of Laurey’s orientation.

The decision to make the population around Claremore diverse in their sexual interest is both brilliant and risky. Any hint of stereotyping or mucking with the basic character traits of the people in the play would have made Oklahoma! crash and burn.

Sean Jones, Michael McDonald, Al Espinosa, Jordan Barbour, Nemuna Ceesay and Robert Vincent Frank in OSF’s Daedalus Play Reading of Oklahoma! in August 2016. Photo by Jenny Graham.

This Oklahoma has fire, but the good kind! Romance, passion, and community keep the stage hot.

The variety of sexual expressions was never spotlighted or the focus. Instead we had brilliant performances of the traditional all-American musical. Truly brilliant performance, and the decision to let the actors be non-standard sexes without pointing it out was itself genius.

So many scenes stay with me. The dream “ballet” reportedly reprises the original Agnes de Mille choreography, and you understand why it’s a classic. The elaborate sung descriptions of the surrey with the fringe on top fit right into the scenes. And, Jud! Eeeek! So many different scenes of creepy Eeeek!

Then there are also the moments where the forthright, gentle horniness of the peddler Hakim smack you in the face with their honesty, surprising openness about sex, and success in providing comic relief. And, how about the the happy, helpless sluttiness of Ado Andy bursting forth with hormone-fueled enthusiasm?

This is a performance where each actor deserves to be pointed to and praised. Sorry K.T. Vogt (Ma Carnes), Rodney Gardier (Cord Elam), Cedric Lamar (Ike Skidmore), and … and and… You deserve paragraphs of your own. Even actors with smaller parts like Will Wilhelm (Leslie) should get at least dedicated sentences of cheers.

All of the actors not only nailed their character, sang strongly, and moved flawlessly, but they were nuanced. The boisterous, show-stopping songs were made to serve the story and weren’t ends in themselves.

Director Bill Rauch has to be honored for creating this showcase of meaning and talent. In-your-face, rich subtitly is a neat trick. I’ve already applauded Music Director Daniel Gary Busby, but you really cannot cheer too much for what he’s done. Scenic Director Sibyl Wickersheimer created a set that gave us everything from a cramped bunk room to a wide-open territorial fairgrounds… all right in front of us. Ann Yee, choreographer, made the movements lively, showy, but natural. The costumes by Linda Roethke ranged from beautiful to appropriately scruffy, and they well reflected the gender expression of each character. In short, the crafts were excellent.

OSF’s Oklahoma is an artistic masterpiece. The creative team envisioned a very ambitious concept and devised a structure that honored the traditional show while living in the 2018 social landscape. Then they delivered the whole package excruciating well.

Play rating:

By Galen|2018-07-15T09:56:21-07:00July 15, 2018|osf, plays|1 Comment

Henry V

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Henry V

Ensemble as Chorus. Photo by Jenny Graham.

by William Shakespeare
directed by Rosa Joshi

Daniel José Molina (Henry V) and other cast members deliver many truly spectacular moments — especially in Act II — which make this Henry a must see. Unfortunately, Director Rosa Joshi’s choices diminish the impact of the play itself and leaves the audience to appreciate master-class acting set in a confusion of activity.

I think the audience is supposed to [endlessly] appreciate the turmoil and indiscriminate horrors of the machine of war. Toward that end, actors push stacks of boxes across the stage mimicking siege engines or walls or something. In fact, the before play opens members of the cast are twisting a changing pile of boxes around and around upstage. I’m sure it’s meaningful. But, the only thought these leaden-looking props give me is that the director has seen too many Transformer movies.

To add to the disorder, the actors play multiple roles, sometimes up to 6 or 7, if you count “Chorus” and “Ensemble” separately. The differences among the actors’ personas seems deliberately vague as if to remind us how similar to each other all sides in a conflict are. The problem, of course, is that Shakespeare had a plot going, and it was hard for me at times to tell who/which person or which side was doing was doing what. If the actor had a hat on he was an English low-life, without it he might be a French noble. Grrr!

Chaos on Stage: Jessica Ko, Kimberly Scott, Robert Vincent Frank, Shaun Taylor-Corbett. Photo by Jenny Graham.

The effect of the chaos is distraction, not drama. I was horrified to hear the rousing, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” go by like a throw-away line, losing the competition for attention to some random movement, yelling, or flash bang device going off.

