High Society

I bemoaned in an earlier post that I was upset with myself for letting this blog lie dormant for a few Ashland seasons. Never was that more relevant than today when I realized that I had failed to record my impressions of the stunning world premiere of Robert Schenkkan's "All the Way" two years ago. I may re-read that play - which has since won two Tony awards - and sit down to log my thoughts one day, but for now I will have to settle for lauding the equally impressive sequel to that memorable show, which I had the privilege of seeing this afternoon.

"The Great Society" is the conclusion of Schenkkan's brilliant examination of the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson.  It covers the years 1965 to '68 following LBJ's landslide re-election and focusing primarily on his efforts to pass a slate of ground-breaking social programs. However, the slippery slope of an escalating crisis in Vietnam which he inherited from the late President John F. Kennedy is slowly but surely consuming more and more precious funding and media "oxygen" from his efforts on the domestic front: fighting poverty, establishing Medicare, and passing a Voting Rights Act.

The delicate balances he struck with his political acumen in his first term begin to fall apart under the economic and political pressures of this new storm front. His tenuous alliance with Martin Luther King begins to crumble as LBJ tries to keep his federal programs alive in Congress; King can't wait for Johnson at the cost of the lives being lost daily in protest marches in the Deep South. And enemies in Washington and beyond the beltway begin to sharpen their knives as they sense a chance to gain ground in midterm elections and unwind the president's beloved Great Society.

The weight of all this falls squarely on the shoulders of Jack Willis, who masterfully brings Johnson's larger-than-life presence to the Bowmer stage.  When he walked in at the top of the show and started telling a prescient tale about bull riders and the short window of joy they experience before they inevitably get bucked off (and stomped on), it was like seeing an old friend. Willis simply owns this role. It fits him like an old glove, and the two-year interval between "All the Way" and now just melted away when he started jawing.  Willis has the brass, the wit, the warmth - and the fear - of this giant of a man nailed. And this play is not the chronicle of an inspiring rise to power, as in the first part of this saga; it is a tale which descends into tragedy and loss. At a post-show discussion, the great actor Richard Elmore (who plays FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to a T) said what we were all thinking while watching this drama -- namely that it is truly Shakespearean.  It has a king in decline, plotting advisers, ghosts ... all the elements that make a Bard-ian tragedy. My astute friends Rick Williams and Judy Epstein - who saw the show with me - both observed that the LBJ saga has essentially taken the mantle of the Shakespeare history play this season.

Bill Rauch's direction was impressive, mixing projected media from the era with a set that slowly becomes deconstructed and chaotic as the country comes apart socially.  Particularly jarring was an excerpt from Walter Cronkeit's seminal takedown of the government's efforts in Vietnam on the CBS Evening News, prompting LBJ to say "Well, if I've lost Cronkite I've lost the country." Also bringing emotions to the fore were moving depictions of civil rights violence from Selma, to Chicago, to Los Angeles - and a running tally of dead and wounded in Southeast Asia. The task for Rauch was to infuse what could have been a sterile historical pageant with drama, character, wit and compassion. In this he succeeded.

Also notable in the cast were Kenajuan Bently as a vulnerable MLK; Peter Frechette as a compelling Vice President Hubert Humphrey; Richard Elmore as the Iago-like J. Edgar Hoover; Jonathan Haugen as the villain of the piece, George Wallace (and in a Daily Double of sorts, an oily Richard Nixon later in the play); Mark Murphey as the ultimately flawed strategist Robert MacNamara; Terri McMahon as a warm but firm Lady Bird Johnson; and Danforth Comins as the contentious Sen. Robert Kennedy.  There was not a false note in any of these and many other performances.

In the final analysis, this is a worthy successor to "All the Way" and a thrilling entry in Ashland's ever-growing stable of compelling world premieres. LBJ's story is now over, but his legacy as evinced in this pair of supremely worthy plays will indeed continue.

The Kids Are Alright

It saddens me to open this blog and note from the posting dates that I failed to post reviews from the past few seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Bad Jonathan, bad!

