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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 2018)
Page 8 September 12, 2018 Arts & ENTERTAINMENT Absorbed by the Experience Plays worth seeing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival d arleen o rtega Theater at its best does more than entertain; it invites the willing into a unique act of embodiment as we experience the gift of pres- ence offered on stage with an au- dience that only assembles once. But this summer, the company and audiences at the Oregon Shake- speare Festival have experienced that act of embodiment in espe- cially challenging ways. Climate change has increased the problem of forest fires to a degree unprece- dented in the festival’s history, in- terfering with performances in the outdoor Allen Elizabethan Theater to an extraordinary degree. Many performances have been cancelled entirely; others have been moved into a smaller indoor space at Ash- land High School, which involves a high level of commitment on the part of audiences (although it also sometimes is possible to opt for an indoor show). The air quali- ty in Ashland has been impacted (as has been true elsewhere in the Northwest). Nevertheless, the pay-off for participating in the theatrical prac- tice of embodiment--including on the outdoor stage -- continues to be quite high enough to justi- fy a trip to Ashland, especially as by photo by J enny g rahaM , o regon s hakespeare f estival . Romeo (William Thomas Hodgson) and Juliet (Emily Ota) fall in love at first sight in Shakespeare’s most popular play. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is giving new life to the classic story, now showing through Oct. 12. temperatures cool and disruptions become less frequent. A talented group of artists are all the more primed to offer the precious gifts of heart and movement that they have crafted and honed for the outdoor stage, and the two ad- ditional indoor shows that have opened this summer offer soulful Providing Insurance and Financial Services Home Office, Bloomington, Illinois 61710 Ernest J. Hill, Jr. Agent 311 NE Killingsworth St, Portland, OR 97211 503 286 1103 Fax 503 286 1146 ernie.hill.h5mb@statefarm.com 24 Hour Good Neighbor Service R State Farm R windows into how humans strug- gle and the environment responds. The outdoor shows will espe- cially appeal to Shakespeare lov- ers, but also offer temptations to those who aren’t sure about the bard. Director Damaso Rodriguez (who helms Portland’s Artists Repertory Theater) brings fresh life to Shakespeare’s most popular play, “Romeo and Juliet,” build- ing from his recognition that what makes this story so tragic is not so much the untimely deaths of its protagonists but how easily those deaths could have been avoided. Much of the energy of this pro- duction comes from the sense that the conflicts and long-nursed hatred of its characters are traps they keep laying for themselves and then leaping into — and even the two adults who attempt to help the young lovers (the friar and the nurse) embody a frustrating sense of powerlessness that stems from succumbing to that false sense of inevitability. Ironically, the col- lective energy of this very solid cast serves to hold the energy of the conflicts in a way that helps you invest in the adolescent lov- ers, endearingly played by Emily Ota and William Thomas Hodg- son — and they, in turn, make you believe in the heart animating their adolescent impulsiveness. Sara Bruner’s remarkable turn as Mercutio is alone worth the price of admission, conveying all the playfulness, fury, and despair that the brightest light in the commu- nity might feel in tangling with human folly writ this large. [Runs until Oct. 12] “Love’s Labor’s Lost” isn’t one of Shakespeare’s most popu- lar; its story can feel awkward to modern audiences and the plotting isn’t the bard’s best. But in the facile hands of director Aman- da Dehnert, who has earned real credibility as (among other things) a director of musicals (including “Into the Woods” and “My Fair Lady” at OSF), this production feels playfully abstract; its talent- ed cast riffs and jives and gambols and sings, building buoyant waves of music and movement to hold the play’s essential conflict between a group of young men and a group of smarter young women. The young men have gambled their resolve on a dualistic conception of virtue that somehow doesn’t include women, and the compel- ling young women playfully ex- pose the errors of their thinking. This cast, clad in brilliant reds and whites and armed with paint and music, brims with bright energy; their charisma carries this produc- tion. [Runs until Oct. 14] “The Book of Will” rounds out the outdoor offerings with a love letter to Shakespeare and to theater itself. It builds on the true story of how a group of the bard’s friends collaborated to preserve his work by publishing the First Folio a few years after his death, a challenging undertaking giv- en the expense and difficulty of publishing in Shakespeare’s day and the resulting complexity of compiling a faithful rendering of Shakespeare’s work from scraps in the hands of various artists. The play is short on action and long on heart; it’s less about the story and c ontinued on p age 16