Act I starts off well with an interesting delivery of Chorus’ “O for a Muse of fire…” I also appreciated the early court scene where Henry tries to ensure the righteousness of his going to war. Very nice, deliberate acting. But, then the plot becomes secondary to the motion on stage for the remainder of the act, save for one show-stopping moment.

G Valmont Thomas

The actors and audience take a collective breath when Pistol (Kimberly Scott) announces, “Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead.”

Last year’s Falstaff, well known and well liked actor, G. Valmont Thomas, died last December. This Festival season is dedicated to his memory, and many of the Henry V cast worked with him as Falstaff in Henry IV parts 1 and 2. Pistol’s line stopped hearts throughout the theater for it was too true.

Act II cruised along uneventfully until Molina started interacting with individual characters. My daydreaming was first interrupted when Henry confronts his old friend Bardolph, played by Robert Vincent Frank. Bardolph has been caught misbehaving and was brought to his buddy Hal for adjudication. The lines stopped and the two men looked into each other’s eyes, the damning transaction completed wordlessly. Henry follows through with Shakespeare’s narration, but the sentence, appeal, and rejection were all done by the eyes. Both men communicated completely without a sound.

From that scene on, we are treated to excellent vignettes, usually involving Molina. Henry’s wandering in disguise among his troops, picking up their mood, works well. The battle scenes blur but Henry’s humanity away from the overwrought staging is mesmerizing. Even the courtship scene with the French princess (Jessica Ko) gives a tenderness that avoids any disempowering smirk of politics.

As littered with scene gems as Act II is, the power of Shakespeare never reigns. There is always too much activity and too much “who is that again?”

This Henry V showcases Daniel José Molina. His acting has improved from flawed in his first OSF seasons to artistry in this starring role. It’s very worth seeing.

Daniel José Molina as Henry V. OSF photo.

I am glad the director allowed Molina and the other actors time and space to deliver their performances. I just wish she had given Shakespeare and his story the same courtesy.

Play rating:

By Galen|2018-03-05T20:02:55-08:00March 5, 2018|osf, plays|1 Comment

Sense and Sensibility

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Sense and Sensibility

Ensemble. Photo by Jenny Graham.

by Jane Austen
adapted by Kate Hamill
directed by Hana S. Sharif

This “updated adaption” is, in fact, a completely uninspired snoozefest of outdated manners humor unworthy of the acting talent and craft workers it wastes.

We went into the performance expecting that S&S would be a frothy comedy. But, maybe our expectations were raised too high by the thought that it had been adapted to be more modern.

But, whatever. It was not amusing enough to create a bubble of happiness, much less froth.

If you get off on zingers skewing the social scene of 207 years ago, this play is for you. Otherwise, go see Destiny of Desire instead.

Trite, self-importantly funny, endlessly overwrought and over exposed. If I didn’t keep nodding off during the performance I would come up with a longer list of pejoratives to describe the show.

The actors did well. They played their stereotypes with bravado. Go archetypical twerps! The costumes were over-the-top costumes. Perfect. The set the same. I will refrain from naming any the wasted artists — I don’t want them to Google their names and find this comments — they have to perform in this underwhelming lump through October.

There just is nothing to recommend this S&S. It isn’t even bad enough to walk out on. It’s just blah.

I am especially disappointed because I very much like what Director Hana S. Sharif said about her approach to theater and her craft when she talked on a panel opening weekend. She was all about the importance of people and having theater relate to the audience. I just wish I’d seen some of that connection in the play.

Still, I unhappily predict that S&S will be a popular, money-making crowd pleaser. It offends no one. White Bread audiences will find it a comfortable, non-challenging relief to the complex shows that plague OSF’s theaters. The only sex on stage is the stylized romantic courting of 1811, something that even conservative school groups can mmmm… embrace.

For me, although I wouldn’t walk out on it, I’d recommend that you turn back your tickets.

Play rating:

By Galen|2018-03-04T18:35:29-08:00March 3, 2018|osf, plays|1 Comment

Destiny of Desire

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Destiny of Desire

by Karen Zacarías
directed by José Luis Valenzuela

Destiny of Desire is an evening of a schlocky, cheesy, unbelievable, perfectly-executed, spectacularly entertaining, brilliantly-written live telenovela.