But then I thought for a moment and realized that for two of those years I was head writer for Lamplighters Music Theater Company's Gala Committee and had been writing the book for a full-length musical on deadline during my Ashland vacations.

OK ... not so bad, Jonathan, not so bad! So let's get started (again).

The first play of the 2014 Season was a romp through space and time involving mysterious alien creatures, a planet ruled by a totalitarian super-intelligence, three intrepid children, and a mysterious doctor. But before you pull out your sonic screwdriver and start looking for the TARDIS, this was not a staged adventure of "Doctor Who." Rather it was an adaptation of the 1962 children's novel "A Wrinkle in Time," by Madeleine L'Engle.

I must confess that I tried to read this book when I was in school, but it never grabbed me. I had friends who recommended it as a must-read, and teachers/librarians who lauded it as great summer fare. I recall the story as being too frank about the life of a pre-teen for my tastes; and the religious elements may have been a turn-off at that age. All I know is the emotions were too raw for me, so I put it down and never finished it. I really didn't break out into rabid reading mode until I discovered fantasy novels like "The Book of Three" and "The Lord of the Rings" a few grades later.  So I basically missed the "Wrinkle" experience. But I knew it was out there.

The challenges of mounting a theatrical version of this novel must have been daunting to the creative team that brought it to the stage of the Angus Bowmer Theater. And frankly, it was the way in which they solved those challenges that charmed me the most.

I have always had a soft spot for so-called "story theater." I love the "meta" element in meta-theatrical productions: Divvy up the narration among all the players; use an ordinary looking prop to represent an extraordinary thing; mix and match the actors so that one minute she's your mother, and the next she's a kid at school; and most of all, the set should become many places through the course of the play ... from the family kitchen, to a haunted house, to an alien world.

It was this choice by director Tracy Young and her team of designers that set the bar high enough to overcome the somewhat simplistic nature of this essential children's story and draw this adult into the tale. The set was dominated by a large facade upon which projections were splashed of everything from a storm-tossed tree covering an eerily close full moon to planetary systems unseen by man ... but surely pictured vividly by a generation of children. The use of onstage cameras to project the viewpoint of given characters was also very effective, especially when our middle-school-aged heroine, Meg Murry, lies immobilized on the ground while her father and friend look down on her helplessly.

This is not to say that the actors didn't contribute to the wonder of the evening. On the contrary, the performances of the three children -- pre-teen Meg (played amazingly by twenty-something actress Alejandra Escalante); her younger savant brother, Charles Wallace (a very convincing Sara Bruner); and new friend Calvin (Joe Wegner) -- were crucial to the success of the play. Their missing father (the always amazing Dan Donohue) was particularly well crafted, as was Ashland favorite Judith-Marie Bergen's larger-than-life take on the odd Mrs. Whatsit. Her fellow time-traveling companions - Michele Mais and Kate Mulligan - were a mixed bag. Mais was hard to hear, but seemed to have a grasp on the Shakespeare-quoting Mrs. Who, though she was limited by her technique; Mulligan fared much better providing the disembodied voice of Mrs. Which, as well as a loopy character known as "The Happy Medium."

Frankly, it was at this point that my mind wandered because of undeniable similarities to a children's novel that *did* catch my fancy at that age (or a little younger): "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster .. with its "whiches" (as opposed to "witches") and its Watchdog (who had an actual watch in his body). The literalist in me was probably born way back then. But I digress ...

The work of the Ensemble was key to the show, particularly in creating an array of elaborate creatures with ordinary props, from bedsheets to mink coats to umbrellas. Take the bedsheets for example; they were used at various times to represent the walls of an elevator, the wings of a miraculous moth-like creature, and the chambers of a gigantic beating heart. Of particular note was the excellent puppetry provided by the versatile Mark Bedard, who operated an eerie ventriloquist dummy that (SPOILER ALERT) ends up playing a key part in the action. And I cannot forget the ever-malleable U. Jonathan Toppo, whose turn as the aptly named (for a Shakespeare festival) family dog, Fortinbras, was a high point - right down to his wagging tail ... which I still can't figure out technically.

