Oregon Shakespeare Festival - The Plays
There's a lot I want to write about our Ashland trip -- we had a great time. I plan on writing more about the specific trip itself later. This is just about the plays we saw.
If you're not interested in them, move along, nothing to see.
Pirates of Penzance
What a bit of fluff G & S wrote when they did this! Most famous for the patter song, "I am a modern Major General" "Pirates" makes no sense at all, the plot doesn't start until the second act, and it's so silly it makes Monty Python look like a bunch of tragedians.
Which, of course, means it's delightful.
This "Pirates" draws heavily from the Joseph Papp version starring Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. In fact, in a later post-interview for a different play, we heard from the actor, Michael Elich, who played the Pirate King, that he saw that performance and used his remembrance of it to infuse his lively, sexy, and delightful Pirate King with panache.
Directed by Bill Rauch, OSF's Creative Director, it's full of funny modern song insertions (which are meant to both amuse and reflect back to the original's having bits of opera inserted), wonderful satire (even if some of the satire doesn't mean quite as much as it once did), and it was just such a darn good time.
This was in the Elizabethan Theater. Watching it under the stars on a warm summer night, cheering as the OSF flag flying over the theater was replaced with *gasp* a pirate flag, was just delightful.
The OSF has a great page on their production, including (click through the tab) a lovely preview.
The African Company Presents Richard III
Choosing the second play was a tough call. We dithered back and forth between "Ghost Light", a history play based on the murder of Mayor Moscone, or "The African Company Presents Richard III," also a history play based on a piece of forgotten Shakespearean/NYC theater history.
Both looked extremely good. Ultimately, we settled on "The African Company." This link goes to a page giving in greater detail the history of The African Company, a group of freed and escaped slaves who put on the plays of Shakespeare for a brief period in NYC. It's well worth the read and an amazing piece of nearly lost history. I'm very glad to have seen the play.
The actors were phenomenal. I was particularly impressed with Peter Macon, who played Billie Brown the African Company's manager, and Charles Robinson, who played Papa Shakespeare, a griot and member of the company. Everyone was really good, but they were exceptional. The first act was wonderful -- it had some great scenes, and one scene that was truly masterful where Jimmy (who is the lead who plays Richard III) is working with Annie (who plays Anne) to get down the scene where Anne goes from grieving her husband and father to being wooed by Richard. It makes no sense to Annie. No woman would do that. Jimmy works with her, pulling experiences from their past as slaves, how you say one thing and do another because you have to, never seeing that Annie is falling in love with him. It's a deep, tender, funny, and human scene. Truly phenomenal. The play is littered with wonderful scenes like that that were a joy to experience.
The problem was that at the very end of the play, either the writer or the director turned the play from a finely tuned, nuanced piece with the characters carrying the message into, well, having the characters become just a mouthpiece for the message. And while the message is a great one, he could have gotten there by letting Jimmy and Billie and Annie and Sarah still be the wonderful nuanced characters they were.
It broke my heart a little to not know how things were going to work out between jimmy and Annie, which could have been resolved with just a touch of stage direction. But, I'm still glad we saw it. I'm very happy to have seen Peter Macon, an actor to watch for.
Included is a link and again, there's a preview. If you watch the preview you should know that the actor who played Pryce, the oily white impresario, is the same actor who played the Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance. :)
August: Osage County
There are some plays, some theater experiences, that you carry with you forever. August: Osage County is one of those. It won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and 2008 Tony winner. This play is simply transcendent. Mark commented as we exited the theater that this must be how people felt when they first saw a Tennessee Williams play. Yep, that kind of intensity.
Dark, no, that doesn't quite cover it. Emotionally exhausting, moving, shattering, and yet deeply funny, August: Osage County tells the story of a wounded family, so damaged that they can't show the kinds of emotion that most of us would consider "normal" let alone healthy. And yet, we can all recognize family members we have among them. Some of us more than others.
The role of Violet (to be played in the movie version by Meryl Streep, just set the Oscar aside for her now) is one of those amazing parts that actresses yearn for. Violet -- savage, funny, "truthful" by her lights, is more terrifying than Freddy Krueger ever will be. And if you know a Violet, well then, I feel for you.
The play is over 3 hours long. We dreaded that a little going in, but the time passes in a flash. We emerged from this shell-shocked, and headed off for a drink. It was indeed transcendent. I'd see it again in a heartbeat, and hope to, although it's grueling, yet very funny. No, really, we laughed a lot.
And I'd love to see a different director's intepretation, just to catch some different nuances to this astonishing play. Here's the link.
We intended to go see Henry IV part 2, but decided not to. August: Osage County was so amazing, we wanted to end on that high note. We're glad we did as we heard from other people on the way to the airport today that the Henry IV was mediocre. So I'm glad we missed it.
