djonn: (woods)

Thanks to a spectacular accident of timing, I ran across a brand new book this past week with a pitch that leapt off the screen and said "Read me!"

This happened to coincide with a sufficiently clear bit of spare time that I woke up a long-dormant Web account, secured an electronic copy, devoured the book - and have just now posted a proper review.

The book is The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy, and the review is here at my personal Webspace and here at Goodreads. (It is a decidedly mixed review; I had been worried about the book turning out to be genuinely awful based on aspects of the initial trade reviews, but my fears were only partially justified.)

djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)
I am a late, late, latecomer to the phenomenon of binge-watching. In part, it was a matter of access; I refused to jump on the pay-TV bandwagon for simply decades, until forced by the demise of a second-tier Internet provider to switch to cable. Even then, I resisted. But in the last year or so, and particularly since moving to my present corner of Darkest Suburbia™ (where it's been not merely possible but preferable to get most of my TV via streaming), I have succumbed on occasion to the siren call of mainlining a whole season of something all at once.

However.

Even in my assimilation, I am an outlier. I have not inhaled the addiction that is Game of Thrones (HBO itself is not my jam). I have not drunk the Kool-Aid that is The Mandalorian. (I actually do have Disney+, but while I like the Star Wars franchise in general - okay, except for the prequel trilogy - it's at best a second-string favorite to other series. I'll get there one of these days, just not yet.)  I am years behind on the various "Arrowverse" series. I have not sat through the epic that is Survivor (I am mostly a really hard sell for reality TV - traditional game shows, mostly yes; dysfunctional group-therapy exercises, hard NO).

So what did I spend most of a weekend watching just last month?

That would be Encore, a Disney+ original reality series (!) that's all about - surprise - musical theater. I am nothing if not a lifelong theater nut in general and a musical theater nut in particular, and the discovery that someone had made a reality show about re-enacting high school musicals was pretty much guaranteed to ping my "must watch" radar. Nor did it hurt that one of my favorite actors - Kristen Bell - is both nominal host and one of the executive producers.

Encore's premise is straightforward: track down the half-dozen or so leads of a particular high school's musical theater production from a particular year, anywhere from a decade to almost a half-century after the fact, and lure them back to said high school to put on a fast-tracked one-night revival of that same show. The production window is short: five days' preparation from launch to overture. This is made practical because the series producers supply the remaining 95% of the necessary labor (including actual Broadway-veteran directors, choreographers, and music coaches) plus a professional ensemble (often hired locally) to fill out the cast. The reunited performers get a trip down memory lane, and viewers get a crisp, authentic behind-the-scenes view of how each episode's production comes together. Most of the resulting shows are staged right back at the original high school theater, though one or two make use of a nearby local theater. In one case, where the high school in question had closed, the next-nearest high school stage stood in for the original.

Because each episode runs just under an hour, what you get of the actual score from each selected musical is limited, but there's always enough to get the flavor of each show across. There's a nice balance of variety and continuity in the production process. In some cases the high school performers reprise their original parts, while in others they take on different roles. Each episode makes use of a unique trio of directors, but several of the directors and choreographers recur three or four times during the 12-episode season. And there's often a guest with specific connections to the relevant show's Broadway run - Broadway's original Belle turns up for Beauty and the Beast, songwriter Stephen Schwartz is on hand for Pippin, and the guest director for Ragtime was, in fact, the Tony-nominated director of the show's 2010 Broadway revival.

Because this is reality TV, part of each episode involves our leads reflecting on their lives then and now, but while some of the journeys involve a degree of emotional pain, all are ultimately optimistic in the old-school Disney mode. Because this is a high-school reunion exercise, the producers have hunted down archival video of the original productions, so you get to see - sometimes side by side - the principals as kids and as adults. And because this is an absurdly ambitious way to produce a musical, there's a degree of cheerful Muppet-like chaos that's always making itself felt.

The selection of shows is more diverse than you might expect from a Disney-backed venture - yes, they've got Beauty and the Beast and High School Musical, but also represented are Anything Goes, Godspell, and the aforementioned Ragtime. At one 12-episode season, this is a fairly short binge - and may well be all we get, given both the present limits imposed by the pandemic and the long-term changes likely for live theater in general going forward. I'd be glad to see more - but I'm delighted to have this much, and I recommend the series to anyone with any interest at all in musical theater. 
djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)
 The annual pilgrimage to Ashland began this year with an epic production (3 hours 20 minutes, just as promised in the playbill) of The Odyssey, adapted from the Robert Fitzgerald translation by director Mary Zimmerman.  I can't comment just now on the technical or literary quality of the adaptation -- though I will be looking in at the Tudor Guild in the morning to see if OSF has printed one of its limited-run editions of the production script.  What I can tell you is that this is live theater at its most basic -- and therefore its most risky.  With nearly bare sets and a very few technical effects -- most very simple and striking -- it's wholly up to the actors to determine whether the show will succeed brilliantly, or fall catastrophically on its face.

This being the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, home of one of the strongest acting companies anywhere in North America, what we get is about 95% brilliance.  This is one of the most vocally clear shows I've ever heard in the Elizabethan theater; the dead simplicity of the staging ensures that nothing gets in the way of the actors' words.  Also -- or perhaps especially -- several effective set pieces omit dialogue almost entirely in favor of crisp, sharp choreography.  I was particularly impressed with a sequence in which Odysseus' beleaguered and starving crew is seduced into capturing and slaughtering a "lamb", thereby ensuring their own destruction in turn.

