Dangerous Common Sense

“The Way the Mountain Moved” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

By Galen|2018-09-26T09:16:04-07:00September 25, 2018|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Way the Mountain Moved by Idris Goodwin directed by May Adrales Julian Remulla, Maddy Flemming, Sara Bruner, Al Espinosa. Photo by Jenny Graham. This American Revolutions OSF commissioned play earns a star for its attempt at dealing with a complex subject and another for the quality of the acting; there's nothing given for any actual quality of the play. The Way's major faults are glaring: The theme of Bad, Insensitive Interlopers taking over the Native American/wild lands is hammered home without redeeming subtlety. The play is embarrassingly unedited. There are several decent [...]

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Trying to Get Comfortable – Day 2 at 1:45 pm

By Galen|2018-10-01T18:58:13-07:00September 25, 2018|dachshunds|

A day for vigilance, or how to act like nervous grandparents. Our major concern at the moment is that Zenith ate only a breakfast of boiled chicken breast at about 7 and has refused more, refused more with rice, refused more with rice and chicken broth. She also has moments of whining and nervousness, moving the puppies further back in the whelping box, especially if both Geoffrey and I are in the room at the same time. The puppies seem fine. The girl continues to nap on a nipple and wakes to nurishment. We worry that the boy stays on [...]

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Zenith’s Puppies — Day One

By Galen|2018-09-24T22:49:29-07:00September 24, 2018|dachshunds|

Zenith's C-Section at Bishop Ranch was on schedule and had happy results. At 2:02 this afternoon a girl was born, followed about a minute later by a smaller, darker boy. Dr. Janice Cain and her team were reassuring, warm, professional, and kept us all healthy and sane. Bringing the Puppy to her first Towelling It's now 10:15 at night and we are all home and settled down a bit. Zenith and the girls are in with Geoffrey in the television room. The heat is on to a cozy 75 degrees. Zenith is in the whelping box, and most [...]

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“The Book of Will” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

By Galen|2018-09-09T06:34:03-07:00September 9, 2018|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Book of Will by Lauren M. Gunderson directed by Christopher Liam Moore "Masturbation is loads of fun," sing Romanovsky and Phillips, and the Book of Will is loads of fun. It's a truly enjoyable evening for theater aficionados and Shakespeare cognoscente. Excellent fun. Self-indulgent, self-centered, masturbatory theater fun. The "play" is a cover to allow extremely fine actors to deliver some of the best lines of Shakespeare, one after another, from productions unrelated except that they share an author. Kate Hurster, David Kelly, Kevin Kenerly, Jeffrey King. Photo by Jenny Graham. The Book of [...]

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Snow in Midsummer

By Galen|2018-09-07T19:55:21-07:00September 7, 2018|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Snow in Midsummer By Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig Based on the Play The Injustice to Dou Yi That Moved Heaven and Earth by Guan Hanqing Directed by Justin Audibert Snow in Midsummer may be the best production of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival season. It certainly is the best production most likely to be overlooked by old-chestnut-seeking, casual theater goers. One reason Snow is a candidate for audience neglect is that it's a new play that hasn't been vetted by Broadway. Another reason is that the publicity for Snow makes it sound intellectual and good-for-you. You learn that [...]

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Oklahoma!

By Galen|2018-07-15T09:56:21-07:00July 15, 2018|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Oklahoma Music by Richard Rodgers Book & Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II Based on the Play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs Original Dances by Agnes de Mille Directed by Bill Rauch Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been workshopping and mulling over this production of Oklahoma for five years, according to cast member Barzin Akhavan (playing Ali Hakim) when he spoke at a coffee in April. OSF's dream was to create an Oklahoma! with non-standard gender roles throughout the territory. Will Parker (Jordan Barbour) is hot for Ado Andy (Jonathan Luke Stevens) and Curly (a definitely [...]

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Repeating Today’s Big Lie,
or Defending Sessions’ and Trump’s Policy Separating Families

By Galen|2018-06-20T12:44:00-07:00June 20, 2018|philippic, Politics|

This week's uproar on separating children from their asylum-seeking parents unpleasantly confirms how far apart on basic morality we are in this country. To me, my Trump-approving friends ignore the imperative of the urgent human needs of the asylum seekers and their young children. Instead, they cite instances where Democrats years ago may have broken up families of asylum seekers. They mention that the government imprisons criminals with young children, thereby breaking up those families, so Trump's policies aren't new. It's great misdirection. First, even if the statements were accurate, the comments simply make the argument that two (or three [...]

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Vietgone

By Galen|2018-04-03T10:22:49-07:00April 2, 2018|plays|

San Francisco, CA at the American Conservatory Theater, Strand Theater Extended through April 29, 2018 Vietgone by Qui Nguyen directed by Jaime Castañeda ACT advertising Vietgone as "The irreverent road-trip comedy" is almost sacrilegious. The categorization misses the depth, power, and cultural importance of this newish play. Anyone selling Vietgone as a mindless-sounding comedy rode the momentary surface story, ignoring the characters, context, and important human issue that makes Vietgone truly memorable. The strength of Vietgone is its suburb writing which hits the mark in storytelling, characterization, pace, and perspective. The playwright character (Jomar Tagatac) comes on stage in the opening scene to assure the [...]

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Henry V

By Galen|2018-03-05T20:02:55-08:00March 5, 2018|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Henry V Ensemble as Chorus. Photo by Jenny Graham. by William Shakespeare directed by Rosa Joshi Daniel José Molina (Henry V) and other cast members deliver many truly spectacular moments -- especially in Act II -- which make this Henry a must see. Unfortunately, Director Rosa Joshi's choices diminish the impact of the play itself and leaves the audience to appreciate master-class acting set in a confusion of activity. I think the audience is supposed to [endlessly] appreciate the turmoil and indiscriminate horrors of the machine of war. Toward that end, actors push [...]

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Sense and Sensibility

By Galen|2018-03-04T18:35:29-08:00March 3, 2018|osf, plays|

Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Sense and Sensibility Ensemble. Photo by Jenny Graham. by Jane Austen adapted by Kate Hamill directed by Hana S. Sharif This "updated adaption" is, in fact, a completely uninspired snoozefest of outdated manners humor unworthy of the acting talent and craft workers it wastes. We went into the performance expecting that S&S would be a frothy comedy. But, maybe our expectations were raised too high by the thought that it had been adapted to be more modern. But, whatever. It was not amusing enough to create a bubble of happiness, much less froth. If [...]

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