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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1976)
Surface aqd Svnjbol The Emerald’s weekly arts and entertainment supplement April 8, 1976 Sleeping in the park Ashland isn’t just the Festival By Glen Gibbons Spring drama at Ashland's Shakes pearean Festival has its back against the wall. But you can still live well in the Siskiyous. Curtains will fall Saturday for the final Festival/Stage II performances this year, although several of the plays will rise again within a month for the summer run. The remaining spring session stagings are sold out. After this interregnum, this brief respite from the Bard’s imagery, his florrid blank verse will ring out once more. And into this binge of drama the pauperish theater hound may step confidently, knowing that the Chamber of Commerce hasn't wrapped up all the tricks. Festival propagandists have festooned the streets with banners urging visitors to see four plays in as many days, but the more leisurely play-goer might want to lay Visitors interested in delving more deeply into local architecture of the 1870s and 1880s might enquire at the SOHS museum at 206 N. 5th, Jacksonville, or call 899-1847. Museum hours are 9 a m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and Noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Low-cost accommodations in Ashland, scarce as a monosyllable in one of Will’s soliloquies, pose an early problem for the cost-conscious and dollar-wary. For the hardy — or perhaps foolhardy — the slopes up back of Lithia Park near the Festival site offer an overnight (not neces sarily dry) rest, if one's cheapo inclinations are more powerful than the hill’s incline, as mine have been on occasion. The Vol kswagen vagabond might note the pres ence of van space in a rest area off the southbound lanes of I-5 just north of the first Ashland off-ramp (Exit 21). Other camping sites may be found in parts of the Siskiyou National Forest (unim proved) reached from Highway 99E as one leaves town and the Klamath River rest area 20 miles into California for those head After the nightly bed, Ashland provides a more generous prospect for the visitor's daily bread. Rather than recount the refined troughs and watering holes luridly adver tised in promotional brochures, I’d like to mention a few modest meccas of inexpen sive, but zestful stuffing. Hamlet’s Roost, 58 E. Main (just down the block from the Columbia Hotel), opens 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays (8 a m. to 2 p.m. Sundays) with a variety of reasonably priced breakfast specials for enthusiastic appetites. The cafe is also a favorite among Festival actors and production crews wind ing down from the night before. No-nonsense fare at working class prices comes to the tables at the Wayside Cafe (numbers 1 and 2). Until a few weeks ago, the same owners operated both restaurants, but #2 at 1253 Siskiyou Blvd. was sold. It’s uncertain whether the dinner specials, which included soup or salad, homemade bread, vegeta bles and an entree often for under $2, will survive the new ownership. In any case, Wayside Cafe #1, 2075 . V Open from 11 am. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, Big AJ offers about the best drive-in style of food available in Ashland at more than reasonable prices. The root beer fros ties and chocolate shakes are rich and thick as an adman’s dream. A Big A1-burger with double hamburger patties, cheese, onion and ham arrives for under a dollar. Servings are indiscreetly generous. The hard-core granola cruncher might want to score some of the local mix from the Manna Bakery, a wholesale outlet at 542 A St Manna Bsfcery whole-grain breads and sweets — such as peach brownies — are sold in many Ashland stores and restaur ants. For those into arcane book-browsing, The Golden Mean Bookstore, in the same building as Wayside Cafe #2 at 1253 Sis kiyou Blvd., contains an extensive selection of occult, supernatural, theosophical, fan tastic and downright bizarre readings that span Sufism, the KabaUah, Reichian and primal therapy and neo-messianic Christ ianity. Holts there are 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily. back and sample the area's other attrac tions as well. That diversion might as well begin en route to the plays. Rather than burning tread straight through to Ashland on lnterstate-5, one might turn off at Valley of the Rogue State Park (Exit 48) and pursue a casual and suitably winding trail along the Rogue River via 99E to Gold Hill. Turning south at Gold Hill toward Jack sonville, the road wanders along the shoul ders of foothills overlooking the valley in which Medford and Ashland lie. Striking homes with turn-of-the-century architec ture, including one just at the north outskirts of Jacksonville, intersperse the pastures and pear orchards along the way. In Jacksonville, the Old West kitsch of which