The exception -- at least for me -- is Christiana Clark's Athena, whose vocal delivery is by turns both too forceful and too forced, coming across as grade-school speech-reading rather than nuanced storytelling or characterization.  It's clear both from Clark's overall performance and the staging that this is a deliberate stylistic choice, and very likely reflects Mary Zimmerman's directorial vision as much as Clark's take on the character.  Fortunately, Clark's physical performance fits into the show far more seamlessly than her speech, and this is really the only off-note in an otherwise compelling production.  Yes, it's long -- but then, odysseys in general are supposed to be long, and this one is the original that defines the term.

Overall, it's definitely a promising start to a crowded weekend.

djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)

Herewith a quick take on my two most recent summer-movie visits:

Wonder Woman is very, very good — and manages to be so by mostly being a World War I movie rather than a superhero movie.  I am, of course, much too young to have living memories of the WWI period, but one of my grandfathers was an Army engineer in that war, then puttered around Europe for several years afterward doing a variety of field work for the American Red Cross.  My father made a point of writing down and preserving a great many stories arising from those travels, and Wonder Woman surprised me by matching the tone and texture of those stories to an impressive degree.  The members of the team Diana and Steve Trevor bring together feel like people my grandfather could easily have met and understood.  I’ve heard complaints about the portrayals of some of the minority characters, but my sense is that what’s shown is essentially accurate for the time and place — and that the reactions of the characters in question are as true to period as everything else.

Mind you, it’s not perfect.  The scene in which Diana crosses “No Man’s Land” very nearly threw me out of the movie — even in a comic-book world, there should have been too heavy a volume and breadth of firepower for her to survive being shredded using the traditional deflection-and-dodging powers that we usually associate with Wonder Woman and her gauntlets.  That the scene works is a matter of the sheer force of will Gal Gadot throws into the role…and by the end of the film, it’s clear that in fact, Diana’s Amazon powers are more literally godlike than they were in the Lynda Carter era.

#

By contrast, The Mummy is a major disappointment.  Tom Cruise tries to coast through the movie on roguish charm, but the script makes him too much of an idiot and cad for that charm to do much good (except to the degree that it persuades the Forces Of Evil to keep him alive).  Cruise’s character literally has no control over his actions for large segments of the film — the resurrected Egyptian princess Ahmanet is pulling his strings most of the time — and even when he makes a choice that looks sort of heroic (notably, resurrecting the film’s other female lead), one can rationalize that he’s only doing so because he’s looking out for his own self-interest further down the road.

But the real trouble with The Mummy is that there aren’t any proper mummies in it.  What we have instead is Sofia Boutella as the aforementioned Ahmanet, and within five minutes of waking her up, the film has her mostly out of her wrappings and into slinky seductress mode, clad in just enough shreds of green to keep her nominally street-legal.  Nor are most of her monster legions mummies; just about all of them are better classified as skeletons, zombies, or ghouls.  The Egyptian — or even faux-Egyptian — folklore is just as thin on the ground.  With no likeable hero, no mummies, and no mystical Egyptian spice in play, all that’s left is a lot of CGI sludge and generic mayhem.  And that’s not much of a recipe for a successful Mummy movie.

Fortunately, I paid for my ticket to the Cruise Mummy by buying a boxed set of four movies from the much better predecessor franchise starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and eventually The Rock (total price well under $20) — a win for my DVD collection, if not for Universal’s current cash flow.

 [reprised from The Lone Penman; *not* crossposted to LiveJournal]
djonn: (bird)
On the one hand, Much Ado About Nothing is arguably* in the second tier of the Shakespeare canon, even if one is looking mostly at the comedies (Merchant of Venice, Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Comedy of Errors being the best-known and most respected of those).   On the other, Much Ado has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, dating from the Kenneth Branagh film in 1993 to the much more recent (and very good) Joss Whedon version released in 2013.

This year's OSF staging falls somewhere between the two movies in atmosphere -- it has a Mediterranean visual style not unlike the Branagh film, but the execution is distinctly modern.  It's funny where it needs to be -- one of the best running gags has Rex Young's Dogberry zipping around on a Segway, and Christiana Clark makes an especially energetic Beatrice.  It's also provocative where it needs to be -- actress Regan Linton plays a wheelchair-bound Don John with credible bitterness, lending an intriguing dimension to the darker side of the play's storyline. 

The trouble is simply that while there's nothing really wrong with the production, it just doesn't sparkle as brightly as OSF's home-run shows of the current season -- it lacks the zip of Head Over Heels or Guys & Dolls, and can't match a play like Sweat on the social-relevance scale.  It's simply a very good staging caught among a handful of flat-out spectacular shows, and it can't help but feel a little bit overwhelmed by comparison.  For what it's worth, I'd count Much Ado as the slightly better show of the two Shakespeare plays we saw -- Antony & Cleopatra is a bit more unevenly executed. 

In terms of the weekend as a whole, though, this feels like one of OSF's strongest recent seasons, and I'd happily go back to catch several of the shows we missed on this visit (notably Pericles and The Count of Monte Cristo, though tickets for the former are reportedly very hard to come by at this point).

 ===
*Our nominal tour leader (an English professor from my alma mater) would argue with me about this.  She expressed the opinion several times during the tour that Much Ado is possibly Shakespeare's *best* comedy in terms of craft and characterization, which is one of the reasons she chose to have the group see it rather than the Festival's production of The Count of Monte Cristo on the outdoor Elizabethan stage.  Me, I'd have picked Monte Cristo....

djonn: (butterfly)
By contrast to Saturday's shiny new material, Sunday brought us two solid theatrical standbys.