If you're not interested in them, move along, nothing to see.
Pirates of Penzance
What a bit of fluff G & S wrote when they did this! Most famous for the patter song, "I am a modern Major General" "Pirates" makes no sense at all, the plot doesn't start until the second act, and it's so silly it makes Monty Python look like a bunch of tragedians.
Which, of course, means it's delightful.
This "Pirates" draws heavily from the Joseph Papp version starring Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. In fact, in a later post-interview for a different play, we heard from the actor, Michael Elich, who played the Pirate King, that he saw that performance and used his remembrance of it to infuse his lively, sexy, and delightful Pirate King with panache.
Directed by Bill Rauch, OSF's Creative Director, it's full of funny modern song insertions (which are meant to both amuse and reflect back to the original's having bits of opera inserted), wonderful satire (even if some of the satire doesn't mean quite as much as it once did), and it was just such a darn good time.
This was in the Elizabethan Theater. Watching it under the stars on a warm summer night, cheering as the OSF flag flying over the theater was replaced with *gasp* a pirate flag, was just delightful.
The OSF has a great page on their production, including (click through the tab) a lovely preview.
The African Company Presents Richard III
Choosing the second play was a tough call. We dithered back and forth between "Ghost Light", a history play based on the murder of Mayor Moscone, or "The African Company Presents Richard III," also a history play based on a piece of forgotten Shakespearean/NYC theater history.
Both looked extremely good. Ultimately, we settled on "The African Company." This link goes to a page giving in greater detail the history of The African Company, a group of freed and escaped slaves who put on the plays of Shakespeare for a brief period in NYC. It's well worth the read and an amazing piece of nearly lost history. I'm very glad to have seen the play.
The actors were phenomenal. I was particularly impressed with Peter Macon, who played Billie Brown the African Company's manager, and Charles Robinson, who played Papa Shakespeare, a griot and member of the company. Everyone was really good, but they were exceptional. The first act was wonderful -- it had some great scenes, and one scene that was truly masterful where Jimmy (who is the lead who plays Richard III) is working with Annie (who plays Anne) to get down the scene where Anne goes from grieving her husband and father to being wooed by Richard. It makes no sense to Annie. No woman would do that. Jimmy works with her, pulling experiences from their past as slaves, how you say one thing and do another because you have to, never seeing that Annie is falling in love with him. It's a deep, tender, funny, and human scene. Truly phenomenal. The play is littered with wonderful scenes like that that were a joy to experience.
The problem was that at the very end of the play, either the writer or the director turned the play from a finely tuned, nuanced piece with the characters carrying the message into, well, having the characters become just a mouthpiece for the message. And while the message is a great one, he could have gotten there by letting Jimmy and Billie and Annie and Sarah still be the wonderful nuanced characters they were.
It broke my heart a little to not know how things were going to work out between jimmy and Annie, which could have been resolved with just a touch of stage direction. But, I'm still glad we saw it. I'm very happy to have seen Peter Macon, an actor to watch for.
Included is a link and again, there's a preview. If you watch the preview you should know that the actor who played Pryce, the oily white impresario, is the same actor who played the Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance. :)
August: Osage County
There are some plays, some theater experiences, that you carry with you forever. August: Osage County is one of those. It won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and 2008 Tony winner. This play is simply transcendent. Mark commented as we exited the theater that this must be how people felt when they first saw a Tennessee Williams play. Yep, that kind of intensity.
Dark, no, that doesn't quite cover it. Emotionally exhausting, moving, shattering, and yet deeply funny, August: Osage County tells the story of a wounded family, so damaged that they can't show the kinds of emotion that most of us would consider "normal" let alone healthy. And yet, we can all recognize family members we have among them. Some of us more than others.
The role of Violet (to be played in the movie version by Meryl Streep, just set the Oscar aside for her now) is one of those amazing parts that actresses yearn for. Violet -- savage, funny, "truthful" by her lights, is more terrifying than Freddy Krueger ever will be. And if you know a Violet, well then, I feel for you.
The play is over 3 hours long. We dreaded that a little going in, but the time passes in a flash. We emerged from this shell-shocked, and headed off for a drink. It was indeed transcendent. I'd see it again in a heartbeat, and hope to, although it's grueling, yet very funny. No, really, we laughed a lot.
And I'd love to see a different director's intepretation, just to catch some different nuances to this astonishing play. Here's the link.
We intended to go see Henry IV part 2, but decided not to. August: Osage County was so amazing, we wanted to end on that high note. We're glad we did as we heard from other people on the way to the airport today that the Henry IV was mediocre. So I'm glad we missed it.