Ashland 2011
We saw the following plays:
Love's Labours Lost
I generally enjoyed this when I saw it, but as I go to write about it up I can't think of very much good to say about it. OSF really needs to learn that foreigners with broad accents are not automatically funny. Also, the tonal shift at the end felt really abrupt to me, and not in a good way. (I suppose this is a problem with the play, but I think past versions of it that I've seen managed to navigate it better.)
I fundamentally do not buy the Elizabethan Theater as a venue for Shakespearean comedy. I've seen a few of them there over the last several years, and it feels to me like, even when they're successful, it's despite the space rather than because of it. LLL is worse than most in this regard, because its profusion of parallel but not quite identical characters are even more confusing when they're really far away. (Histories seem to do better, because of all the pageantry. I'm totally excited about seeing Henry V in the Elizabethan next year; As You Like It, not so much.)
Also, the teenagers who sat behind me are going to the Special Hell.
The Imaginary Invalid
There was apparently a nifty set for this, that we didn't get to see life-sized because the Boehmer theater is currently out of commission, so they did it in some random gym instead, with most of the audience on folding chairs.
Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun. It's actually a lot like Love's Labours Lost from some sort of structural standpoint (really goofy until an unexpectedly somber ending), but it worked better for me. Part of that is that I didn't actually know the somberness was coming, but I think part of it is that it genuinely did feel better set up by the rest of the play.
I'm not sure how much of Moliere's text actually survived; between the health-care reform jokes and the '60s-era pop, the play didn't feel 18th-century at all.
Measure for Measure
This was a weird, uncomfortable, slightly disjointed version of a weird, uncomfortable, slightly disjointed play. I loved it.
It was extremely modernized - I think the program notes set it in "the fictional city of Vienna, USA" or some such - with most of the characters played as Hispanic. (Shakespeare's Italianate names - because, as you know, Vienna is totally in Italy - converted pretty well into Hispanic ones.) The Duke was oldish and spent the whole play in a state of panic; Isabella was young, rather clueless, and pretty clearly didn't actually want to be a nun. Angelo was icy and amazing.
This was also in the backup location, but the maquette looked really spare so I don't think we missed much. In fact it actually felt appropriate to be doing it in a slightly improvised location.
Julius Caesar
This was done in the round, with almost no set, a smidgen of audience participation, all the characters except the big four doubled up, and indistinct but vaguely modern dress. They cast a really young-looking Cassius opposite a sort of elder-statesman-ish Brutus, which I thought was an interesting dynamic.
The casting looked pretty gender-blind; Caesar was cast as a woman (with Antony taking over most of Calpurnia's lines). I don't have a problem with this in principle, but it did make Portia's "I grant that I am a woman, but..." speech feel really weird.
They took the intermission at a place that felt weird to me (between Antony's speech over Caesar's body and Brutus's funeral oration), and there was a significant tonal shift between the two halves. The first half was energetic and brutal; the second half was quieter and almost elegaic (except for "lend me your ears", which felt more like the first half again). I really liked both halves, but I'm not quite sure they belonged to the same play.
Finally, I'm a big fan of the idea that Antony is the kind of person who would go into a quarterstaff fight barehanded and win anyway, while Octavian is the kind of person who would take a pistol to a quarterstaff fight.
The Pirates of Penzance
This was at least as goofy as it's supposed to be. They did a lot of musical interpolation of more modern stuff, which was fun most of the time but a little annoying on the one or two instances where it replaced Sullivan's music rather than adding to it. There was a bunch of fun puppetry -- mostly flying things like seagulls (in the first act) and bats (in the second).
Also, I'm not sure this was intentional, but I think this production was more clearly set in 1877 rather than 1873 than any other version of the play I've ever seen. Which admittedly isn't saying much -- the reason I think this is because Frederick started to sing "When I'm Sixty-Four" at one point (but didn't actually get to the title line).
Love's Labours Lost
I generally enjoyed this when I saw it, but as I go to write about it up I can't think of very much good to say about it. OSF really needs to learn that foreigners with broad accents are not automatically funny. Also, the tonal shift at the end felt really abrupt to me, and not in a good way. (I suppose this is a problem with the play, but I think past versions of it that I've seen managed to navigate it better.)
I fundamentally do not buy the Elizabethan Theater as a venue for Shakespearean comedy. I've seen a few of them there over the last several years, and it feels to me like, even when they're successful, it's despite the space rather than because of it. LLL is worse than most in this regard, because its profusion of parallel but not quite identical characters are even more confusing when they're really far away. (Histories seem to do better, because of all the pageantry. I'm totally excited about seeing Henry V in the Elizabethan next year; As You Like It, not so much.)
Also, the teenagers who sat behind me are going to the Special Hell.
The Imaginary Invalid
There was apparently a nifty set for this, that we didn't get to see life-sized because the Boehmer theater is currently out of commission, so they did it in some random gym instead, with most of the audience on folding chairs.
Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun. It's actually a lot like Love's Labours Lost from some sort of structural standpoint (really goofy until an unexpectedly somber ending), but it worked better for me. Part of that is that I didn't actually know the somberness was coming, but I think part of it is that it genuinely did feel better set up by the rest of the play.
I'm not sure how much of Moliere's text actually survived; between the health-care reform jokes and the '60s-era pop, the play didn't feel 18th-century at all.
Measure for Measure
This was a weird, uncomfortable, slightly disjointed version of a weird, uncomfortable, slightly disjointed play. I loved it.
It was extremely modernized - I think the program notes set it in "the fictional city of Vienna, USA" or some such - with most of the characters played as Hispanic. (Shakespeare's Italianate names - because, as you know, Vienna is totally in Italy - converted pretty well into Hispanic ones.) The Duke was oldish and spent the whole play in a state of panic; Isabella was young, rather clueless, and pretty clearly didn't actually want to be a nun. Angelo was icy and amazing.
This was also in the backup location, but the maquette looked really spare so I don't think we missed much. In fact it actually felt appropriate to be doing it in a slightly improvised location.
Julius Caesar
This was done in the round, with almost no set, a smidgen of audience participation, all the characters except the big four doubled up, and indistinct but vaguely modern dress. They cast a really young-looking Cassius opposite a sort of elder-statesman-ish Brutus, which I thought was an interesting dynamic.
The casting looked pretty gender-blind; Caesar was cast as a woman (with Antony taking over most of Calpurnia's lines). I don't have a problem with this in principle, but it did make Portia's "I grant that I am a woman, but..." speech feel really weird.
They took the intermission at a place that felt weird to me (between Antony's speech over Caesar's body and Brutus's funeral oration), and there was a significant tonal shift between the two halves. The first half was energetic and brutal; the second half was quieter and almost elegaic (except for "lend me your ears", which felt more like the first half again). I really liked both halves, but I'm not quite sure they belonged to the same play.
Finally, I'm a big fan of the idea that Antony is the kind of person who would go into a quarterstaff fight barehanded and win anyway, while Octavian is the kind of person who would take a pistol to a quarterstaff fight.
The Pirates of Penzance
This was at least as goofy as it's supposed to be. They did a lot of musical interpolation of more modern stuff, which was fun most of the time but a little annoying on the one or two instances where it replaced Sullivan's music rather than adding to it. There was a bunch of fun puppetry -- mostly flying things like seagulls (in the first act) and bats (in the second).
Also, I'm not sure this was intentional, but I think this production was more clearly set in 1877 rather than 1873 than any other version of the play I've ever seen. Which admittedly isn't saying much -- the reason I think this is because Frederick started to sing "When I'm Sixty-Four" at one point (but didn't actually get to the title line).