At a brisk hour and a half, with no intermission, this was a breezy tour de force evening about love, hope, and the ultimate power of a child's faith and intelligence. I did feel strangely distant from the emotional content - which is a bit odd, as the relationship between a lost father and a found daughter is traditionally right up my alley - but I'm not going to complain about that because the structure and conceptual elegance of the project were well worth the price of admission.

Indeed, I felt like I took a quick jaunt around the universe in 90 minutes via "tesseract" -- L'Engle's wormhole-like method of traveling immense stellar distances -- and was back in my seat in no time.

Rather exhilarating, really.

Now where did I park that blue box ...

Not Your Father's Pirates of Penzance

Dear Messrs. W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (deceased) --


We are writing to inform you that we here in Ashland are producing your seminal operetta "The Pirates of Penzance" for our 2011 Season. Since you are dead, we have deemed it appropriate to freely adapt your work and add new verses, a song from one of your other works, and snippets of popular music from the 120 years since the piece was first performed. We wanted to let you know that it is a huge hit with our audiences and is playing to sold out houses every night.

We hope this letter finds you well.

Yours sincerely,

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival

P.S. This reviewer loved it!

That's right, I said I loved it! It was a stupendously fun evening.  Yes, the tempos were too slow in spots and too fast in others ... Yes, the voices weren't legit (except for Mabel) ... Yes, they added dialogue, made cuts, reworked the ending, and quoted every musical style from "Porgy & Bess" to The Beatles to Public Enemy. But I adored every minute of it.

Why, you may ask, would a Gilbert & Sullivan traditionalist take this position? Because it was sharp, witty, and savvy -- that's why. And it's the norm here. The festival freely adapts plays from the Bard to Moliere all the time. Dramatic cuts and reimaginings are par for the course.

And to be fair, the voices were fine. I was led to believe by a Lamplighter board colleague of mine who saw the show earlier this summer that the actress playing Ruth (Robin Goodrin Nordli) was a disaster. She was perfectly fine. She was no Jean Ziaja or Katy Daniel, but she sang in tune and acted the heck out of the role, giving it a Scottish lilt.

Mabel (opera singer Khori Dastoor) was a lovely actress with a highly trained coloratura. Frederic (Eddie Lopez, who was wonderful in last season's "She Loves Me") had a fine Broadway tenor voice and a fine comic sensibility. The Pirate King (Michael Elich) showed off a muscular Broadway baritone and a dashing physicality. And Major General Stanley (David Kelly) was nimble and droll, especially in the tricky orphan/often dialogue sequence. His patter was perfectly acceptable.

So what's all the fuss about?

Well, they took liberties ... substantial liberties ... HUGE liberties!   An added song from "Ruddigore"; a longer pirate/cop fight scene; a gospel "Hail Poetry"; an interpolated line from The Beatles' "When I'm 64" in "Ah, leave me not to pine"; a cop rap.

And you know what? In the end, it's all OK.  Because the show rocked! The audience treated it like an Elton John concert. I hadn't heard this level of sustained applause in this theater before, and I've been coming here a long time.

And the technical touches were divine. During the (abbreviated) overture, a team of puppeteers entered the theater with paper seagulls attached to long poles. The gulls wheeled above the audience in graceful circles. Later on, puppet dolphins cavorted across the stage. During "Climbing Over Rocky Mountain," these same tuxedo-clad players assisted the small but potent ladies ensemble by moving individual rocks into position for them to clamber over. Ruth and Frederic's duet was performed in a moving rowboat, piloted by the puppeteer crew. This was inventive and unique stuff ... and very entertaining.

The knock against Ashland's musical forays in the past have been that the voices aren't that trained. But the direction has always been flawless. They seem to have ameliorated the vocal talent issue. There were no glaringly bad voices here.

And voice quality aside, to my mind this was actually a shot in the arm for companies like my own dear Lamplighters Music Theater that specialize in G&S. For the traditional aspects of this show were not always wittier or more clever than our attempts at the material. In point of fact, ours were funnier. It was in the non-traditional arena where the wizards at OSF shone brighter than we poor mortals. I take heart in that.