received a healthy boost with a Hol lywood movie filmed there some years ago, the Southern Oregon Historical Society Museum (SOHS) fills in some local back ground with displays of Indian artifacts, guns, minerals and china. A special exhibit of the museum spon sored by the Smithsonian Institute and a Medford newspaper, details the develop ment of American printing. That display joins a collection of Peter Britt's photo graphic equipment. Britt, a Swiss photographer who pros pered in Jacksonville during the 1850s, do nated the land which subsequently became the site of an annual music festival bearing his name. This year’s program of classical music invokes the ubiquitous Bicentennial theme for part of its presentation Aug. 6-21. / / \ ing on south. A local park at Emigrant Reservoir which, the last time I was there, offered the dis creetly depressing vista of a stagnant, man-made pond — lies east and south of Ashland and charges $2 or so for overnight use. The showers there don't necessarily work. For those who decide to break down and actually pay for a room, far and away the most economical — and funkiest — place is the Columbia Hotel at 262Vi E. Main, lo cated within a block of the Shakespeare theaters. Rooms with double beds, often with aging brass or iron bedsteads, cost $6 and lack showers but usually include some ob solescent furniture and satisfactorily pecul iar neighbors to complete the boarding house mood. Rooms on the Main Street side of the hotel cost $8.50 for two double beds and $10 with ample, old-fashioned bathtubs thrown in. Reservations are only taken during the summer Festival season beginning June 16 and may be arranged by calling 482-3726. The last times I 've stayed there, the Colum bia was run by charming young English women whose soft accents sweetly com plemented the old-inn atmosphere. Other, more remote, lodging possibilities include a Motel 6 in Medford, 12 miles north of Ashland, and the Medford Hotel itself whose gently deteriorating ambiance pro vides double beds and an occasional steam heat symphony of banging pipes for under $10. Drawing by Terry McBnde Highway 99N (at the intersection with the northernmost Ashland exit off 1-5), will con tinue under the previous management with the following hours: 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday: 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays. Wayside Cafe #2 oper ates from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. The following entries bracket the sublime/ridiculous gourmet spectrum but are both worthy of consideration, depend ing on the mood of one's maw. Mum's Cottage, 2425 Siskiyou Blvd., opens for dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. daily with wholesome, natural foods-type cooking such as Eugene residents might expect from local eateries. Spring theater at Ashland is almost finished, but the stage will come to life once again June 12. For details and deals, see story on p. 5b. The "Cuisine from around the Wortd” ad vertised by this unpretentious restaurant includes a full menu of Italian, French, Mex ican, Chinese and Middle Eastern entrees during the week. The managers usually limit the weekend offerings to one area, such as Persian food, in order to expand the possible selections from that country’s cuisine. Mum s Cottage isn't as cheap as some of the other suggestions, however. For instance. Big Al's Dairy Bar at 474 N. Main. Cook’s Reception Tavern, 66 E. Main, serves as a post-performance refuge for both participants and spectators of the plays. Open daily from 3 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. (11 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Saturdays), this smoky unostentatious tavern offers draft Bud weiser in 95-cent and $1.85 pitchers and Michek>bfor$1.10and$2.25. Happy Hours (9-10 p.m. Tuesdays, 8-9 p.m. Sundays) cut these pitcner prices to 50-95 cents and 55 cents to $1.15 respectively. Owners Betty and Gene Smith have begun adding formal entertainment to the bustling camaraderie at Cook's Reception. Belly dancing has been imported for 9:30-12:30 on Wednesday nights. Blueg rass and/or blues-rock bands play from 9:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday nights with an open jam session after Happy Hour on Sunday. Along this line, I might mention that Hilt, Calif., lies a brief 18 miles south of Ashland with a reserve of Coors beer and stouter California spints. Those worn out or not excited by a con stant fete (or surfeit) of eating, drinking and play-going might roam Ashland’s residen tial areas viewing the sturdy wooden-frame houses from an earlier era. Among these, I would mention: a two-story, 67-year-old white house at 715 N. Main; a century-old Itabanate building at 153 Oak St. recently remodelled and converted into law offices; a former Eagle Roller Mills warehouse, built in 1862, since transformed into a private home at 1639 Jackson Rd.
