STAGE II
Most of us have taken the op
portunity, at one time or another,
to immerse ourselves in the fan
tasy and delight, and sometimes
sorrow, of classic drama—but for
those who have held-off from this
unique birthing of emotion and
growth, the time is ripe to become
acquainted with some of drama's
greatest writers.
By JOHN LOEBER
For forty years the Oregon
Shakespearean Festival in Ash
land has been bringing quality
theatre to the Northwest, and next
month will begin a new season of
discovery by presenting four plays
by four legendary playwrights:
Britain s George Bernard Shaw,
Norway s Henrik Ibsen, England's
William Shakespeare, and
America s great entertainer,
George M Cohan
The true essence of a festival is
celebration and entertainment,
with the entertainment a surety
with the inclusion of
Shakespeare s The Comedy of
Errors' and Cohan's “The
Tavern in this year s Festival.
Almost anything by Cohan is sure
to please us m this year of Bicen
tennial hoopla, for he is, after all,
the embodiment of American
energy, and is sure to cut through
any number of layers of cynicism
we ve acquired, to treat America
and its myth as a bellyful of fun.
A Comedy of Errors ' is one of
the Bard s earlier works, and while
it doesn't show the strong charac
terizations of his later work, it does
manage to draw an audience into
the character of comedy and ac
tion. Taken together, these two
plays will keep any audience, of
any background, caught in the
throes of full entertainment —
something always to be thankful
for.
But there is something more
than entertainment involved in a
festival. There is a sense of religi
ous celebration. A sense of com
ing closer to yourself, of knowing
more when it's over than when it
began. For this purpose Ibsen’s
Brand and Shaw s "The Devil's
Disciple both fit as perfect coun
terpoint to the sheer humor of the
first two plays, but even more, to
each other
“Brand" is not a funny play by
anybody s definition. It is the story
of an uncompromising Lutheran
minister, set on the lonely, craggy
coast of Norway in 1865. Brand is
his name, and he has a soul har
der than the land from which he
springs, committed totally to his
idea of God and religion. Unable
to be either a man as other men, or
an apostle, he demands "all or no
thing" from life.
Jerry Turner, the director of
“Brand,” says, “It is a call to cour
age and idealism and a rebuke to
a soft and decadent generation.”
Ibsen s Brand will suffer all, but
give nothing—his unyielding
stands force the needless death of
his own son and later his wife. He
tears down all that the people of
his village hold holy, appearing as
a raging spectre of commitment,
but never showing an attainable
goal In the end Brand must face
the consequences of his demands
and finish his life alone.
In Shaw's "The Devil’s Disci
ple," the antithesis of "Brand," the
hero is Dick Dudgeon, described
by his own mother as "...a bad
man. He is a smuggler; and he
lives with gypsies; and he has no
love for his mother and his family;
and he wrestles and plays games
on Sunday instead of going to
church."
He has passed by the love of his
family and friends to follow his cal
ling, saying "I knew from the first
that the Devil was my natural mas
ter and captain and friend. I saw
that he was in the right, and that
the world cringed to his conqueror
only through fear." Dick is a piti
less character, but one for whom
we feel empathy When his
mother is on her deathbed she
does not even call for him—and
he doesn t even care to know her
ailments: "Not I: he doesn’t know;
and I don t care. We shall know
soon enough."
Like Brand, Dick Dudgeon will
suffer all, but give nothing—but
here the resemblance ends.
Dudgeon's unyielding stand in the
face of the English army saves the
needless death of one he cares
nothing for. He supports what
others hold holy, without a dream.
In the end Dick will win the love
and admiration of his village.
There are differences here.
Brand is not an apostle, despite
his holy garb he is a dreamer who
offers nothing by ego; Dick
Dudgeon appears a wastrel and
dreamer, and is in truth an apostle
who follows his beliefs to the end.
But there is more. Shaw's play
is called a melodrama and Ibsen’s
a naturalistic tragedy. In 1873
Emile Zola, a founder of
naturalism, becried melodrama as
the death of theatre, saying,
“Drama is dying of its extravag
ences, its lies and its platitudes. If
comedy still keeps on its feet in the
collapse of our stage, that is be
cause it contains more of real life,
because it is often true.”
And yet Zola, taken in another
light, helps the melodrama of
Shaw to explain the tragedy of
Ibsen—if we look on “Brand” as
drama and “The Devil’s Disciple”
as comedy. This is not too far to
go, actually, when Shaw's play is
closely observed. “The Devil's
Disciple” is actually anti
melodramatic, with an abundance
of counter-stereotypes: anti
heroes such as Dick Dudgeon,
spiteful mothers, and role rever
sals.
We find Shaw handling comi
cally what Ibsen handled dramati
cally. There is no disparaging
comment on Shaw's part here,
and Turner tells us, “In fact, as a
psychologist and philosopher,
Ibsen seemed to dwarf William
Shakespeare so much, Shaw
said, It became impossible for the
moment to take him seriously as
an intellectual force.' ” So we find
the comedy of Shaw following the
logic of Emile Zola and actually
lending greater life, and definition,
to Ibsen—thanks to the Festival in
Ashland.
This creates a powerful pack
age indeed, with three of the
greatest writers ever to publish
coming together to make a point.
Tickets for Festival Stage II start
at $3 50 and can be purchased
through the EMU Main Desk. The
Festival will run from February 13
through April 10. ♦
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