So, think of it as a big Gala and move on!

Yours sincerely,

A fan

I Am Thy Father's Ghost

I walked into the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's New Theater on Wednesday afternoon for a new play called "Ghost Light" and promptly and completely fell into my own past. For two hours or so I walked the hallways of my personal experience and relived a chapter in history that shaped my early twenties.

"Ghost Light" is a kind of post-modern memory play which attempts to put into perspective the experience of Jonathan Moscone, whose father San Francisco Mayor George Moscone was assassinated in 1978 when Jon was only 14. Moscone is now the artistic director at the California Shakespeare Festival. He devised the play with Berkeley Repertory Theater's Tony Taccone. Taccone wrote the play; Moscone directed this production.

A little background. I was a freshman at UC Berkeley in the fall of 1978. Jon's elder sister, Rebecca, was a classmate of mine and we shared a chemistry class, though I didn't know her well. I spent the night of Nov. 27 glued to the television set in my apartment, just like hundreds of thousands of others. The voice of then-Supervisor Dianne Feinstein announcing the news to a shocked City Hall press corps still rings in my head.

George Moscone was a favorite in our household. Though we lived in Sausalito, we felt San Francisco was our adoptive home. His politics were our politics. I had heard of Harvey Milk but not noted his career to this point. For several weeks the entire Bay Area grieved. There was a televised funeral, endless newspaper tributes, and a haunting candlelight march.

When the lights went down at the start of the play, the set and several TV screens came alive with projected images from that memorable day. As Feinstein spoke, the memories came rushing back and tears sprang to my eyes. I am the audience for this play, I thought.

Christopher Liam Moore played Jon in a rare and touching performance. Pulling together the dual aspects of a man both haunted by his past and unconsciously striving to discover his future, Moore presented the picture of a son reaching out to touch the ghost of his father. Aptly, when the play opens we find that Jon is directing a troubled production of "Hamlet" in which he has become hung up on how to depict the character of the ghost of Hamlet's father. The parallels begin to coalesce and feed each other, drawing Jon into an artistic and personal crisis.

His perceptions have been further confused by a series of vivid dreams featuring three mysterious figures: a guardian angel named Mister, who approaches him as a boy after his father's death; an avatar for a potential lover he met online who seems to be trying to protect him from something; and a shadowy, dangerous authority figure dressed as a prison guard who wants to give him a message that someone is coming ... make ready, make straight!

The play is lifted up by compelling performances by the always excellent Robynn Rodriguez as Jon's soulful and grounded best friend, Louise; Derrick Lee Weeden's ethereal Mister; and the fearful aspect of Bill Geisslinger as the Prison Guard. Weeden brings an otherworldly floating quality to his scenes, as he escorts 14-year-old Jon (a brave Tyler James Myers) on a journey of frustrating discovery ... from psychiatrist office, to funeral, to wake, to the afterlife. Geisslinger's body language alone would be worth the price of admission. His ominous presence dominates the action and the mystery he represents adds a chill to the proceedings. And best of all, at the end of a searing scene with Jon where the Moscone family history is torn apart and sewn back together a stitch at a time, he leaves that character behind and returns to the stage as Jon's father. With no words, much like the ghost of Hamlet's father at some junctures, Geisslinger uses effortless body language to make George Moscone live again. His simple choices -- a hand slipped into a hip pocket; an easy gait as he climbs the steps to City Hall -- brought tears to my eyes ... and still does!

Other fine performances include Danforth Comins as Loverboy, the avatar for Jon's pathetic real-world Internet date Basil (Ted Deasy), and Peter Frechette in the dual role of a trendy Film Director (who may or may not have been based on Gus Van Sant, director of "Milk") and Austin, Jon's politically minded friend.

The set was wonderful, melding Jon's apartment with the columns and grandeur of City Hall. Great use was made of television and projected images, as well. There were episodes of "I Love Lucy," a paranormal cable TV show, and a jaw-dropping scene from "The Golden Girls." And the three-quarter thrust brought the audience right on top of the action. But I must give a special round of applause here to the props department, who managed to find or recreate a Young Man's Fancy garment bag for this show. If you are of a certain age and you grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, you got your first suit at Young Man's Fancy on California Street. I was stunned when I caught a glimpse of it. My god, the detail!

