When the high-powered rock musical numbers are the strongest elements of your show, you don’t usually have a problem…unless the show isn’t actually a musical.
Shakespeare
The advance descriptions of Off the Rails stress three points: the author is Native American, the script loosely adapts Shakespeare’s often-criticized “problem” play, Measure for Measure, and the story’s major concern involves boarding schools that Native American children were forced to attend...
Even with a (first-rate) understudy playing Falstaff, this Henry IV Part I may be the single most purely watchable history play I’ve seen in Ashland. And that takes in a lot of territory.
Winter’s Tale has always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I look at its peculiar structure as a challenge rather than an obstacle, and when it’s well-executed, the finale involving Hermione’s “statue” strikes me as one of the most...
Ninety-nine percent of this year’s production of Twelfth Night at OSF is sheer genius. The set design for its nominal 1930s Hollywood transposition is clever in all the right ways, nearly all the performances are exceptional, and the comic swordfight...
Five plays in three days — that’s the schedule for my annual visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, hosted by the Whitman College alumni office (which books the rooms and the tickets) and curated by our designated Whitman English professor...
Back from our annual pilgrimage to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival — as usual, well-stuffed with (mostly) very good theater. First up this year was Richard III, a solid traditional production on the Elizabethan outdoor stage, with the bonus that Richard...