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.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival is at its best when they do an old chestnut in a way that makes you wonder if they haven’t rewritten it to make it more contemporary. Their production of George Bernard Shaw’s 1893 The Philanderer has me downloading the play from Project Gutenberg. It’s a pleasant task.
Ashland, Oregon
Opening Weekend of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
By the Waters of Babylon by Robert Schenkkan
This two-person play commissioned by OSF and written for its stars, Catherine Coulson and Armando Duran, has everything: flawless and inspired acting, cogent story, Deep Meaning, well-weaved metaphors, balance, nuance, comic relief, dense but flowing dialog, character transformation, and, well, what did I leave out?
Unfortunately, something is left out, but damn if I or others in the post-show crowd could put our fingers on it.