Discussing the matinee, Guys & Dolls, ought to take less space than yesterday's shows...simply because what we got was an absolutely classic old-school Broadway stage production.  Simple set (with a few flashy touches), briskly enthusiastic choreography, uniformly confident acting, and musical numbers performed with energy and verve.  A sufficiently trained ear might have caught one or two performers switching registers in order to hit one or two particular notes -- but that ear wasn't mine, and as far as I'm concerned, the door I walked through into the Angus Bowmer shell might as well have been a portal into the New York theater district.  The show was just that good, and while I am usually stingy about handing out standing ovations (unlike most of Ashland's theater-goers these days), it took me less than three seconds to get up at the end of this performance.

I'm struck, though, by one observation.  Where Head Over Heels (see yesterday's entry) got much of its energy from direct interaction with the audience, Guys & Dolls draws virtually all of its oomph from its own onstage presence.  It's not that the audience isn't on board and enjoying the ride -- far from it -- but the energy that drives this production is essentially self-sustaining.  And while this is far from a bad thing (overall, it's an indication that the show has been and will be consistently superb from its first to its final performance), it's a marked contrast to much of the Festival's other recent work.

Mind you, I'd still have liked to see Pericles Prince of Tyre, the rarely-produced Shakespeare play running opposite Guys & Dolls in the Festival's black box theatre that day.  But the show I did see was a six-stars-out-of-five production of a first-rate musical classic, and that's an experience absolutely worth having.
djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)
Strictly speaking, in one respect I am totally the wrong target audience for Head Over Heels, as prior to viewing this musical I couldn't have told you that the Go-Gos were, in fact, a genuine (and highly successful) '80s rock group.  Nor, despite having been the archetypical liberal arts English major back in the day, had I taken more than a passing glance at any of the versions of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia.  And if you'd told me that someone had decided to fuse the Arcadia and a whole catalog of Go-Gos music into a rock musical, I'd probably have asked you what you were smoking.

I am now here to tell you that someone has done exactly this, and that the result is, to apply an over-used but apt modern superlative, awesome -- and I use that term in its classic sense, of "something which inspires awe".  I should add that where theater is concerned, I am not easy to awe.  Specifically, the librettist for Head Over Heels is Jeff Whitty, perhaps best known as the father of the Tony-winning Avenue Q, which may go some way toward explaining why this show actually works.

I'm not even going to try to explain the plot (such as it is), except to observe that it is (a) in the broad general neighborhood of Shakespeare's more convoluted comedies and late romances -- it is perhaps not a coincidence that OSF is also producing Pericles Prince of Tyre this year -- and (b) also in the broad general neighborhood of the two stage adaptations of classic Marx Brothers movies OSF has produced recently.  What's of greater importance is the degree to which the show doesn't merely play with the metaphorical "fourth wall", but gleefully tunnels right through it into the audience.  And that's no metaphor -- John Tufts, as a classic Shakespeare-league Fool crossed with the Leading Player in Pippin (and this show's nominal master of ceremonies), spent part of the intermission strolling through the house, plopping briefly down in one of the best seats in the theater while talking casually to various audience members.  At least half the cast began the evening by stationing themselves at intervals throughout the aisles several minutes before curtain time; I realized this when I looked up from my playbill, noticed an eight-foot pool of purple skirt stretched across the concrete behind me, and realized that the animated (and entirely off-the-cuff) conversation I'd been overhearing from the next row back was taking place between one lady in the aisle seat and one of the principal female players.

And it only got wilder from there.  When curtain time did arrive, Tufts strode out to center stage and introduced himself -- both as himself and as his character -- then went on to do the same for several of the leading performers.  Then there was the Oracle of Delphi, who admitted that her gift of prophecy was made possible because she was reading ahead in the script.  (Yes, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem got there first in the original Muppet Movie, but Whitty and the Oracle -- later to be known as Linda -- promote the shtick from an amusing throwaway gag to a key plot and thematic point near the climax.)

What prompts the occurrence of awe, though, is that all of the Shakespeare-grade romantic foolery (including lots of gender-bending) and fourth-wall insanity is wrapped in a 24-karat Rock Musical soundtrack.  As I noted earlier, this was my very first encounter with Go-Gos music, and while '80s girl-group rock is not at all my usual beat, it was impossible not to be drawn in by the energy and vigor of the songs.  My only frustration is that the enthusiasm of the orchestra occasionally overrode the vocals during musical numbers, making it difficult to make out lyrics, but that was only an intermittent issue.

Verdict?  If you are a fan of any one subset of the source material (Whitty, Philip Sidney, Shakespearean comedy, rock musicals, etc.), this is a must-see.  And there may be a bonus bit of off-the-wall resonance for the genre-fiction fans in the gallery.  It occurs to me that Head Over Heels -- and the Go-Gos sound -- blends '80s rock and fantastical elements in a way that fans of Seanan McGuire's music may find especially appealing.  And in the reverse context, one of the more memorable performances in the show -- the role of Princess Pamela -- comes from actress Bonnie Milligan, whom I'd argue is a passable ringer for Seanan....

djonn: (woods)
[curses oversensitive post-nuking netbook keyboard]

[deep breath]

Now then.  This was the first of two world-premiere productions we saw on Saturday.  Sweat is written by Lynn Nottage, and concerns a handful of industrial plant workers in Reading, PA as they deal with upper management's efforts to break the union.  There are two mothers, each with a son, one with an ex-husband, plus the bartender and busboy at the tavern where they hang out after work.  Most of the action takes place in 2000 (the date being tied to the ratification of the NAFTA trade agreement), but there's a framing element that occurs eight years later.

