Oregon Shakespeare Festival…a decade later

April 13, 2008 by Dennis Baker 

It looks like I will be able to visit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in early May. The last time I was there was my senior year of high school, a decade ago. That still sounds weird. A group from my high school would take yearly trips. I went my sophomore through my senior year and also attended the Summer Seminar for High School Juniors. The seminar was a two week submersion to all things Shakespeare. We took classes and seminars on everything from acting to theater management to costumes and various other responsibilities that go into running a huge theater. We also had the opportunity to see every show that was running. Between my school visit and coming back for the summer I got to see every show they produced that year. Great shows including Death of a Salesman, Blues for an Alabama Sky, King Lear, Rough Crossing and Pentecost.

There will be five shows running for the two days that I will be there: Fences, Coriolanus, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Welcome Home Jenny Sutter, and The Clay Cart.

midsummer play pictureOf that list the only play I have seen is Midsummer and I saw it ten years ago at OSF. From the picture and reading reviews this production is a high energy, sex romp that seems to hit on many decades. Bill Varble of the Mail Tribune says, ” The fairies are the key. They live in and represent an alternative world that exists next to and intermingles with the workaday world of Athens and the Court. If we believe in the fairies, the play’s world comes to life. f the fairies are timeless, the humans are living in a late-’50s-to-early-’80s kind of time. The young lovers — Emily Sophia Knapp as Hermia, Tasso Feldman as Lysander, Christopher Michael Rivera as Demetrius, Kjerstine Anderson as Helena — are as lusty and confused and foolish as ever. f these fools seem to spend most of their time in the dawn of the Reagan years, the Mechanicals are ’60s holdovers, stoners maybe, in over their heads without being over the top. Ray Potter as Bottom finds a balance between amiable befuddlement and simple dignity. This ‘Midsummer’ is a spectacular kickoff of the Bill Rauch era at the festival, and more. It is a revelation.” In true repertory spirit Ray Porter play Puck in the last Midsummers and now he is playing Bottom. I am definitely curious.

fences playFences is another play I am excited to see. I have not been able to see an August Wilson play yet and having read The Piano Lesson I do enjoy his writing. This production, one of the cycle’s two Pulitzer Prize-winners, offers a complex and emotionally wrenching portrait of a man hopelessly bound by duty and outdated values to a life of few rewards. The review at the Ardest Forest Inn website says, “In a riveting performance, Charles Robinson is extraordinary in his portrayal of Troy Maxson, pitting his traditional mind-set against the period’s dramatic social change to maintain firm control over his family. Ultimately, this flawless, stimulating and unforgettable theatrical experience, under Leah C. Gardiner’s honest, sure-handed direction delivers a seamless blend of theatrical elements that’s destined to make a memorable mark in OSF history and should not be missed!”

Welcome Home Jenny Sutter playWelcome Home, Jenny Sutter is directed by Award-winning Chicago director Jessica Thebus and is about U.S. Marine Jenny Sutter returns from Iraq, she lays down her rifle but isn’t ready to pick up her children. Buying some time, Jenny takes a one-way trip to nowhere–a desert community where misfit residents gently nurture her wounded spirit and nudge her back to her own humanity. It is written by Julie Marie Myatt. Varble mentions, “The real antagonists are Jenny’s pain — she’s not only missing a piece of her leg, she keeps a terrible secret — and a world that doesn’t want to hear about it. We like our invasions shocking and awesome, our occupations short and sweet, our wars to be winners. We pass the cost down to our children and move on.

————
If you like what you read please subscribe to either the RSS feed or by email.
Subscribe by RSS Feed
Subscribe by Email

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • LinkedIn
  • FriendFeed
  • NewsVine

Related posts:

  1. Alabama Shakespeare Festival
  2. Medieval Festival – Fort Tryon Park
  3. Shakespeare Handbook
  4. Devoted and Disgruntled – Under the Radar Festival
  5. Nostalgia at NYC Film Festival

Subscribe by Email, RSS Feed, Newsletter
Filed under: Acting, Shakespeare

Comments

One Response to “Oregon Shakespeare Festival…a decade later”

  1. monica on December 27th, 2008 3:45 am

    i love your guys plays but the ones i love the most is with the ones that have chris rivera

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!