Ashland in Photos
New pics documenting the recent excursion to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, now in the appropriately-named Ashland08 scrapbook. Link to gallery: http://pics.livejournal.com/greyjoy/ . Fellow LJers pjtanton and mudcactus , as well as friends who don't do this online journaling thing, joined me for the trip.
Thumbnail play reviews:
Othello - Powerful, stark, savage, revealing. Minimalist staging and clever lighting helped illuminate the dark recesses of flawed humanity in Shakespeare's great kitchen sink tragedy. Iago's icy, obsessive evil dominated the cast and usually-comic Christopher Duval brought unexpected sympathy to the minor role of Rodrigo.
A Midsummer Night's Dream - I thought I'd seen my favorite staging of this perennial favorite already at OSF, but I was wrong. The 1970s staging threw me momentarily, but it worked beautifully and surprisingly so. The Cyndi- Lauper-like Titania and her New Wave-Punk faerie boys were charming, the East-Jersey-born quintet of players in their Mystery-Machine-like VW-microbus were inspired.
A Comedy of Errors - Knowing that this was "a musical adaptation" of the play didn't prevent me from feeling very dissatisfied with what ammounts to a simplification of what is already a very simple story.
Next year: the Scottish play!
Thumbnail play reviews:
Othello - Powerful, stark, savage, revealing. Minimalist staging and clever lighting helped illuminate the dark recesses of flawed humanity in Shakespeare's great kitchen sink tragedy. Iago's icy, obsessive evil dominated the cast and usually-comic Christopher Duval brought unexpected sympathy to the minor role of Rodrigo.
A Midsummer Night's Dream - I thought I'd seen my favorite staging of this perennial favorite already at OSF, but I was wrong. The 1970s staging threw me momentarily, but it worked beautifully and surprisingly so. The Cyndi- Lauper-like Titania and her New Wave-Punk faerie boys were charming, the East-Jersey-born quintet of players in their Mystery-Machine-like VW-microbus were inspired.
A Comedy of Errors - Knowing that this was "a musical adaptation" of the play didn't prevent me from feeling very dissatisfied with what ammounts to a simplification of what is already a very simple story.
Next year: the Scottish play!