As the summary may suggest, the script's political slant is about as subtle as King Kong climbing the Empire State Building.  That said, Nottage's real story lies less in the politics -- however strenuously tilted -- and more in the tensions that arise when well-intentioned people make choices that force them into unwanted opposition to one another.  One conflict arises when one mother is promoted to a low-level management position both have been fighting for...and is promptly forced to help implement an anti-union lockout against her friends.  Another occurs when the Hispanic busboy takes a strikebreaker's job at the plant (the pay, unsurprisingly, being far better than his busboy's wage), thereby angering both of the locked-out sons.  Strong performances all around make it clear that none of these characters want to be at odds, but are propelled by circumstance into confrontations from which feel unable to back away.  I'm not sure how well this show might hold up in the hands of a less talented company, but for OSF, it's a compelling if uncomfortable presentation, executed thoughtfully and with conscience.

djonn: (raven)
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.
djonn: (raven)
Back from our annual pilgrimage to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival -- as usual, well-stuffed with (mostly) very good theater.

First up this year was Richard III, a solid traditional production on the Elizabethan outdoor stage, with the bonus that Richard was/is played by fellow Whitman College graduate Dan Donohue. Dan graciously appeared after the performance at our tour group's discussion meeting to talk about the show.  I very much liked Dan's Richard -- played with a dry, self-assured charm and no prosthetics (the appearance of a withered, useless left arm was entirely physical trickery).  Others in the group correctly pointed out the strength of the female roles in this production -- amusingly, it turns out that Richard III, at least in this staging, easily passes the Bechdel test.

Next we had The Tempest, staged in the Bowmer theater on a spare but ingenious set (we learned later that some of the players referred to it as "the Dorito chip").  Everyone was very impressed with Miranda and Ferdinand, as well as with the rude comics and Caliban and with some of the clever special effects and props employed by Ariel. The major disagreement was over Prospero, played by Festival veteran Denis Arndt. I was greatly underwhelmed by what I saw as a weak imitation of Dumbledore or Gandalf, too much the kindly grandparent with no real gravitas, out of step with the rest of the production; our group's faculty guide thought Arndt did a good job of making Prospero accessible.  (Judging purely by the audience murmurs I heard on the way out of the theater, the "underwhelmed" crowd was in the majority.)

The group's third show was The Comedy of Errors in the Thomas theater (the newest, smallest performance space), which I am told may have been the strongest Shakespeare play of the weekend.  I skipped out on this, however, in favor of the Festival's brand new adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Excellent Shakespeare notwithstanding, I'm very glad I did. On one hand, I have a number of reservations about the structure and design of the script; OTOH, the execution was mostly very good indeed, with a number of excellent performances (including Tempest's Miranda as Meg Murry and Dan Donohue as her father).  I will likely have more to say about this eventually, but it is a fascinating if flawed adaptation, and worth the viewing.

Sunday brought The Great Society and Two Gentlemen of Verona.  The former is the direct sequel to the Tony-winning All the Way, chronicling President Lyndon Johnson's second term in office, his struggles with Vietnam War policy, and his clashes with Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.  It's a powerful show with many superb performances, and moves briskly through its 3+ hour running time; whatever one's personal politics may be, this is a compelling drama and a thoughtful look at the history of that time.

By contrast, Two Gentlemen is mild-mannered and understated, perhaps this season's most conservative Shakespeare...except that it's presented by an all-female cast (well, almost all female; I believe that Picasso, the gorgeous and very patient St. Pyrenees dog playing Crab, may be a male).  Interestingly, the production makes no changes whatever to Shakespeare's language; it's simply that many of the women are playing male roles just as young men in Elizabethan times would have played the female roles -- and the staging pretty much ignores this, just as an Elizabethan cast would have ignored the reverse anomaly originally.  This got mixed reactions from our group; many viewers wanted more overt nods to one or another feminist sensibility.  My feeling is that that's a no-win scenario, and that the director's choice to play the script as straight as possible is the best possible way to show how timeless Shakespeare's stories really are -- even in what's regarded as one of his weakest plays.  I liked the production a great deal and thought it made a good conclusion to the weekend.

djonn: (butterfly)

I know, I know, I'm one of the last three people in the whole world to have seen Frozen...but at least I caught it a few hours before it picked up its Oscars.  Some thoughts:

In general, it's an impressive film, and it's definitely in the upper tier of modern-era Disney animated features.  I don't think it quite reaches the topmost tier alongside Beauty & the Beast, but it's a solid companion piece to Tangled and Brave and more of a traditional musical than either of those.  One online comment I scanned earlier today referred to the movie as "Wicked Light" -- which is both an apt characterization and a very good reason for Disney to be developing a stage version.

The opening setup sequences are troubling in a couple of respects.  First, I need a second look at the initial sequence between the sisters' parents and the rock troll elder. While the trolls are ultimately portrayed as benign, the elder's blocking of Anna's memories is a key catalyst for the subsequent crisis -- which is a trifle disconcerting when we eventually see the trolls again.  The second catalyst is the late King's and Queen's spectacular failure to follow up on the elder's advice that Elsa must learn to control her powers; rather, they reinforce Elsa's choice to try and suppress them instead.  The parents' deaths are also peculiar. Their passing is decidedly convenient for the plot, and -- amazingly -- causes no political upheaval whatsoever in Arendelle.  It's unclear how much time elapses between the deaths and Elsa's coronation, but I had the definite sense that Elsa wasn't old enough to take the crown immediately.  Yet we see nothing about a regency council or royal advisors, and no one objects when Anna puts a wholly foreign noble in charge of the kingdom while she goes after Elsa.  This is...odd at best.

