Ashland: Let Shakespeare be Shakespeare, Redux --Coriolanus

Once again, the subject is Ashland theatre, specifically the question of letting Shakespeare be Shakespeare. When I watched Othello, I thought they had decided to do it; then saw Midsummer Night's Dream and changed my mind. Now I've seen Coriolanus and I've changed my mind again. Takeaway point: this is one of the best, most fully formed, most convincing presentations of Ashland Shakespeare that I've ever seen--if ever a production speaks with its own voice, this is the kind that does it. Which is not to say it was reverential or pedantic: in was plenty innovative, in a conventional sort of way, what with the flashing lights and holes in the floor, all presented on a cozy in-the-roiund stage. But it was clearly put together by people who understood and respected the text, and who were determined to let it have its own way. Indeed, a presentation like this lets slip a remarkable secret about Shakespearean acting: a lot of Shakespearean actors--even those who have some sense of character--simply don't understand a lot of what they are saying, and wind up talking Shakespeare as if they were talking scat. For i\whatever reason, in this prouction of Coriolanus, every actor seemed to be able to convey meaning out of every sentence.

This is surely partly a credit to the actors, particularly Danforth Comins in the lead (and who would have guessed we'd a good Coriolanus from an actor who was also such a fine Cassio?) and Robynn Rodriguez as his mother (she's matured over the years, all for the good). But consistency like this must be the work of the whole cast. Coriolanus here reminded me of nothing so much as the splendid King John we saw here a couple of years back. Robynn Rodriguez turned in a fine performance in that one too. I'm intrigued to discover that John Sipes, who was fights director this time, was the director of King John (Laird Williamson directed Coriolanus). But perhaps most interesting, I see that Alan Armstrong served as dramaturge for both plays. I admit it; I've never been quite clear what a "dramaturge" does, but if Armstrong doesn't deserve some of the credit for the success (and similarity) of this pairing, then I'd say at least that he has astounding luck.

Another surely non-accidental parallel. No matter what T.S. Eliot thought, Coriolanus is not a wonderful way. The text is polished and proficient but the ending is almost perfunctory, and for the plotting--let's just say that in this play, more than any other, you suspect that Shakespeare is pushing an agenda rather than just putting on a show. So also King John: a different play than Coriolanus, but likewise not a great play, however worthy an effort. Anyway, the point here is twofold: one, Shakespeare never wrote a dull play, a play not worth watching. Even when he is off the top of his game, he has a lot to arrest one's attention and engage the mind. And two, cheers to the team that can take him seriously on those terms, and help him to display whatever it is he may have to say.

Ashland: Midsummer Night's Rave

Hm. I said yesterday that it looked like Ashland had decided to trust Shakespeare. I guess I spoke too soon. Lat night I saw the Midsummer Night's Dream, which is not a "play" so much as it is finals week at the drama school, where all the aspirants get to pluck something out of a hat and come up with an accent, or a decade, or a color, or a style; each then does his own turn while somebody tries to whip it all into a whole whose main theme is "loud." The result was a noisy melange of disco, Hog-farm Commune, Dick Tracy Sunday color panel, and--well, actually, mostly disco, complete with a strobe globe at the end--fitfully interlaced with words by some old coot. The audience (heavy on college students, here on a class assignment)--the audience mostly loved it: I can't remember that I've ever heard such ecstatic hallway chatter. And the truth is, it worked surprisingly well, though why they bothered drag the name of Shakespeare into this mishmosh is pretty much beyond me.

Okay, I exaggerate. Shakespeare actually did show through in a few spots. Item: I suppose the one real Shakespearean success of the night was Christine Albright as Titania. The queen of the fairies is pretty much of a disco queen herself, when you stop to think of it, with her posse and her toyboy and her assorted freaky entertainments. Dressing up like Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein would ber perfectly in character Kevin Kennerly as her Oberon just back from the gym, was as good as I've ever seen him, if I could see him inside that whacked-out costume.

And to be fair, the young lovers were pretty much on key, too, especially Emily Sophia Knapp as Hermia (who played it as straight as anybody in the company): this lot is after all, when you stop to think of it, a bunch of narcissistic twits, and so to play them that way wasn't at all a violation (they did tend to jog-trot the verse a bit, though, as they tried to hurry through it).

