Ashland is the first town over the border in Oregon as you drive north from California on I-5. It’s one you would more than likely ignore if you weren’t aware of the marvelous theater scene that exists there. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) produces eleven plays every year, and most of them run from February until October, with a repertory cast consisting of actors who usually take on two (and sometimes even three) roles in the same number of productions, each of which will be staged as many as 180 times.
If that description doesn’t sound impressive, the actual experience of seeing one of these productions certainly is. We saw two on a recent visit and highly recommend both of them. As is often the case with these renditions of classic works, both have been reset in more modern (and very different) times and settings.
“Twelfth Night” is one of Shakespeare’s “lesser” comedies, even being occasionally derided as less compelling than his “Much Ado About Nothing” and “As You Like It.” But the play may be more significant now, with the emerging societal attitudes about gender identity, and it is that perspective that helps to drive the current OSF production. Directed by Christopher Liam Moore, the play has been reset in 1930s Hollywood with Count Orsino now a film director and Olivia, the object of his unrequited love, a film star.
The cleverness of this reset is perhaps a bit forced, but the result in terms of the ambiguous gender theme in the original is far more provocative. The basic love triangle still comprises the principal plot line, but Mr. Moore’s direction makes the gender ambiguity surrounding Viola (who, as in the original, disguises herself as a man) much more intriguing, especially when both Olivia and Orsino are love struck by Viola, as either the man she is pretending to be or the woman she is hiding herself from being.
Coupled with the fascinating use of hologram effects in a pivotal scene and the wonderful song and dance routine that ends the show, the production is absolutely great, with an ensemble cast (led by Sara Bruner as Viola, Ted Deasy as Malvolio, and Rodney Gardiner as Feste) that would rival any comparable acting troupe in a Broadway production.
“The Yeoman of the Guard” is one of the “lesser” creations from Gilbert and Sullivan (meaning that it isn’t “Mikado” or “Pinafore” or “Pirates”), but it is much admired by devoted Savoyards for both its music (some of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s best) and its storyline (which even includes a slightly darker ending and less madcap mayhem than the more popular works by the duo). But the OSF production was a radical departure from the tone of the original (and, for that matter, from any of the other G&S operettas).
As adapted by Sean Graney (who directed the production), Andra Velis Simon (who provided musical direction) and Matt Kahler, the story takes place in America’s Wild West (circa 1900), and all of the music is rendered in Country-Western mode. And, as if those changes aren’t drastic enough, the actual production is staged with a sizeable part of the audience seated on the stage (in what OSF bills as “promenade seating”). This element in the production makes that portion of the audience both part of the show and, not infrequently, puts specific audience members in the path of the performers as they gallivant around the stage.
The experience of sitting in the promenade, as we did, takes a little getting used to. It certainly makes for a different theatrical experience when you are suddenly motioned to move from your seat so an actor can take your place for a song or a scene. It is also a different experience for the actors who are both playing their assigned roles and interacting with the audience on the stage as the action goes on. Some of those seated with us were more delighted by the experience than we were, but the bigger adjustment for us was in the way Sullivan’s music was transformed from classical to C&W, which, if the latter isn’t your cup of tea, might be off-putting.
But the tinkering doesn’t stop there, for the gender identity issue is also prominent in this production, since a key male character in the original is now a female, with his (now her) position in the love triangle that develops hinting at an LGBT issue that certainly would not have been uppermost in W.S. Gilbert’s mind when he wrote the libretto.
Suffice it to say, both productions were ingenious recreations of the originals, and whether the Bard or G&S would object to what OSF has done with their works is pure conjecture at this point. What they most assuredly wouldn’t object to is the care and skill with which both works have been recast and performed.
Performances of “Twelfth Night” and “The Yeoman of the Guard” continue, along with the other nine plays in the 2016 season, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival through October. Tickets and information are available by phone (800-219-8161), online (www.osfashland.org), or by mail (P.O. Box 158, Ashland, OR 97520). The box office in Ashland (also the location of the festivals three theaters) is at 15 South Pioneer.