The other scene I want to see again is Anna's initial dockside meeting with Prince Hans. Despite having waited 15 weeks to see Frozen, I had managed to avoid being spoiled for Hans' character arc, and I entirely failed to anticipate the twist he springs on newly  white-haired Anna on her return to the palace. One key reason for this involves the last few moments of that first meeting, in which Hans' horse drops him into the fjord...and even though Anna is no longer there, the bit is played purely for its comic effect, with no change in the tenor of Hans' reaction.  It's a very sneaky fake-out, and I'm not sure whether to compliment the creative team for its deviousness or chastise them for essentially cheating viewers with regard to the scene's true context.  In the end, Hans emerges as one of Disney animation's creepiest villains (offhand, I'd rate only Frollo of the much-underrated Hunchback of Notre Dame as nastier), in which light it's unnerving that he's also one of the few who survives mostly unscathed by film's end.

The preceding reservations notwithstanding, I enjoyed the movie very much. The animators do their usual brilliant work with the various sidekick characters, the deliberate winks at fairy-tale convention are clever -- clearly, both sisters have seen Enchanted, the film that introduces the phrase "true love's kiss" to the Disney canon -- and the chemistry between Kristen Bell's Anna and Idina Menzel's Elsa is charming throughout.  (It may be just me, but I also find it amusing that both actresses were cast against type: the blonde is playing a brunette, while the brunette is playing a blonde.)

My overall grade: B+ (A for voice performances, A for visuals, B for music, C+ for script/story).  Not quite a classic, but a very respectable effort.

djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)
For all that Ashland audiences are often very, very theater-literate, in recent years they’ve become absurdly generous when it comes to standing ovations.  At least in theatrical circles (as opposed to TV game-show studios, for instance), a standing ovation should reflect truly exceptional accomplishment, should recognize performances at the very pinnacle of the theatrical experience.  In short, they ought to be rare.  If every show gets a standing ovation every night, the worth of the honor decreases.  (The Heart of Robin Hood got one earlier in the weekend; as entertaining as the show was, it did not deserve it.)

This past evening’s performance of My Fair Lady also got a standing ovation – which was, for once, entirely and unequivocally deserved.  The production and the performance really were and are that exceptional, and Amanda Dehnert (credited as both stage and music director) deserves full marks for conceiving and assembling a truly memorable experience.

What’s perhaps most striking about this staging is its intimacy.  The set is, essentially, a theatrical rehearsal hall, its rear occupied with a few rows of metal bleachers with a pair of grand pianos set in front of them, and the ensemble is, in effect, portraying a cast of actors engaged in a run-through of the show they’ve been hired to perform.  This does not preclude occasionally elaborate costuming and choreography, but it constrains it to an intriguing and surprisingly effective degree.  Two violinists, both also part of the acting ensemble (and one a high-school-aged student performer, every bit as polished as anyone in the company), are the only complement to the pianists, but this cast doesn’t need more complex orchestration to drive the familiar score and songs.

The two leads – Jonathan Haugen as Professor Higgins and Rachael Warren as Eliza – are both outstanding on all points; in particular, if the only Higgins you’ve seen is Rex Harrison, having a skilled vocalist in the role is a revelation.  Understudy Dee Maaske was wonderfully warm as Prof. Higgins’ mother, and Ken Robinson as Freddy rightfully steals every scene he’s in.  But this production belongs as much to its ensemble as it does to its leads, and there is no moment when it’s less than captivating, from the pre-opening minutes wherein members of the ensemble are going through physical warm-ups on the set to the final moment between Higgins and Eliza, hauntingly staged halfway up the stairs alongside the audience.

I’ve been attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for almost four decades now, which is long enough both to get used to OSF’s high standards for both creative and technical craft and to get a little jaded about that standard.  But I can honestly say that My Fair Lady is among the very best and most memorable shows I’ve seen in that long series of summer tours.  This one’s not just worth the price of the theater ticket, it justifies the travel expense, the hotel room, and the best dinner you can find in town.
djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)

For all that Ashland audiences are often very, very theater-literate, in recent years they’ve become absurdly generous when it comes to standing ovations.  At least in theatrical circles (as opposed to TV game-show studios, for instance), a standing ovation should reflect truly exceptional accomplishment, should recognize performances at the very pinnacle of the theatrical experience.  In short, they ought to be rare.  If every show gets a standing ovation every night, the worth of the honor decreases.  (The Heart of Robin Hood got one earlier in the weekend; as entertaining as the show was, it did not deserve it.)

This past evening’s performance of My Fair Lady also got a standing ovation – which was, for once, entirely and unequivocally deserved.  The production and the performance really were and are that exceptional, and Amanda Dehnert (credited as both stage and music director) deserves full marks for conceiving and assembling a truly memorable experience.

What’s perhaps most striking about this staging is its intimacy.  The set is, essentially, a theatrical rehearsal hall, its rear occupied with a few rows of metal bleachers with a pair of grand pianos set in front of them, and the ensemble is, in effect, portraying a cast of actors engaged in a run-through of the show they’ve been hired to perform.  This does not preclude occasionally elaborate costuming and choreography, but it constrains it to an intriguing and surprisingly effective degree.  Two violinists, both also part of the acting ensemble (and one a high-school-aged student performer, every bit as polished as anyone in the company), are the only complement to the pianists, but this cast doesn’t need more complex orchestration to drive the familiar score and songs.