For the play-within-a-play--the "rude mechanicals" in their VW bus--let's just say that everyone in the audience seemed to like it except me. Okay, I grant you--I liked it too as noise, but as a reading of the text, it had about as much to do with Shakespeare as it did with the Internal Revenue Code. In particular Ray Price as Bottom the Weaver--Price did a splendidly comical imitation of Ray Price, but as to Bottom, the only connection seemed to be the way that Price was congratulating Bottom for having had the good sense to let himself be played by Ray Price.

Theseus and Hyppolyta were just another case of "whatever." It's pretty clear that neither the director nor the actors figured that the script had anything to the offer, so they decided to play around with comic-book costumes and comic-book furniture and then get them off the stage as quickly as possible.

On the way home a young friend asked me: well, after having seen this, would you rather see a more traditional performance? It's a good question. This kind of show is a bell you can't unring: once you've seen it so noisy, campy and over-the-top, almost any straight reading is bound to seem insipid. For Ashland itself, I suspect, the message is clear: MSN played to a full house of enthusiasts beside themselves with glee. Othello the night before had empty seats. I just hate to think what the next director of MSN will feel he has to do.

Afterthought: I have heard the great Stanislavski quoted as saying that too many actors think about what they can bring to the part, and not what the part can bring to them. Just sayin'.

Update: Turns out there is not just one "Shakespeare-The Musical" at Ashland this summer; there are two. Comedy of Errors appears in a modern avatar out West of the Pecos. It's an affable and plausible rework of what is, after all, a piece of Shakespearean juvenilia. The added songs are pretty insipid and the cast does run around a bit much (I suspect the whole thing would have been better about 15 minutes shorter). But once again, the management seems to understand its audience (I wonder, have they been watching the CD's of Slings and Arrows?).

Ashland: A Good, Straightforward Othello

We're back at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland for some more theater. I've complained before that Ashland seems to get spooked by its eponymous poet, apparently not willing to trust the verse to carry the play and insisting, instead, to clutter things up with irrelevant stage business (see, e.g., link). For this season, I'm happy to report that we are off on the right foot: a no-tricks Othello. This is a particularly welcome success for two extra reasons. One, Othello seems to be a particularly hard play to get right. It probably has something to do with the race background, but you've got to have apprehensions about a play that led to embarrassments like this one by Olivier and this one with Branagh (Ashland itself turned in an equally awkward entry a few years back with an a Moor who seemed to think he was an eye-popping silent movie clown). The other problem is the play itself: not doubt that it is a masterpiece of character, staging and verse, but it can be almost unbearably hard to take, particularly in the second half which turns into a kind of extended bullfight, with Iago as toreador and Othello as the bull.

There are other important characters in this play but I can't think of any one that depends so much on just two, and perhaps in particular Iago the villain who must (I haven't checked) have more lines than the Moor. So a lot of the credit for success here goes to Dan Donohue, who turns in a compulsively watchable performance in the villain's role. Not a surprise, really: a while back, Donohue turned in what might be the best performance we ever saw here, as Price Hal (Henry V) in Henry IV/V. Taking all in all, Donohue seems to be able to get his mouth round a Shakespearean line better than anybody else in the company. His Iago was suitably villainous, but in a way that I found new: I've never seen a Iago before so obviously looney, so much like the kind of guy who would take his dish of liver with a nice Chianti.

As Iago, Donohue was good all round but perhaps at his best in ensemble with Peter Macon as Othello: together they danced, wrestled, jousted and did almost everything a twosome could do on stage without the assistance of main drainage, making the whole thing an exercise in choreography. Macon full partner in the dance, though perhaps not quite Donohue's equal as a solo. Macon seemed to understand his character--brave, passionate, isolated, prickly-proud. In voice he got the tone right, although he didn't seem to handle individual passages so well.

As Desdemona, Sarah Rutan is another one who seems to understand her character, but she seemed just a bit miscast: Rutan was earnest and devoted like Desdemona, but I think of Desdemona as more dutiful, dependent and bewildered than she came across here: Rutan is a bit too tall, too not-young, too instinctively feisty for the role of a doomed ingeniue.

All this talk about "understanding the character" and "ensemble" suggests a powerful driving force--the director. I know next to nothing about directing per se, but everything about this suggets a strong and assured directorial hand. The possessor would be Lisan Peterson who, I see by the program, is new this year: perhaps Ashland is at last on its way to putting that old afraid-of-Shakespeare stuff into the rear view mirror.