It may not be fair but I must say that I wasn't a big fan of Moore prior to this. His Malvolio in last season's flawed "Twelfth Night" was not my favorite. But his performance in this stunning new play -- one of heart, humor, and honesty -- has won me over!

I won't soon forget it!

A Rave By Any Other Name

When planning my visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this season, I wasn't sure I wanted to see the latest offering in the so-called Henriad history play cycle. Last season's "Henry IV, Part 1" was marked by many fine performances but the direction was fairly traditional. Did I want a repeat of that experience? So I decided to rush it if tickets were still available on the day of the show. Suffice it to say that "Henry IV, Part 2" was a terrific evening of theater and perhaps the hidden treasure at Ashland this year.

The play was framed almost cinematically, like a chapter in an epic movie saga. There were "Scenes From Part 1" presented in a series of dramatically staged tableaus, accompanied by a thrilling drumbeat; a Prologue featuring a modern-day "Presenter," a trickster-like character aptly named Rumor, who sets the scene for the confusion that ran rampant after the battles in Part 1 were ended; and even a playful "Coming Attractions" sequence at evening's end. But more on that later!

The star of this show was Michael Winters as Sir John Falstaff. I can't say enough about this performance. Last season, the wonderful David Kelly played the role and even though I thought his approach was justified, it was so mired in the fat knight's disgusting manner that I didn't care or sympathize with him much. That may have been the goal, but I really want to like Sir John despite his faults. Winters, however, was simply born to play this part. He wore it like a comfortable - if rumpled - suit of clothes. A signature performance and a delight to watch!

We are supposed to feel Falstaff's pain in this play. It's all about age and remembrance. Sir John is feeling his years getting shorter, yet he proclaims to all that will listen that you are only as young as you feel ... and he feels fine, thank you very much. He is given a young page by Prince Hal, a reminder of his youth; he tarries with a young but fallen girl, Doll Tearsheet, who loves him for his alehouse bravado; and he endures the reminiscences of a dottering old schoolmate who has become a sedate and boring country squire. But he has staked his entire being on Prince Hal becoming king and carrying him to court in glory on his ale-sodden coattails. Winters plays these notes with wit, reticence, and an odd sort of grace. He moves like a man half his age. It's a kind of effortless dance -- but with gout!

But Prince Hal (John Tufts) has been evolving. He still lingers with the London tavern crowd in Eastcheap, even after his victories on the field of battle in part 1. But he has gained a certain nascent maturity. He knows the day is coming when he will have to take responsibility and succeed his father, who lies gravely ill. Tufts once again proves that he has taken the reins here at Ashland. He is a wonderful actor to watch, immersing himself in the duality that lies within the role. He even achieves something I thought I would never see. I have written before that I find the roles portrayed by the deaf actor Howie Seago, though well performed, a distraction from the play at hand. Language is what Shakespeare is all about, so why abandon it? Well, I am glad to say that at least in this case I was wrong. The scenes between Tufts and Seago's Ned Poins sparkled this time around. Their close friendship was so evident and natural that the sign language disappeared.

Also, of note, Tufts was simply brilliant in his scenes with Richard Howard as the dying Henry. Howard once again lent a wonderful quality of frailty and weariness to the role. Henry's other son John (Daisuke Tsuji) has proven himself on the field of battle in a victory against the resurgent rebels, providing the king with a stark contrast to his wayward son Hal. But in a key scene Hal, thinking his father lies dead, is torn by emotion and reveals that he indeed knows what is required of him and how much he loves his father. Howard's quiet strength in this scene is palpable.

Also of note in this cast is the veteran James Edmondson, just terrific as Justice Shallow, the dottering country squire. His comic moments with Michael J. Hume (as his cousin Silence) at the top of Act 2, when the scene shifts to the countryside, were textbook examples of how to steal a scene with style. Edmondson is my touchstone at the festival, the lone actor who was here 36 years ago when I first arrived. The pair had the audience in the palm of their hand, and Hume used a simple flyswatter to great comic effect.