The two leads – Jonathan Haugen as Professor Higgins and Rachael Warren as Eliza – are both outstanding on all points; in particular, if the only Higgins you’ve seen is Rex Harrison, having a skilled vocalist in the role is a revelation.  Understudy Dee Maaske was wonderfully warm as Prof. Higgins’ mother, and Ken Robinson as Freddy rightfully steals every scene he’s in.  But this production belongs as much to its ensemble as it does to its leads, and there is no moment when it’s less than captivating, from the pre-opening minutes wherein members of the ensemble are going through physical warm-ups on the set to the final moment between Higgins and Eliza, hauntingly staged halfway up the stairs alongside the audience.

I’ve been attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for almost four decades now, which is long enough both to get used to OSF’s high standards for both creative and technical craft and to get a little jaded about that standard.  But I can honestly say that My Fair Lady is among the very best and most memorable shows I’ve seen in that long series of summer tours.  This one’s not just worth the price of the theater ticket, it justifies the travel expense, the hotel room, and the best dinner you can find in town.

djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)
Where issues of sexual politics are concerned, this production of Shrew unabashedly takes its cue from Lucy Van Pelt’s perpetual duel with Charlie Brown – no matter how many times the offer is extended, nobody ever gets to kick that football.  For modern viewers, the text raises the issue over and over – and the present version executes it crisply and energetically, neither apologizing for it nor using stage business to undercut the dialogue.  Which isn’t, in the end, an unreasonable choice.  An honest rendering of Shakespeare’s text, after all, puts fewer barriers and complications in the way as viewers grapple with the play’s take on marriage and women’s issues, letting the play speak more or less for itself.

While the production nominally retains the play’s Italian setting, the specific rendering gives us a mid-20th century carnival boardwalk, complete with neon, primary-colored signs (“Welcome to Padua”), and a fast-food counter complete with roll-down steel curtain.  There’s also an onstage rock band cranking up musical energy, and the performances are similarly tuned – Kate (Nell Geisslinger) is the brunette Bad Girl, while Bianca  (Royer Bockus) is the squeaky-voiced blonde.  Ted Deasy’s Petruchio mixes more than a bit of Happy Days’ Fonzie with a touch of Elvis and a dash of Evil Knievel, aptly conveying the character’s self-assurance.

The show’s one direct nod to modern cultural sensibilities is the casting of African-American actors Wayne T. Carr and Tyrone Wilson as Lucentio and his father Vincentio, the former Bianca’s love interest; the players take just enough note of this to add texture to the play’s own comic potential without relying on undue stereotype.  There are a handful of other period-related anomalies, one involving Kentucky Fried Chicken and another involving a wickedly funny dueling-video moment between rival suitors Hortensio and Gremio (I’m fairly sure “Let’s zoom in just a skosh, shall we?” isn’t in the original Shakespeare), but for the most part the atmosphere is solidly grounded.

And it’s really a combination of that atmosphere and an emphasis on plot that drives this production, rather than character chemistry.  It isn’t that Deasy and Geisslinger lack chemistry; it’s simply that here, it’s the serial courtship of Kate and Bianca that gets the greatest focus, so that the show is more of an ensemble piece than one often finds in productions of Shrew.  You’ll find more thoughtful stagings than this one, but few with greater overall energy or brisker pacing.  I don't know if this is a genuinely stellar production, but it's certainly a solid and watchable one.
djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)

Where issues of sexual politics are concerned, this production of Shrew unabashedly takes its cue from Lucy Van Pelt’s perpetual duel with Charlie Brown – no matter how many times the offer is extended, nobody ever gets to kick that football.  For modern viewers, the text raises the issue over and over – and the present version executes it crisply and energetically, neither apologizing for it nor using stage business to undercut the dialogue.  Which isn’t, in the end, an unreasonable choice.  An honest rendering of Shakespeare’s text, after all, puts fewer barriers and complications in the way as viewers grapple with the play’s take on marriage and women’s issues, letting the play speak more or less for itself.

While the production nominally retains the play’s Italian setting, the specific rendering gives us a mid-20th century carnival boardwalk, complete with neon, primary-colored signs (“Welcome to Padua”), and a fast-food counter complete with roll-down steel curtain.  There’s also an onstage rock band cranking up musical energy, and the performances are similarly tuned – Kate (Nell Geisslinger) is the brunette Bad Girl, while Bianca  (Royer Bockus) is the squeaky-voiced blonde.  Ted Deasy’s Petruchio mixes more than a bit of Happy Days’ Fonzie with a touch of Elvis and a dash of Evil Knievel, aptly conveying the character’s self-assurance.  The show’s one direct nod to modern cultural sensibilities is the casting of African-American actors Wayne T. Carr and Tyrone Wilson as Lucentio and his father Vincentio, the former Bianca’s love interest; the players take just enough note of this to add texture to the play’s own comic potential without relying on undue stereotype.  There are a handful of other period-related anomalies, one involving Kentucky Fried Chicken and another involving a wickedly funny dueling-video moment between rival suitors Hortensio and Gremio (I’m fairly sure “Let’s zoom in just a skosh, shall we?” isn’t in the original Shakespeare), but for the most part the atmosphere is solidly grounded.

And it’s really a combination of that atmosphere and an emphasis on plot that drives this production, rather than character chemistry.  It isn’t that Deasy and Geisslinger lack chemistry; it’s simply that here, it’s the serial courtship of Kate and Bianca that gets the greatest focus, so that the show is more of an ensemble piece than one often finds in productions of Shrew.  You’ll find more thoughtful stagings than this one, but few with greater overall energy or brisker pacing.  I don't know that this is a genuinely stellar production, but it's a solid and watchable one.

djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)
With the possible exception of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (not on our tour schedule this weekend), The Heart of Robin Hood is probably the most purely entertaining production in the summer’s eleven-play repertory.  Which is mostly a good thing – except that it’s a highly entertaining production of a severely schizophrenic script.  Almost none of the flaws can really be laid at OSF’s door, but they’re enough to take the show from being an unalloyed winner to a watchable yet troubling success.

