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Ashland 2015: Antony & Cleopatra
Time once again for the annual Shakespeare Festival pilgrimage. As usual, I'm visiting with a tour group from Whitman College (go, Fighting Missionaries!). Not usual: my parents are sidelined this year owing to a (minor but perfectly mis-timed) health issue, so I am representing the family on my own.
The Friday night show was Shakespeare's Antony & Ceopatra, which we've seen (surprise) a time or two before -- most notably in 1993, when the then-artistic director was playing Antony and the tour group somehow managed to score front-row center seats, so that we got a row of Roman legionaries marching right along in front of us, close enough to step on stray candy wrappers and drip sweat onto our shoes.
I enjoyed this year's production, though I don't think it was the equal of the 1993 version. The two best performers, I thought, were Derrick Lee Weeden as Antony and Jeffrey King as his follower Enobarbus. I've liked Miriam Laube in other roles, but in this production Cleopatra comes off as too much a slave to her emotions rather than their mistress. To be fair, it's likely this is as much the director's choice as Laube's -- that being OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch in this case. I also recall the queen's handmaidens, especially Charmian, being more of a force in the earlier production, whereas in this one they were little more than scenery -- and disastrously costumed scenery at that. [I am not alone in this last sentiment; our faculty tour leader allowed as how she could have made their outfits at home.] Fortunately, the overall staging and costuming was much better, than that for the handmaids, and I'd count the production as a whole satisfying but short of being exceptional.
The Friday night show was Shakespeare's Antony & Ceopatra, which we've seen (surprise) a time or two before -- most notably in 1993, when the then-artistic director was playing Antony and the tour group somehow managed to score front-row center seats, so that we got a row of Roman legionaries marching right along in front of us, close enough to step on stray candy wrappers and drip sweat onto our shoes.
I enjoyed this year's production, though I don't think it was the equal of the 1993 version. The two best performers, I thought, were Derrick Lee Weeden as Antony and Jeffrey King as his follower Enobarbus. I've liked Miriam Laube in other roles, but in this production Cleopatra comes off as too much a slave to her emotions rather than their mistress. To be fair, it's likely this is as much the director's choice as Laube's -- that being OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch in this case. I also recall the queen's handmaidens, especially Charmian, being more of a force in the earlier production, whereas in this one they were little more than scenery -- and disastrously costumed scenery at that. [I am not alone in this last sentiment; our faculty tour leader allowed as how she could have made their outfits at home.] Fortunately, the overall staging and costuming was much better, than that for the handmaids, and I'd count the production as a whole satisfying but short of being exceptional.