July 12, 2017
Page 13
Beyond White Culture
c ontinued from p age 9
better life in a U.S. culture which
they experience as alien and hos-
tile. Here Medea is a young un-
documented immigrant who sews
piecework for a pittance out of
her home, and trusts her husband
Jason to fight his way to a better
life for their family. Their border
crossing has left her traumatized
and afraid to leave their little
home in Boyle Heights, while
Jason appears better equipped to
play by new rules that seem to re-
ward cunning, ambition, and sac-
rifice. But at what cost?
This production, which I’ve
seen several times and hope to
see again in Portland, is devastat-
ing in its depiction of how those
at the margins are often subtly
pushed to turn on each other to
compete for the scraps that op-
pression affords them. Alfaro
captures so poignantly the trauma
and desperation that commonly
characterizes the immigrant ex-
perience, and the countless ways
in which being othered chips
away at one’s identity, seeding a
sense of desperation that can lead
a good person to make choices
he would never have considered.
Medea (embodied with wrench-
ing, prophetic honesty by Sabina
Zuniga Varela) is the main trag-
ic heroine here, but she is not
the only one; all the characters
hold in these portrayals com-
plexities of goodness and moral
failure that are the natural result
of pressure to confirm to new
rules. The dilemma creeps into
their language, as they constantly
process the loss of a former way
of life and the new customs that
first confound and then convince
them of the need for selfishness
and greed. It’s the American way.
Director Juliette Carillo and
her marvelous cast and creative
team will move this remarkable
production to Portland in No-
vember. At a time when our ideas
of immigrant and refugee experi-
ence and our analysis of the pres-
sures on the marginalized desper-
ately need grounding in deeper
reality, this production provides
a necessary re-frame. It’s worth
prioritizing.
The remaining OSF season
offers many reasons to prioritize
a trip to Ashland as well. For a
start, a wonderful production of
“Julius Caesar” runs all season
through October. Director Sha-
na Cooper has approached this
timeless tale of political intrigue
from the standpoint of the toll
which cycles of violence exact
on the human body and soul.
Shakespeare’s history play is
built around power plays and
shifting allegiances and manipu-
lation of public opinion that will
feel familiar; this production uses
movement to emphasize how
such shifts are ultimately inev-
itable and relentless. Fight cho-
reography moves between literal
and metaphorical, until eventual-
ly actors are killed and rise again
moments later to resume fighting.
An excellent multiracial cast con-
veys the stress on their bodies
with such visceral force that I felt
breathless even watching them.
One leaves with an appropriate
recognition that war, including
the merely political kind, de-
stroys in more ways than we usu-
ally recognize.
A fine production of “Shake-
speare in Love” also runs all
season through October. Riffing
off the Academy Award-winning
Hollywood screenplay of the
same name, this stage adaptation
offers an opportunity to see a tal-
ented and very diverse cast play
and sing and goof on the joy of
making theater and on the im-
portance and joy and inspiration
of pursuing love wherever and
however it materializes. It is per-
haps the most broadly appealing
of all the shows on offer this sea-
son, packed with deftly-executed
comic bits and an uncomplicated
warm heart.
The world premiere of “Han-
nah and the Dread Gazebo,” by
Korean-American
playwright
Jiehae Park, offers an entirely
different lens on immigrant ex-
perience. As Hannah prepares to
take the exams that will make her
a board-certified neurologist, her
grandmother’s death prompts her
to travel to South Korea, where
her parents have returned after
many years living in the U.S. The
play shifts between the perspec-
tives of Hannah and her brother
(who live in the U.S. but are ac-
customed to feeling alien both at
home and in South Korea), their
photo by J enny g raham
A Korean-American family offers a window on the immigrant experi-
ence in “Hannah and the Dread Gazebo,” one of the stories of people
of color written by people of color now playing at the Oregon Shake-
speare Festival in Ashland.
parents, whose experiences of
alienation weigh on them in an
entirely different way, and vari-
ous mystical South Korean char-
acters. The Demilitarized Zone
between North and South Korea
provides a potent manifestation
of other wounds that arise and lay
unresolved in families like Han-
nah’s.
Park’s play, nimbly directed
by Chay Yew, explores questions
of identity, loss, and generation-
al differences in a non-linear
and sometimes poetic way that
gently serves up questions that
we don’t think to ask, and that
recognizes the value of leaving
such questions unanswered. The
production features a strong and
buoyant cast; I especially appre-
ciated Amy Kim Waschke’s sto-
ic and yet surprisingly lovable
portrayal of Hannah’s depressed
mother and Jessica Ko’s captivat-
ing shifts through a whole host of
mystical characters.
Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” is
actually two plays, and this sea-
son Part One and Part Two are
both being performed and can be
seen separately or back-to-back.
They are directed by two rising
African-American directors, Lil-
iana Blain-Cruz and Carl Cofield,
and feature largely the same very
strong diverse cast. They con-
cern the reign of Henry IV, whose
kingdom is embattled by rebel-
lions in both parts, and his trou-
bled relationship with his oldest
photo by J enny g raham
son and heir, Prince Hal. In Part
Voices of the marginalized are lifted up with sensitivity and respect in ‘Mojada,’ a play that explores
life among Mexican immigrants. The production just finished its run at the Oregon Shakespeare Festi- One, Hal seems determined to
thwart his father’s expectations,
val and will get a repeat production this fall by Portland Center Stage.
wasting his resources and consid-
erable intelligence in hard-living
with his drinking buddy, the old-
er Sir John Falstaff. Blain-Cruz’s
production sets the play in a mod-
ern context and is one of the most
accessible Shakespeare histories
I’ve ever seen, conveying Hal’s
dissolution and the play’s many
conflicts with a current and vis-
ceral urgency.
Part Two continues Hal’s
journey away from Falstaff and
toward the expectations of the
throne. Though its tone is much
more somber, Cofield’s produc-
tion includes some deeply funny
bits involving a host of outra-
geous side characters. Daniel
Jose’ Molina’s Hal bristles with
intelligence and wit, and G.
Valmont Thomas is fine as the
scheming Falstaff. The ensem-
ble cast of both shows embodies
a dazzling variety of characters,
shifting nimbly from broad com-
edy to nuanced melancholy. The
productions offer a feast of great
acting, especially for Shake-
speare aficionados.
I’ll post soon about the re-
maining shows, including a par-
ticularly strong outdoor season.
Darleen Ortega, a judge on the
Oregon Court of Appeals and the
first woman of color to serve in
that capacity, serves on the board
of the Oregon Shakespeare Fes-
tival. Her movie review column
Opinionated Judge appears reg-
ularly in The Portland Observer.
Find her movie blog at opinionat-
edjudge.blogspot.com.