The Festival’s promotion makes clear one point that the title does not: properly, this is really more Marion’s show than it is Robin’s.  In this light, David Farr’s script – billed as a US premiere – is an entirely apt fit for Ashland’s Elizabethan stage. Our heroine, faced with an unwanted marriage orchestrated by her guardian, flees to Sherwood Forest and adopts boy’s disguise, first in hopes of joining Robin Hood’s band and then – when Robin proves less heroic than anticipated – in the service of a career as his more charity-minded rival.  Kate Hurster is entirely winning as both Marion and “Martin”, but John Tufts misses his mark slightly as Robin.  Tufts’ over-gruff accent gives the characterization a shade too much seriousness, which cuts into the comedic chemistry between Robin and Marion.

Also problematic is the villainous Prince John, played with oily enthusiasm by Michael Elich.  The performance itself is ably executed, but Elich is hampered by a script that sometimes calls for melodramatic mustache-twirling (as in John’s early courtship of Marion), sometimes for genteel theatrical evil (“why yes, I am staging a revolt against my older brother”), and sometimes for outright sociopathic nastiness (a threat to hang two hundred innocent children).  John’s motivation’s and true character are never made clear, nor does the script quite make up its mind whether he’s a proper evil genius or merely – as his final scene suggests – a mere Malvolio with delusions of competence.

Fortunately for viewers, and despite a minor excess of subplots, the production mostly emphasizes both physical and verbal comedy over the darker elements.  In particular, Tanya Thai McBride gives a wonderfully animated physical and vocal performance as a dog named Plug, who steals most of the scenes in which she appears.  The staging can’t entirely get around the script problems, which make the show just creepy enough that I’d hesitate to recommend it for kids under eleven or twelve.  But warts and all, it’s still a lively and often very funny evening, even if it’s nowhere near being a definitive treatment of the Robin Hood legend.
djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)
An interesting start to our weekend in Ashland this year: this summer, the wildfires in southern Oregon and far northern California have been unusually fierce – and the weather has been just exactly right to cause the air quality in the Ashland area to become unusually ghastly.  As a result, evening performances on the outdoor Elizabethan stage had been cancelled for the three nights just prior to our arrival.  Fortunately, matters improved markedly on Friday, and the scheduled presentation of Cymbeline went on as planned.

From a literary standpoint, Cymbeline is a tricky and difficult play – it’s perhaps the least known of the late cluster of Shakespeare’s romances, and the plot is unusually convoluted.  There’s a political thread (Britain is resisting a Roman demand for tribute), a family-betrayal thread (the princess’s wicked stepmother is trying to have both the princess and her would-be love interest murdered, and a sizeable number of other royal relatives have gone missing under assorted peculiar circumstances), and a more or less romantic thread (the princess escapes, disguises herself as a boy, and has a series of adventures before being reunited with her true love).  And there is a good deal of side action bridging and framing the three major plots.

The present production more or less turns this into a briskly paced action yarn with liberal dashes of black comedy and soap-operatic melodrama.  In a year where the Festival is also producing King Lear, this is arguably a good idea; there’s a lot of room to go very dark with Cymbeline, given what the script does to Imogen (the above-mentioned princess), but here we get something that owes more to Grimm and early Buffy the Vampire Slayer than it does to the television version of Game of Thrones.  And I’m not making these references idly; the production introduces light but overt supernatural elements into the staging, and the set design combines with some very impressive lighting wizardry to give the production a decidedly mythic flavor.

The performances are uniformly good if rarely spectacular; my favorites in this show are Al Espinosa as Cloten, who plays his villain with cheerful vigor, Dawn Lyen-Gardner as Imogen, who wins points for not overplaying her heroine, and Jack Willis as Roman general Caius Lucius, who takes Imogen under his wing (while she’s disguised as the boy Fidele).  Festival veteran Howie Seago gets the title role of Cymbeline, and the production does the Festival’s usual thoughtful and skillfully executed job of weaving Seago’s deafness into the fabric of the play.

All in all, this is a very good production if not a deep one…but again, in a year where it’s in rotation with an intensely staged King Lear (which we’ll be seeing next), the choice to play Cymbeline for melodrama is a reasonable one.  And as one of Shakespeare’s more rarely staged plays, it’s a show I can recommend catching if you visit Ashland this summer.
djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)

With the possible exception of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (not on our tour schedule this weekend), The Heart of Robin Hood is probably the most purely entertaining production in the summer’s eleven-play repertory.  Which is mostly a good thing – except that it’s a highly entertaining production of a severely schizophrenic script.  Almost none of the flaws can really be laid at OSF’s door, but they’re enough to take the show from being an unalloyed winner to a watchable yet troubling success.

The Festival’s promotion makes clear one point that the title does not: properly, this is really more Marion’s show than it is Robin’s.  In this light, David Farr’s script – billed as a US premiere – is an entirely apt fit for Ashland’s Elizabethan stage. Our heroine, faced with an unwanted marriage orchestrated by her guardian, flees to Sherwood Forest and adopts boy’s disguise, first in hopes of joining Robin Hood’s band and then – when Robin proves less heroic than anticipated – in the service of a career as his more charity-minded rival.  Kate Hurster is entirely winning as both Marion and “Martin”, but John Tufts misses his mark slightly as Robin.  Tufts’ over-gruff accent gives the characterization a shade too much seriousness, which cuts into the comedic chemistry between Robin and Marion.

