Ashland, Oregon Opening Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare In Director Laird Williamson vision, Romeo and Juliet is a farcical melodramatic moral play filled with bawdy clowns.  It’s a slapstick tragedy, a category  underrepresented on modern stage.  The script’s only fault is the pesky obvious rhymes and flowery language that can be best gotten through in a quick pace at high volume.  Williamson has ordered up so many pelvic thrusts for the hormonal young men that the show is unsuitable for school tours.  What in other productions comes off as witty sexual innuendo, Williamson [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalThe African Company Presents Richard III by Carlyle Brown The African Company Presents Richard III is a very satisfying vehicle to exhibit extraordinary acting in service of a a not terrible, not overwrought script.  The play-within-a-play scenes give us some riveting moments as the actors play their characters and then their characters slip into their roles in Shakespeare's Richard III for a few stanzas.  Kevin Kenerly (as James Hewlett) is excellent and the dominating presence on stage throughout the evening.  He's sweet, stupid, overly focused, driven, and practical as Hewlett, and then instantly differently [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalGhost Light conceived and developed by Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone written by Tony Taccone directed by Jonathan Moscone When Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced it was commissioning a play on the shooting of Harvey Milk and George Moscone I was half pleased that gay civil rights would be a topic mentioned in the festival's 37-play United States History Cycle and half apprehensive about seeing another cover of the Milk assassination already spotlighted very well in Execution of Justice and in the movies The Times of Harvey Milk and Milk. My assumptions about the play topic [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalAugust: Osage County by Tracy Letts We saw the evening performance of August: Osage County the same day as the matinée of Ghost Light.  With apologizes to the Pulitzer jury and to our many friends who felt that August had the best of all possible characterizations and story, in my opinion August is just too contrived and suffers in comparison to the realness of Ghost Light. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival August production is excellent, and none of my reservations come from the Ashland concepts, designs, or acting.  Director Christopher Liam Moore worked a quality, [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalThe Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan What a silly, talented romp!  I cannot imagine a better production of this classic piece of fluff. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival delivers 200% of the music and action of the show. The production is physically dazzling, inventive, and big.  The voices, especially those of Eddie Lopez (Frederic), Michael Elich (the Pirate King), David Kelly (Major-General Stanley), Robin Goodrin Nordli (Ruth), Robert Vincent Frank (Samuel), and Khori Dastoor (Mable) are socks-knocking-off powerful, expressive, and entertaining.  And, yeah, I said "especially" and then named more than a handful [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalWillful Two days later Willful is still coming up in meal conversations and rides in the car. We're still sharing insights of what we experienced and delighting over twists and conceits that worked for us.  Or, maybe that one didn't even exist except in our own mind. More about the Performance

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalHenry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare The consistently inept directing of Shakespeare at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is inexcusable.  Artistic Director Bill Rauch is brilliant in his own handling of Shakespeare and is visionary about many, many aspects of the festival.  But, his chronic hiring of weak, inexperienced directors for Shakespeare is pissing me off. The outdoor theater looked less than half full when we saw Henry.  Get a clue, Bill.  This mishmash lump of time-consuming theater is not worthy of OSF, most colleges, and many high schools.  The acting company was very [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalThe Language Archive by Julia Cho I saw the opening performance of The Language Archive in February and suffered much embarrassment on our drive up to Ashland for our annual Memorial Day visit as I was asked about the play.  Even when I was prompted with a listing of the title, cast, and writer, I could not remember a thing about the story itself. It took me many, many minutes to recapture the inability of linguist George (Rex Young) to communicate with those who mattered to him, first his wife Kate Mulligan (Mary) and [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalImaginary Invalid written by Moliere adapted by Oded Gross and Tracy Young Nothing is more pointless than dragging a 450-year-old social satire on to the stage with the original words, digs, and references in tact.  I was not looking forward to a dusty homage to Moliere, but my expectations were low anyway because Imaginary Invalid was the designated -- and mandatory -- silly farce for 2011. Fortunately, Oregon Shakespeare Festival choose to be faithful to the spirit of Moliere instead of being slavishly bound to the original text.  This Invalid is all about the [...]