Other notable cast contributions included Nell Geisslinger as a lively and sweet Doll Tearsheet; Kimberly Scott as a malleable Mistress Quickly (who gave a hilarious master class on how to make the most of the word "swaggerer"); Jack Willis as a monochromatic, no-nonsense Chief Justice who runs afoul of Falstaff and Hal, but receives a surprising offer of friendship and counsel from the new king; Rodney Gardiner, who personified different aspects of "Rumor" throughout the action of the play, all the while sporting a Rolling Stones T-shirt; and the comic talents of Brent Hinkley, Mark Bedard, Daisuke Tsuji, and Eddie Lopez, who made the ensemble scenes shine.

At the end, the stark magnificence of the set came into play, with a huge staircase lumbering forward for the coronation of Henry V, strewn with an explosion of golden streamers. It provides quite a majestic backdrop for Hal's denial of Falstaff. But the end also reveals a weakness of the play for modern audiences. Its final scene portends the coming war with France. The director Lisa Peterson solves this in a unique and irresistibly fun way. She brings the cast back on stage and Falstaff provides an epilogue in which the company gives a preview of what awaits the audience in the "next chapter." They present snippets of thrilling dialogue and the news that Falstaff meets his end. But he is still here for now, so he is going to dance while he can. He does so, and his nimble country jig turns into a thumping rave beat that consumes the whole company, with Hal holding his crown aloft in celebration as a sea of hands strive to touch it!

Wow! I can't wait for the next episode!!

Sound and Fury

The key element of the next two plays I attended on my current trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival was power ... and how to hold onto it.

Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part 1 was staged this season in the Elizabethan Theater and directed by Penny Metropulos. I was quite fond of the last OSF staging of this history play several years ago, which very successfully modernized the story and drew comparisons to recent wars and the spotlight that glory and fame throws on the men who fight them, especially fathers and sons.

This year's offering was a more traditional approach, relying on the text and the strength inherent in Shakespeare's poetic exploration of battle, honor, and family discord. Without all the bells and whistles of the previous production - and I seem to recall some significant cuts, as well - the show falls squarely on the shoulders of four key actors: Richard Howard's King Henry IV, Kevin Kenerly's Hostpur, John Tufts' Prince Hal, and David Kelly's Sir John Falstaff. That is quite an assemblage of acting skill, especially in Howard's case. Previous productions have thrown some pretty high-caliber performers at the roles of Hal (Marco Barricelli, Dan Donohue), Falstaff (John Pribyl, Cal Winn), and Hotspur (Barry Kraft, Michael Elich) - but I can't recall many of the actors called upon to play Henry Bolingbroke.

Having Howard take the stage as the King gives the part extra weight. He looked weary, guilt-ridden and ill at ease. He is a wonderfully flawed character who miscalculated his political and personal alliances and has to fight to retain his crown and perhaps, his son.

As Prince Hal, John Tufts displays his reliable physicality and strong command of the Bard's language while folding in a sly, comic sensibility and a sense of playfulness in his dissolute dealings with Falstaff and his cronies. (These were on display in recent seasons in which he played a cross-dressing Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream and King James in Equivocation). We see his simple joy at playing an elaborate trick on Sir John and then watch as he wrestles with letting that seductive life go and returning to his duty as heir apparent.

David Kelly's Falstaff is certainly the grimiest one I've ever seen. Life at the tavern is seen warts and all in this production, and the director lets you know from the get-go. I haven't heard so much belching on stage in my life ... or seen as many realistic uses of a chamber pot. He did particularly marvelous work with his elaborate description of just how many thieves accosted him after a recent bout of knavery - all set up by Hal to catch him in a lie. He also was delightfully eloquent on Sir John's warped conception of honor.

In other performances, Kevin Kenerly made for a charismatic Hotspur and Judith-Marie Bergan was very funny as Mistress Quickly.

