Page 6
September 18, 2019
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
o PinionAted
J udge
by
d arleen o rtega
for
Something
Every Taste
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
current season near complete
As the long season of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
nears it close, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to offer
five more reasons to head to Ashland, along with my pre-
vious take on the other six shows. There is something for
every taste, and also plenty of opportunities to stretch your
mind and broaden your tastes.
Three shows run on the outdoor stage through the
second weekend in October. Smoke from local fires has
complicated programming in the outdoor stage in recent
years, and for part of this summer performances have been
moved to a smaller indoor theater—but for the rest of the
season you should be able to catch the outdoor shows on
the stage under the stars where they were meant to be seen.
My favorite of the three is “Alice in Wonderland,” di-
rector Sara Bruner’s loving take on the classic tale of con-
fusion and delightful nonsense. Bruner, in her first turn as
an OSF director after four brilliant seasons in the acting
company, has found a particularly resonant way into this
material that has stuck with me since I saw it back in June.
She has located in Alice the important quality of curiosi-
ty—and as played by the fierce and resolute Emily Ota,
this Alice embodies curiosity as a superpower. As her path
photo by J enny g rahaM /o regon s hakespeare f estival
William Thomas Hodgson (Malcom), Russell Lloyd (Ross) and Chris Butler (Macduff) are part of a stellar cast
in Mexican-born director Jose Luis Valenzuela’s production of “Macbeth,” now playing through Oct. 11 at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
takes her on the most confusing of journeys, Alice greets
each moment of disorientation with a genuine impulse
toward inquiry. As gamely played by a host of talented
OSF veterans who know how to communicate through
not just words but inventive movement (assisted by the
clever movement direction of Jaclyn Miller and the music
of Cedric Lamar), the trippy characters Alice encounters
challenge her with everything from
intimidation to whimsy to dizzying
illogic, yet she remains relentless-
ly inquisitive. I have reflected on
Ota’s portrayal often in the past few
months; she and Bruner’s buoyant
production have helped me to see
Alice as an inspiring hero, and to
give curiosity its due as the super-
power that it is. This production
plays through Oct. 12.
Mexican-born director Jose Luis
Valenzuela has been a treasure
of American theater and a lead-
er among Latinx theater artists for
decades—and he is a director who
inspires loyalty and admiration
from actors. His unmistakable touch
shows in the visual beauty and ar-
tistic intention evident in OSF’s
production of “Macbeth,” which
photo by J enny g rahaM / scrimps on neither violence nor
o regon s hakespeare f estival gorgeousness. Aided by a stellar
Lauren Modica (Duck), Amy Kim Waschke (Dodo), Emily Ota (Alice), Katy
cast, Valenzuela envisions a back
Geraghty (Eaglet) and Robin Goodrin Nordli (Lory) star as the Oregon
story for the famous Scottish con-
Shakespeare Festival presents a loving take on the classic play “Alice in
spirators which, though not excus-
Wonderland.”
ing their hard turn toward extreme
lethal ambition, makes some sense of it. The chemistry
and talent of Amy Kim Waschke and Danforth Comins
as the lead couple grip your attention even as their char-
acters descend into the despicable carnage of their ambi-
tion, and the witches in this production (the amazing Erica
Sullivan, Miriam Lauren, and Robin Goodrin-Nordli) are
especially interesting; although I have not seen this view
echoed elsewhere, their arresting energy struck me as less
clearly malevolent than caught in the tragic tendency of
ambitious humans to attempt to leverage prophetic insight
in directions it was never meant to go. This production
plays through Oct. 11.
“All’s Well That Ends Well” generally strikes me as
a play that doesn’t stand up very well to scrutiny—but
OSF’s production mines it for delicious moments of
movement, humor, and poignant recognition of how reg-
ularly what passes for love is really ill-advised magical
thinking. Helen (an arresting Royer Bockus) inspires af-
fection as the determined young woman who contrives a
way to win the otherwise unattainable man she believes
she loves without quite having thought through what will
happen next. Daisuke Tsuji’s performance as the object of
her affection contains a complexity that holds the tension
of how the callow Bertram could nevertheless inspire such
desire—and the two together illuminate the ways in which
their respective blindness is related. I especially appreci-
ated the way that director Tracy Young employed music
to bring a certain lightness to this production, especially
in an early and memorable moment between Helen and a
grateful King of France (the brilliant Kevin Kenerly) that
flavors the play with appropriate whimsy. That lightness
allows the production to glide over some of the play’s
c ontinued on p age 12