Jim Panttaja

We have again traveled to Ashland for our annual visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We arrived Tuesday and saw our first two plays: Othello and Coriolanus. The first day notwithstanding, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is not ONLY about Shakespeare. Of our 9 plays this year (yes, 9), four are Shakespeare. It is opening week (for the summer season) this week, so there is extra buzz in Ashland. The Green Show has changed this year - last night was an enthusiastic group playing Marimbas, with music of Zimbabwe.  Later this week the schedule says that the period dancers and musicians that were here until about eight years ago are returning (some of the musicians have been here all along - but no longer playing period instruments). I am looking forward to that. Coriolanus is a timely play of a man groomed to be a soldier, who is unable to transform in to a politician. Reviews of the play often characterize him as being unsympathetic to readers or reviewers, but this production did give me a connection to, and sympathy for Coriolanus. It was staged in the New Theatre, in the round. The stage was spare - but the features they had (including a couple of trap doors) were used effectively. Coriolanus was clearly shaped by his mother to be a soldier (she made it clear that the honor might be greater if he failed to return from battle. But ultimately it was her appeal that led him to pardon Rome, and ultimately led to his death. I was in the action - literally. I was on an aisle - several times there were soldiers or townspeople on the steps next to me. We had coffee with one of the actors (who in fact had been standing next to me on the stairs), and he said that they had trouble with some of the student groups reaching out and touching actors.The scene changes were quite effective. There was little to move around - and several of them took the lights down, and immediately brought them up in another section of the theatre. There was not time to relax, you were instantly taken to the next scene. It brought more life to the action of mob scenes and battle scenes. Coriolanus is killed in the last scene (I hope I didn’t ruin that for you).   As the lights come up and the actors gather themselves for the curtain call (with no curtain to allow a delay to gather yourself), the actress who played Coriolanus’ mother (Robynn Rodriquez) checks on the actor who played Coriolanus (Danforth Comins). It feels like a quick look to make sure the actor is ok. He takes an extra second, then looks up and winks at her. Coriolanus is gone for the day, and he is back.Coriolanus focused on the manipulator (Coriolanus who was created by his mother, and plays out his role). Othello is about the manipulator, Iago.It is his play, and the play unfolds exactly to his plan. Again, a spare stage used effectively.I was realizing how much the festival has shaped my view of the theatre. Over the last 20 years I have seen about 120 plays here. Although I have seen plays in other venues (six years at Cal with Mary a theatre major, living in Poughkeepsie, and getting to Broadway on occasion, our daughter’s high school years with her in several plays, several years of Mary being on the Sixth Street Playhouse board of directors…), this does represent a huge percentage of my theatre experience. It has created my expectations of theater. It makes it easy to bring our family back year after year.