Overall, I prefer more non-traditional productions that make judicious cuts to highlight the deeper, non-historical issues in this play, but in Ashland's 75th Anniversary season perhaps we should take a look at the whole and not its parts.

The next "power" play up for discussion is the festival's commissioned adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's acclaimed film Throne of Blood, in itself an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

It was staged in the Angus Bowmer Theater and was directed by Ping Chong. The production incorporated Kabuki and Noh theater styles and employed many cinematic devices and perspectives including projected imagery and multi-layered vocal effects. The script dispensed with most of Shakespeare's language, except for the occasional reference, and also salted the dialogue with subtle references to Kurosawa's other films.

Kevin Kenerly played Washizu (Macbeth) with great energy and precision. He wasn't given the usual interior monologues to show his growing doubts. In its place he took advantage of the Japanese concept of inner stillness to physically show his struggles. And as for his physicality, the "death grip" with which he held his sword after murdering Lord Kuniharu (King Duncan) was nearly unbreakable ... until his wife Asaji (Lady Macbeth) expertly pried it from his hands.

Lady Asaji, played by Ako, a Kabuki-trained actress, brought specificity and strength to her role as she seeded her husband's mind with doubt and essentially did his thinking for him. The commitment to the Japanese traditional style was impressive and at times quite terrifying in its calm insistence.

Other cast standouts included Jonathan Haugen as the sly and commanding Lord Kuniharu (fresh off his amazing work in Equivocation last year); Danforth Comins as Miki (Banquo), who developed a strong brotherly bond with Washizu that I have never noted in Macbeth; and Cristofer Jean as the Forest Spirit, who used both audio technology and his own vocal range to create a memorable prophetic witch. I also liked the comic relief provided by Washizu's men, especially Peter Macon and Greg Linington, and an Old General played by Michael Winters.

The original visual style was arresting and succeeded in bringing the film's vision to the stage. I have seen many Kurosawa films and have enjoyed listening to the expert commentaries on DVD. One scholar memorably noted that, "If you see wind in the shot, it's because Kurosawa put it there." I recalled that statement this afternoon as I noted the fluttering of the Lord's tent in the opening scene.

I eagerly await the chance to view the film again to compare experiences.

Pride & Prejudice ... No Zombies!

My second day at Ashland 2010 began with a matinee performance of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, adapted from the novel by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan. It was staged indoors at the Angus Bowmer Theater and was directed by former OSF artistic director Libby Appel.

First, a proviso: I am the only human on earth who has never read Pride & Prejudice. Well, not really. But it feels like it sometimes. In the weeks leading up to my Ashland trip, I told many people that I was looking forward to seeing this play in particular because I had never read the novel. There was almost universal surprise, since I am fairly well read. But I do have an excuse, of sorts. My sister read Jane Austen when I was young and I grew up under the impression that, like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and Black Beauty, some books were simply the province of the female of the species. Fast-forward to my thirties: I joined a book group and was hoping to finally have a good reason to catch the literary classics I had missed in my misspent youth. Unfortunately, the members of the group had already read Jane Austen and wanted to explore new territory. But it turned out that they hadn't read one of her novels, Northanger Abbey, so it was selected. I loved it! I was surprised to discover how witty her stories were and I reveled in her love of irony and her clear-eyed view of society.

I started reading the novel last week in hopes I would finish it before I saw the play, but I didn't quite make it. However, I had the best of both worlds as I knew enough to judge how closely the play came to realizing the novel and yet preserved the ending as a surprise to be experienced in the theater.

Now to the play.

The problem with adapting novels to the stage (or to the silver screen, for that matter) is that they flow differently than an original work built for the medium. The action of this novel takes place over the span of a year and involves many turning points of great import to the major characters and their destiny. The adapter can choose to focus on a much smaller aspect of the novel (as the film version of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime did) or somehow condense the action into a comprehensible whole by some storytelling device. Libby Appel researched the available adaptations and discovered that virtually all of them used a narrator to achieve this goal. However, the novel doesn't have a single narrator. Feeling that this would be untrue to Austen's intent, she turned to a version which instead utilised an almost whirlwind style of storytelling that moves from scene-to-scene and locale-to-locale at high speed, almost melting from one day to another in a moment. Through the use of creative lighting, music, dance, and deftly written dialogue the audience is taken on a yearlong journey in the span of a few hours traffic on the stage.