Before I write my 1000 words of “Oh my God, I loved it, here’s why…”, a picture:

Vilma Silva, Ella Saldana North, Esperanza America. Photo by Jenny Graham.

The photo is truly worth more than 1000 words of descriptive praise. (Click on it to see it full size.) But, here goes…

Director José Luis Valenzuela has directed Destiny at four theaters — everywhere it’s been produced (or at least everywhere I could find on the Internet). He and the author have created a soap opera/comedy of manners/musical that is witty, stupidly low-brow funny, predictable, surprising, and sometimes meaningful.

Go into Destiny expecting a fun romp watching a bad Days of Our Lives. The play at heart is a telenovela, so it’d be wrong to suggest that the audience is going to learn the secret of world peace by watching the performance.

But, Valenzuela talks a lot about how 1/3 of the world’s population — 2 billion people — is hooked on telenovelas. There is a reason for that nonsensical fan devotion, and Destiny taps into the essence of the genre that makes it addicting. One scene after another delves deeper into relationships, class, and morality. Watching you know that in the end Good will triumph and happiness prevail. Spoiler alert: it does!

Along the way, there is riotous fun, preposterous revelations, hilariously horrible acting, giggling bad stagecraft, and bizarre (but necessary) plot twists. There’s extremely sharp dancing and satisfying singing, too.

Ella Saldana North, Adriana Sevahn Nichols, Eddie Lopez, Al Espinosa.
Photo by Jenny Graham.

The cast is beyond flawless. They are energetically perfect. They immerse themselves in their characters, crying sincerely over a lost child one moment and then credulously happy the next when yet another plot point releases them from anguish. Then they break into ballads (in both Spanish and English) and dance dramatically. And, they take their turns breaking the fourth wall by delivering comments directly to the audience, and these comments increasingly (and satisfyingly) target social issues as the play moves on.

The playbill and other OSF materials I read later made much of how Brechtian Destiny is. Having actors make sure the audience is reminded that they are watching a play is not a telenovela technique, apparently. Well, sure. I guess. However, I think the improbability of telenovela storylines and the reputed uneven use of technology provides a distance that the ad hoc comments to the audience mimics on the stage. It works well.

Looking at the list of actors to pick standouts to applaud is revelatory. Each earned the screaming standing ovation. Vilma Silva (Fabiola Castillo), Eddie Lopez (Ernesto Del Rio), and Armando Durán (Armando Castillo) were my early favorites. But Al Espinosa (Dr. Jorge Ramiro), Adriana Sevahn Nichols (Hortencia Del Rio), Esperanza America (Pilar Esperanza Castillo), and Ella Saldana North (Victoria Maria Del Rio) were equally good. And, I don’t want to damn with late praise Eduardo Enrikez (Sebastian Jose Castillo) or Fidel Gomez (Dr. Diego Mendoza). At the end, I loved Casterine Castellanos (Sister Sonia) the most.

It’s not just the script, directing, and acting. All of the crafts had a hand in this creative collage.

Esperanza America.
Photo by Jenny Graham.

The costumes… well, look at a picture again. Click on it to blow it up! Costume Designer Julie Weiss did a masterful job creating elegant, appropriately over-the-top wardrobes for each character. Very, very fun to see.

Francois Pierre Couture, the scenic designer, was no slouch, either. The sets felt like thrown together richness with just the right amount of obvious misses. They came directly from the back lot of the telenovela production company.

I hugely appreciate plays, movies, performances that do a great job at what they are trying to do. I hold Schindler’s List to a different standard than Star Wars. I rate them both highly because they deliver the best of their genre.

So, I may expect more meaning from Othello than I do a soap opera on stage. But, damn, I appreciate this soap opera!

Moreover, Destiny truly is the modern adaptation of Sense and Sensibility that OSF doesn’t deliver in the S&S production. Destiny deals with class, income inequality, manners and mores. It exposes the 2018 world’s roughness, tenderness, and delivers on the hopes for a happy ending.

Play rating:

Armando Durán, Catherine Castellanos and Ensemble. Photo by Jenny Graham.

Destiny of Desire runs only through July 12th. Buy your tickets now! The morning after the opening production I went online to buy a single ticket for a Saturday matinee in mid-April, and the performance was sold out!

By Galen|2018-03-03T20:23:03-08:00March 3, 2018|osf, plays|3 Comments

Previous 567 Next