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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 17, 2016)
QR code for Portland Observer Online ‘City of Roses’ Volume XLV Number 33 Athletes Make Olympic History Allen Temple Rebuilding Minority firsts dominate this year’s games Historic church kicks off remodel after fire See story, page 4 See Local News, page 3 www.portlandobserver.com Wednesday • August 17, 2016 Established in 1970 Committed to Cultural Diversity photo by J enny G raham , o reGon S hakeSpeare F eStival . Tinman (Rodney Gardiner), Scarecrow (J. Cameron Barnett) and Lion (Christiana Clark) bid farewell to Dorothy (Ashley D. Kelley) in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival pro- duction of ‘The Wiz.’ O piniOnated J udge by J udGe d arleen o rteGa The Oregon Shakespeare Fes- tival’s outdoor Elizabethan stage features plays this summer and fall that are all are worth seeing, and together they advance the Ashland festival’s work in practicing art as social justice. The angst and seething under- currents of “Hamlet” are con- veyed not only through a fine performance by Danforth Comins in the title role, but also through music and smart casting. Not Art as Polonius (who has long served Hamlet’s family), Polonius’ daughter Ophelia (the sometime love whom Hamlet casts off so coldly), and her brother Laertes (Hamlet’s friend and rival). The dynamic between this trio and their troubled relationships with Hamlet and his family resonates strongly with typical experiences of people of color, including the contrasting vantage points of dif- ferent generations, and deepens this production’s tragic sensibility. “The Winter’s Tale” is staged to his privileged social location is from the lens of Asian and Asian underscored by casting three fine American experience, affording a African American actors -- Der- too-rare opportunity to see folks rick Lee Weeden, Jennie Green- C ontinued on p aGe 5 berry, and Tramell Tillman -- as Social Justice A cheer for Ashland plays and racial progress strictly tied to one time period, the production uses live rock guitar music (via an onstage heavy met- al musician) to gird its moods and questions; the music broods over contact with the dead and also the accumulation of unaddressed mis- takes and questions that undo all the characters in the end. Meanwhile, Hamlet’s blindness