April 6, 2016
Page 9
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Photo by
J enny g rahaM , o regon s hakesPeare f estival
Senhor Costa (Triney Sandoval) tells Moises (Armando
McClain) and Duarte (Carlo Albán) about his whirlwind
courtship of Senhora Costa in ‘The River Bride,’ from
the first batch of diverse plays in the 2016 season of the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
Diversity of Talent Unsurpassed
o PinionAted
J udge
by J udge
d arleen o rtega
A new season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
The first batch of plays in Oregon Shake-
speare Festival’s 2016 season have opened,
and offer no shortage of reasons to make a
spring trip to Ashland. For the first time in
its history, the OSF acting company features
a majority of actors of color (sadly, unusual
for a theater of its size and type), and the
company’s diversity and talent, and its ex-
cellent programming, make for riches too
good to miss.
My favorite of the first batch of shows
does indeed require an early trip, as it only
runs through July 7 -- but it is such a lumi-
nous story of love and risk that I hope to see
it at least once more myself before it closes.
“The River Bride,” a world premiere written
by Mexican-American poet and playwright
Marisela Treviño Orta, is set in the Amazon
and builds its story of love on Brazilian folk-
lore about river dolphins who transform into
men. Its six evenly-matched characters, all
beautifully played, are the two daughters
(Nancy Rodriguez and Jamie Ann Romero)
of a fisherman and his wife (Triney Sando-
val and Vilma Silva), the fiance’ of one of
the daughters (Carlo Albán), and a myste-
rious and well-dressed man (Armando Mc-
Clain) whom they rescue from the river and
who becomes a somewhat urgent suitor to
the other daughter. Should she love or fear
him?
Love is the concern of the play and its
characters; one daughter is about to marry,
and the other has lost the love of one man
and is afraid to accept the love of another
-- and indeed, all four of the younger char-
acters are grappling with some aspect of the
risk that always comes with love. The ways
in which each of them gives in to fear taps
into the deepest fears and longings of all of
Photo by J enny g rahaM , o regon s hakesPeare f estival
Olivia (Gina Daniels) attempts to win the heart of “Sebastian” (Sara Bruner) with
her movie star charms in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s excellent production of
“Twelfth Night.”
us; chances are, you will see yourself in at
least one of these characters if you are cou-
rageous and honest enough to look.
The bravest of these six characters are the
fisherman and his wife, but the play takes its
time in revealing why. The ease of their re-
lationship and the pleasure they take in each
other after many years is the secret-in-plain-
sight that the younger characters -- and most
of us, I think -- miss; they embody a kind of
c ontinued on P age 13