Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare Adapted and Directed by Penny Metropulos Music  by Sterling Tinsley Lyrics by Penny Metropulos and Sterling Tinsley. Additional lyrics by Linda Alper. Oregon Shakespeare Festival has a affinity for breakthrough productions of Comedy.  In 2004 Bill Rauch set the play in Las Vegas with one set of twins sporting New Jersey accents and the other sounding Texan. Strip cocktail waitresses swirled through the audience at intermission.  This year, OSF upped the creative ante and not only moved the set to the mythical wild west, they also adapted the play [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Othello by William Shakespeare Words, words, words!  Othello (Peter Macon, pictured left) and Iago (Dan Donohue, pictured right) made me feel like they each had too many of those damn multisyllabic chores to get through before they were allowed to go offstage and do something else. There was one wordy speech after another.   You know the kind: they’re loaded with big rhyming Shakespeare words.  Good-for-you and opaque. Othello starts off on full-tilt loud ranting pitch which Macon maintains for nearly every scene and utterance.  Donohue is quieter, more controlled, and clearer. But, he is also always [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Our Town by Thornton Wilder When you decide to present a well-known, quality chestnut, you’re declaring that you either have a fresh vision or else you’re going to new heights in production standards.  Hurtling above raised expectations is the stock in trade of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with its schedule of Shakespeare and other plays that everyone has seen from high school on.  OSF also shares new perspectives on tired war horses many times a season. Unfortunately, this edition of Our Town is neither innovative nor Tony Award material.  It’s a technically competent production [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner by Luis Alfaro A discussion of this performance needs be brief.  The reviewer shouldn't put more effort into the recap than the play writer did into his creation. This wandering, pointless story is told with juvenile simplicity, no character development, and plenty of sophomoric words coming out of the mouths of inconsistent characters.  Worse, director Tracy Young apparently didn't bother to read the play since her playbill synopsis referred to both themes and details which were not present in the offal delivered to the audience.  Her failure to latch on to any coherent narrative [...]

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller Most plays in theaters today are snappy, fast-faced reactions to the enveloping, careful productions of the mid-1900's.  They're not stodgy, not slow. We recognize what they are telling us through shared shortcut symbolism.  I appreciate their directness and focus on their themes.They reflect our times But, seeing them had made me forget the rich language, dialog, characterization, and the details of everyday life in Arthur Miller at his best.  And, this production of A View from the Bridge is two and a half hours of classic slice-of-life [...]