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 [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson Much of the impact of this play draws from the emotional baggage carried around by Kevin Kenerly’s character Levee.  His hard-working family’s destruction by violent bigots when Levee was only eight brings menacing emotion into this blues recording session in 1927’s Chicago,  25 years later. […]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe The only question being debated among the audience departing after Faustus is whether the evening is disappointing because of the insensitive direction of James Edmonson or whether the performance was doomed as soon as Artistic Director Libby Appel selected this 16th Century version of the classic make-a-bargain-with-the-devil fable.  No one argues that Faustus is a great – or even good – theatrical experience. Perhaps only because Faustus is still performed by many different companies, I come down on the blame-the-director side.  Moreover, even if it [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalNapoli Milionaria! by Eduardo De Filippo, new translation by Linda Alper & Beatrice Basso Set in Naples during and immediately after World War II, De Filippo's play chronicles the evolution of a law-abiding, religious family into a group of survivors.  No, they're more than simply survivors. The mother's black-market sale of rationed foodstuffs and luxuries eventually provides her and her family millions of lire which both stuff the mattress and move the family away from their traditional life and makes them a success story. But, this black comedy was written to allow only a partial wealth-induced happiness. The story [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalRoom Service by J.R. Sullivan Grade B fluff.  Pure and simple farce done well that offers no redeeming social value or entertaining special spark. This revival of a 1937 work continues Oregon Shakespeare's puzzling determination to have an annual comedy about a play within a play. This year's offering is well executed, but hasn't the timing fun of Noises Off  and is otherwise pedestrian and predictable. At least it isn't as leaden as last year's The Royal Family. The cast is credible and does a fine job.  Chris DuVal as the young playwright gets to [...]

You can't get creepier or more intentionally evil than James Newcomb's Richard III.  In the audience you sit in your comfortable chair, secure inside the upper-class white-bread theater, and still shiver when his dangerous glance comes your way.  The full review