Also problematic is the villainous Prince John, played with oily enthusiasm by Michael Elich.  The performance itself is ably executed, but Elich is hampered by a script that sometimes calls for melodramatic mustache-twirling (as in John’s early courtship of Marion), sometimes for genteel theatrical evil (“why yes, I am staging a revolt against my older brother”), and sometimes for outright sociopathic nastiness (a threat to hang two hundred innocent children).  John’s motivation’s and true character are never made clear, nor does the script quite make up its mind whether he’s a proper evil genius or merely – as his final scene suggests – a mere Malvolio with delusions of competence.

Fortunately for viewers, and despite a minor excess of subplots, the production mostly emphasizes both physical and verbal comedy over the darker elements.  In particular, Tanya Thai McBride gives a wonderfully animated physical and vocal performance as a dog named Plug, who steals most of the scenes in which she appears.  The staging can’t entirely get around the script problems, which make the show just creepy enough that I’d hesitate to recommend it for kids under eleven or twelve.  But warts and all, it’s still a lively and often very funny evening, even if it’s nowhere near being a definitive treatment of the Robin Hood legend.

djonn: Self-portrait, May 2025 (Default)

I’ve seen a good many Lears in the years we’ve been visiting Ashland – medieval and modern, spare and opulent, willful and wan.  But I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so accessible a King Lear as this year’s production.

Not coincidentally, this version is being staged in the Festival’s newest space – it’s finally been named the Thomas Theater, after several seasons of being called simply the “New Theater”.  It’s a small, highly reconfigurable black box – in this case, arranged in the round with just a few furnishings and props. But I’m not using “accessible” in its purely physical sense here, even though that’s part of the show’s success.  Nor am I thinking only of one of the Fool’s first scenes, in which a couple of audience members were briefly drawn into the stage business, though that’s part of it too.

Rather, this is perhaps the first iteration of Lear I’ve seen that seems to me to break unreservedly out of its Shakespearean shell and really connect with its audience on a personal level, irrespective of whether one is a theater buff, a Shakespeare scholar, or a literature geek.  The language is just as it’s always been, so it will satisfy loyalists, but the production as a whole assimilates the language and delivers a show that speaks more viscerally and directly than mere words can convey.

Two performances in particular drive the intimacy: Michael Winters (one of two actors alternating as Lear) is utterly compelling; he balances Shakespeare’s dialogue beautifully with a characterization of Lear that is at once vivid, powerful, and familiar – rarely will you see a Lear described as “charming”, but there are moments here where the word fits, and others where Winters’ delivery is as easy and conversational as you might hear around a card table at your neighborhood senior center.  And young Daisuke Tsuji is a bright, personable, and perceptive Fool, with all the energy of a street comic and the careful precision of a master sensei.  These two stand out among a uniformly excellent cast, and the staging is brisk and energetic, with performers ranging among the audience and into the rafters as the show progresses.  And for all its accessibility, the production doesn’t lose touch with the classic elements that make Lear one of Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedies.

Some of my drama-buff tourmates may disagree (we’ll find out later tonight), but I call this one of the best Lears I’ve seen, period, and not to be missed if the opportunity is available.


djonn: (crow)

An interesting start to our weekend in Ashland this year: this summer, the wildfires in southern Oregon and far northern California have been unusually fierce – and the weather has been just exactly right to cause the air quality in the Ashland area to become unusually ghastly.  As a result, evening performances on the outdoor Elizabethan stage had been cancelled for the three nights just prior to our arrival.  Fortunately, matters improved markedly on Friday, and the scheduled presentation of Cymbeline went on as planned.

From a literary standpoint, Cymbeline is a tricky and difficult play – it’s perhaps the least known of the late cluster of Shakespeare’s romances, and the plot is unusually convoluted.  There’s a political thread (Britain is resisting a Roman demand for tribute), a family-betrayal thread (the princess’s wicked stepmother is trying to have both the princess and her would-be love interest murdered, and a sizeable number of other royal relatives have gone missing under assorted peculiar circumstances), and a more or less romantic thread (the princess escapes, disguises herself as a boy, and has a series of adventures before being reunited with her true love).  And there is a good deal of side action bridging and framing the three major plots.

The present production more or less turns this into a briskly paced action yarn with liberal dashes of black comedy and soap-operatic melodrama.  In a year where the Festival is also producing King Lear, this is arguably a good idea; there’s a lot of room to go very dark with Cymbeline, given what the script does to Imogen (the above-mentioned princess), but here we get something that owes more to Grimm and early Buffy the Vampire Slayer than it does to the television version of Game of Thrones.  And I’m not making these references idly; the production introduces light but overt supernatural elements into the staging, and the set design combines with some very impressive lighting wizardry to give the production a decidedly mythic flavor.

The performances are uniformly good if rarely spectacular; my favorites in this show are Al Espinosa as Cloten, who plays his villain with cheerful vigor, Dawn Lyen-Gardner as Imogen, who wins points for not overplaying her heroine, and Jack Willis as Roman general Caius Lucius, who takes Imogen under his wing (while she’s disguised as the boy Fidele).  Festival veteran Howie Seago gets the title role of Cymbeline, and the production does the Festival’s usual thoughtful and skillfully executed job of weaving Seago’s deafness into the fabric of the play.

All in all, this is a very good production if not a deep one…but again, in a year where it’s in rotation with an intensely staged King Lear (which we’ll be seeing next), the choice to play Cymbeline for melodrama is a reasonable one.  And as one of Shakespeare’s more rarely staged plays, it’s a show I can recommend catching if you visit Ashland this summer.
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