Reviewing the parent of Portland's newest
theater company
What’s in a name? On the face o f it, the Oregon Shakespearean
Festival had a very heterosexual lineup on opening weekend
in Ashland: Romeo and Juliet, Boy Meets Girl and
The Marriage o f Bette and Boo.
B Y
S T E V E
W A R R E N
ore than a decade after the first
discussions on the subject, the Oregon
Shakespearean Festival will place a resident
professional theater company in the 916-seat
Intermediate Theatre of the Portland Center
for the Performing Arts.
“ We don’t want to be a clone [of the Festi­
val],“ the new company’s producer, Dennis
Bigelow, said. Based on his experience for the
past five years as producing director of the
Sacramento Theatre Company, he stresses the
importance of sensitivity to “ the wants and
needs of the community” into which he is
moving.
The first season will be announced April 15
when the drive for subscriptions gets under
way. There will be five plays running consecu­
tively — as opposed to the repertory system in
Ashland — and there will be no Shakespeare on
the bill until at least the second or third season.
The first season in Portland will be for Port­
land alone, although future productions may
transfer between Portland and Ashland. The
theaters will share a board of directors and the
leadership of OSF artistic director Jerry Turner,
but the $1.5 million budget will be independent
of OSF’s $6.7 million budget, so that contri­
butors to each theater will know what they are
supporting.
What’s in a name? On the face of it, the
M
Oregon Shakespearean Festival had a very
heterosexual lineup of plays for their opening
weekend in Ashland: Romeo and Juliet, Boy
Meets Girl and The Marriage o f Bette and Boo,
plus the only neuter title, A Penny for a Song.
Was it worth the drive?
OSF’s Romeo and Juliet has, as director
Henry Woronicz told a press conference, “ cute
guys and great costumes (by Michael Olich)“
to appeal to teenage girls — and gay men of any
age. Besides, Mercutio (Remi Sandri) takes off
his shirt before being killed (not a great chest,
but the kind I like). The costumes are 20th
century, three parts Godfather to one part
Clockwork Orange, with the minor female
characters stepping out of the Sweet Charity
chorus.
Richard Howard (Romeo) is a John Hurt
type, and Grace Zandarski (Juliet) is the first
“ 13-year-old" with cellulite. Aside from their
overwrought passions at the top of the second
act, their performances are passable; as is cus­
tomary in Romeo and Juliet, they are outacted
by the supporting cast, especially James
Edmondson’s Friar Lawrence and Wanda
McCaddon’s Angela Lansbury-ish Nurse.
Gay Bob Briggs Drive-in Academy Awards
to Richard Howard for crying out to Juliet,
“ Thy beauty hath made me effeminate” ; and to
John Stadelman as Sampson for grabbing his
crotch like Michael Jackson as he says, “ ‘tis
known I am a pretty piece of flesh.”
The main characters of Samuel and Bella
Spewack’s Boy Meets Girl are a team of
middle-aged male screenwriters, Benson
(Richard Elmore) and Law (Philip Davidson).
Benson has a pretty young wife whose only
interest is his money, and he makes a reference
to the “ tarts” his partner associates with, so
they can’t be gay; but the mechanics of the play
are more concerned with splitting up the two
men and reuniting them at the end than with
pairing up the ingenu (James Finnegan) and
ingenue (Michelle Morain) of the title.
It’s a funny play that didn’t click 100 percent
at the opening, but all the elements were there,
including a solid cast under Pat Patton’s direc­
tion and Richard L. Hay’s Technicolor deco
setting.
An unknown quantity proved one of the hits
of the weekend. A Penny for a Song was written
in 1951 by the late John Whiting, best — if
barely — known for The Devils, which Ken
Russell made into an outrageous movie. Penny
is fresh, sparkling and utterly delightful, a
screwball family comedy on the order of You
Can’t Take It with You, but set in England in
1804.
Two middle-aged brothers live in a country
manor. One is married, but both are obsessed.
(Larry Paulsen), a sweet, irreverent intellectual
who tells the story of his parents’ life together.
Bette (Robynn Rodrigue/.) is " a terrible,
unending nag" and Boo (Bill Geisslinger) an
alcoholic.
Under Michael Kevin’s smooth direction the
ensemble earns every one of a considerable
number of laughs, many of them on such sensi­
tive subjects as dead babies, speech impedi­
ments. guilt, servile housewives and their
abusive husbands, and . . . A. A. Milne. (“ Boo
should join A. A.,” Bette says in a curious
sequitur.) The only performance that could be
better is that of John Pribyl as the priest.
Catherine Karhoff kept me in hysterics as Boo’s
mother, “ the dumbest white woman alive.”
That these silly people can leave you with a
lump in your throat after two hours of laughter is
further testimony to Durang’s talent.
Except for Bette and Boo, which closes June
26, and A Penny for a Song, which will be on
hiatus from July 10 to Sept. 25, these plays run
all season (through the end of October). Also in
current repertory is Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts,
chosen by artistic director Jerry Turner because
i t 4 ‘had an urgency to it that was perhaps an
echo of AIDS." The play condemns hypocrisy
through, among other characters, a young man
Galileo's dilemma lingers on
B Y
EJ
W E S T L A K E
he scene is in a hall in Rome. Three men:
two seem good-natured; one is serious.
