If you need an excuse to trek to Ashland to see the four plays that opened in late February at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, here 'tis: Ken Albers' bold adaptation of Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1956 The Visit (translated by Douglas Langworthy).
The quasi-Brechtian tragi-comedy plays out on Michael Ganio's industrial-gray set, which incorporates a railway station and other spots in the mythical village of Güllen. A former homegirl, Claire (a powerfully crafty Demetra Pittman), now impossibly wealthy, returns —seeking revenge, as it happens. The toadying townsfolk—hopeful of a generous donation to the impoverished village's coffers and even, as eventually transpires, to their own pockets—are faced with an ethical dilemma. At the center of the plot is the well-respected shopkeeper Josef (performed with simple clarity by Richard Elmore), who must rethink his entire life even as he faces possible death. It's a terrific story of human greed and moral responsibility, full of twists and turns. Albers—himself one of OSF's finest actors—has directed it artfully, with appropriate absurdist touches, never losing sight of a basic humanity. It's a chilling (and, at almost three hours, lengthy) tale. The enormous cast, from Linda Alper's free-thinking but ultimately self-serving teacher down to Dane Bowman's multiple roles as several of Claire's successive trophy husbands, is terrific.
The opening weekend began with a delightfully glitzy version of Shakespeare's farce of mistaken identities, The Comedy of Errors. In director Bill Rauch's breezy conceit, Ephesus is a Las Vegas of shimmering mirrors, rotating stage, and flashing neon (set by William Bloodgood), with a sultry, casino-style vocalist (Charisse Loriaux) crooning "Falling in Love with Love." The ne'er-do-well Antipholus of Ephesus is a New York/Italian–accented Mafioso, with henchmen in shades and black trench coats (witty costumes by Joyce Kim Lee). Stumbling into this gaudy and unfamiliar world are his long-lost, unrecognized twin, Antipholus of Syracuse (separated from his bro' in a storm at sea), with white suit, cowboy hat, and Texas drawl. He's accompanied by his equally innocently baffled servant in bellhop outfit, Dromio—who also, of course, has a long-lost identical twin here in Ephesus. Ray Porter plays both Antipholi and Christopher DuVal both Dromios, making for some sly staging at the end. On opening night, Porter and DuVal hadn't quite found the contrasting body language to differentiate their two characters apiece, but they'd nailed their disparate accents—and their endless funny business. With the help of a few timely ad libs, the Vegas setting works remarkably well, and Rauch beautifully delineated the play's stranger-in-a-strange-land undercurrents.
I missed Suzan-Lori Parks' Topdog/ Underdog, directed by OSF resident director Timothy Bond, which I'd seen recently in San Francisco (artistic director Libby Appel had scheduled it before the national tour was announced). It's the only play staged in the flexible-space New Theatre (on a three-quarters thrust) this spring; the other three are in the indoor, 600-seat Angus Bowmer Theatre, with the outdoor Elizabethan stage closed until warm weather. But I did see Peter Amster's production of The Royal Family. No matter how good the acting and staging—and both were swell—the 1927 George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber comedy is pretty forgettable. Based on the famed Barrymores, it takes a blithe look at relationships within an eccentric and successful theatrical family living the artsy life in a New York apartment (richly detailed by Richard L. Hay). When the daughter (a buoyant Linda L. Morris) determines to give up the stage for marriage, her diva mother (Judith-Marie Bergan, charmingly ditsy) is appalled. Only the family matriarch (a quietly dignified Dee Maaske) has the wisdom to let life—and death—take their natural course.
As the curtain was rising in Ashland, OSF and Berkeley Repertory Theatre actors from last season's highly acclaimed, two-part political drama, Continental Divide, were across the pond to perform in Birmingham, where playwright David Edgar was reportedly still rewriting the script as of their arrival there. They're now at London's Barbican Theatre. Thus some OSF regulars, like Robynn Rodriguez, are missing from this season's 75-member acting roster in Ashland. Next stop, this summer: La Jolla Playhouse. Both OSF and Berkeley Rep make money off the tour, by the way.
Speaking of money, executive director Paul Nicholson told the assembled press that 2003 was the second-best year in the Festival's 68-year history, ending in the black. But there are still financial concerns for the company, with its $20.9 million annual budget: Last month, advance ticket sales were down approximately 8 percent from the previous year at that same time, and the staff worries about bringing in tourists, the Festival's mainstay, in the current economy.
Still, the production budget remains steady, with no cuts, as was evidenced in the three elegant sets that I saw.
The big event of the rest of the 2004 season is The Oedipus Complex. Three to four years in the making, it is director Frank Galati's adaptation of the writings of Sophocles, Sigmund Freud, and Jean-Paul Sartre, and is expected to be just as important a world premiere as was Continental Divide. Due to Galati's demanding schedule, its opening is postponed until July 31.
Meanwhile, A Raisin in the Sun (directed by Andrea Frye) opens April 24. Appel's Henry VI, Part One opens April 3, and her Henry VI, Parts Two and Three open June 19. King Lear (director: James Edmondson) and Laird Williamson's production of Much Ado About Nothing also open in June, and Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, directed by Penny Metropoulos, opens July 10.
And for those of you who plan way in advance, here's the 2005 program:
The Shakespeare plays are Richard III, Twelfth Night, and Love's Labour's Lost. Commissioned premieres are a new translation of Eduardo De Filippo's Napoli Milionaria, Arturo and Catherine by Robert Schenkkan, and San Francisco writer Octavio Solis' Gibraltar. Others plays are Room Service (by John Murray & Allen Boretz), G.B.S.'s The Philanderer, The Belle's Stratagem by Hannah Cowley, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson, and Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.