As Appel put it in her directors note: "We have envisioned this production as a grand party ... We are less interested in the literal plot chronology. Instead we invite you to engage in each moment of the story as if you were beautiful ball that teems with music and dancing and flirting and falling in love - and yes, irony as well."

From the outset, the cast established the setting and characters of the Bennet Family and the people they met in their journey beautifully. I could find no weak links in this cast at any point. Elizabeth was played by newcomer Kate Hurster, a very strong actress who carried a huge portion of the play on her shoulders. Her sisters were delightfully and distinctly drawn, with kudos especially to Nell Geisslinger (who has done some amazing work here in past seasons in Bus Stop, Tempest, and Winter's Tale) as the beauteous Jane, and Susannah Flood (who I felt was out of her element in Hamlet but who knocked this one out of the park) as the naive Lydia.

Also notable in the family were OSF vets Mark Murphey and Judith-Marie Bergan as Mr. & Mrs. Bennet. Bergan brought out the foibles of her almost Dickensian comic character without going overboard into caricature. You could see her love for her daughters mixed in with her overblown sense of societal and financial necessity. And Murphey stood out for his befuddled yet ultimately sweet and caring father figure.

Other notable performances were given by Christian Barillas and Brooke Parks as the enthusiastic Mr. Bingley and his caustic sister Caroline; returning OSF veteran James Newcomb as the annoyingly self-important Mr. Collins, who almost stole the show with his smarmy attempts to capture the heart of Elizabeth; and Elijah Alexander as the inscrutable Mr. Darcy, who used his natural height and sharp features to great effect in assaying the character's well-known aloofness and hidden nobility.

Alexander is apparently a polarizing figure for longtime fans of the novel and Darcy, in particular. I have a few friends who have seen this production who feel that his interpretation is lacking in that he played the role for laughs. I must admit that I did see some evidence of that in a few places but they seemed subtle to me and didn't detract from my rooting interest in seeing Elizabeth find her great love. I am eager to review the much-praised television and film adaptations to see some different approaches to the character.

The director did a marvelous job of using social dance choreography to move the action forward - especially in Darcy & Elizabeth's awkward first dance. The lighting was also extremely effective, almost obviating the need for a set of any kind. It could have been done on a bare stage.

A word here on something that Ashland does marvelously with every production: A pet peeve of mine is how a theater company handles the transition from the world the audience has just come from and the world you want to introduce them to. I've seen shows on Broadway and in regional and community theaters all over the U.S. but OSF does it best: They control the moment between the two worlds with amazing dexterity. On Broadway I've seen ushers with flashlights seating late patrons and their bags of souvenirs as the action is already underway. At OSF, they get the cell phone admonitions out of the way (usually in a fashion that is linked to the show) then the music begins to rise and the lights begin to fall and you feel transported. It's the equivalent of an overture. In this production, as the audience is still filing in the players begin to assemble for a vocal recital on stage. We get a glimpse of the characters and their relationships. In a very effective and comic moment, the usual recorded OSF admonitions regarding cell phones and cameras begins to play and surprises the two youngest Bennet daughters, who vainly search for the source of the mysterious voice. Then the characters take their seats and the "concert" begins - tellingly with a song from Twelfth Night. Then the lights dim to black, the scene changes, and we're off and running.

All in all, a really charming production. No deeper meaning is imparted, but we do get a lovely afternoon's entertainment: a window into the world of manners Jane Austen style, a captivating love story, and an invitation to a great party. I have great respect for Libby Appel's directing, especially of the Festival's non-Shakespeare offerings. Her Bus Stop, Three Sisters, and Paradise Lost were fascinating shows, and this adds to her laudable canon. I measure my admiration for the show by my desire as the lights went up that my wife Vicky had been here to see it with me. Great fun!

And I can't wait to finish the book!