The serious man is Galileo. He stands in the
middle and insists that Earth is not the center of
the universe. One of the good-natured men
smiles and says, “ You are trying to make the
universe too simple, all your circles and
ellipses. If it please God to have the stars move
like this (he moves his hands and arms wildly)
wouldn’t they move like this (he repeats the
gesture)?” Galileo replies, “ I believe in
reason. If God wanted the stars to move like this
(he repeats the gesture) He would make my
mind capable of moving like this (again).’ ’ This
question is then posed: Wouldn’t God have the
Bible written to reflect what the serious man is
teaching if it were indeed true? Galileo replies,
4 ‘As Man is capable of misinterpreting the stars,
so he is capable of misinterpreting the Bible.”
Galileo’s reply, however, enters into Church
doctrine, and the Church believes that it alone
has authority to interpret the Bible. Galileo is
warned to stop teaching his theory that the sun,
not the Earth, is the center of the universe.
Galileo has proof that the Earth is not the center,
but it conflicts with the Church’s interpretation
of the Bible. Sound absurd?
How is it that truth could stir such controversy
as to cause a scientist to recant? Bertolt Brecht
makes a strong statement about the conse­
quences of such dynamics in The Life of Galileo,
which will be presented April 1-17 by the New
Rose Theatre.
Shabaka. who plays the title role, says that it is
“ a story as old as organized humanity.” Truth
has always been suppressed by those in power
T
when it does not coincide with their doctrine.
The Life o f Galileo is not just a story about a
man in the 17th century; the same story is
happening in capitalist, socialist, imperialist
and communist societies.
Galileo recanted under pressure from the
state. Brecht asks again and again: What is the
responsibility of those who know the truth? Did
Galileo abdicate responsibility? Brecht pulls his
audience away from the temptation to relate to
the material on a purely emotional level; it
becomes a thinking, rational audience faced
with an irrational dilemma.
In accordance with this dilemma, the New
Rose has been working with the Oregon
Museum of Science and Industry to open
dialogue with the community on the issues of
the production.
In a context of power and politics, Shabakas
experiences as a black actor in the white-
dominated field of theater are of interest. “ I
have been very lucky,” he says. He has worked
with the San Francisco MimeTroupe since 1980
and in other non-traditional settings. A number
of theater groups were formed in the ’60s by
black artists for black artists; non-traditional
groups exist now outside of traditional
criteria; and many companies, including the
New Rose, practice non-traditional casting.
So here we are, in a time when we accept that
there is no center to the universe, in a time when
church officials have difficulty dictating which
“ truth” to teach and which “ truth” to
suppress. Now there are other powers that con­
trol our science and our truth. Think about that
the next time you look at the stars, and think
about it as you watch The Life of Galileo. •
Photo by Christopher Briscoe
‘ A s Man is capable o f misinterpreting the stars, so he is
capable o f misinterpreting the Bible.”
— Bertolt Brecht, The Life o f Galileo
James Edmondson as Friar Lawrence and Grace Zandarski as Juliet in Romeo and juliet
Sir Timothy (William McKereghan) plans to
save England from an anticipated Napoleonic
invasion by impersonating the emperor and
ordering his troops back to France when they
arrive. Lamprett (W. Francis Walters) is a
reverse pyromaniac. He heads the volunteer fire
brigade and gleefully anticipates blazes for
them to extinguish.
Lamprett’s dictatorial wife Hester (Wanda
McCaddon) is, in the course of events, called
away to command a platoon in an “ Amazon
Corps,” a sort of women’s militia. Their 17-
year-old daughter (Katherine Heasley) is
awakened in several senses by a Serious Young
Man (Lawrence Drozd), an itinerant revolu­
tionary who trades jibes with idly rich (and
probably gay) family friend Michael Kevin,
whose acerbic tongue enlivens the play with
comments both urban (“ . . . the country, where
love is conducted on the businesslike basis of
procreation” ) and urbane (“ We all believe in
[democracy), but most of us are too well-
mannered to practice it” ).
A Penny for a Song is a sadly neglected
delight.
As in most of Christopher Durang’s plays,
The Marriage o f Bette (pronounced, inciden
tally, in one syllable as in Midler, rather than
two as in Davis) and Boo suggests that “ perhaps
everything can be blamed on the Catholic
Church.” The playwright is represented by Matt
dying from genetically transmitted syphilis.
Asked why he chose it over such contemporary
AIDS plays as The Normal Heart and As Is,
Turner said flatly,44Ghosts is better. . . . I just
prefer Ibsen.”
For information or reservations, call
482-4331, or write Oregon Shakespearean
Festival, P O Box 158, Ashland, OR 97520.
Some gay news notes from the quiet, rustic,
new-age hippie town of Ashland:
• Cook’s Tavern, the only gay (after 10
p m , when they move the pool tables off the
dance floor) bar, has started charging a cover on
weekends — only $1, but it appears to have cut
down on business.
• Metropolitan Community Church of the
Rogue Valley (773-9416) holds services at First
Congregational Church in Ashland.
• The Southern Oregon Lambda Associa­
tion, which holds monthly meetings and
parties, and operates a gay hotline (773-8146),
has shifted its base from Grants Pass to Ashland.
• A gay/lesbian rap session/support group
meets on Sunday nights.
• A Gay and Lesbian Community Associa­
tion has been formed at Southern Oregon State
University.
So, although I haven't gotten laid there in
eight years of annual visits, there is gay life in
Ashland and vicinity.
•
Just Out • 17 • April I9Ä8