Ashland Trip! First Show: Measure For Measure (Fifth Show of the 2011 Season)

Trust the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to set the bar high. Our first play of this tour in Ashland, Oregon; Measure For Measure. This play is commonly referred to as a "Problem Play", meaning that it is not really a comedy, tragedy, or a history. This show can sometimes be very dark, although it was first preformed for a light-hearted occasion, the very first Christmas pageant of King James I. However, Amanda and Wendy found no problems with this play, at all. The festival decided to set the show in 1970's America, instead of in medieval Vienna with happenin' swingers, and flamboyant transvestites in leopard-skin jumpsuits.

Keeping young with Lithia Water.

After spending five hours in the car, Measure For Measure was just the thing to keep Amanda and Wendy from getting even more punchy than they had already become. We made our annual trip to the Lithia water fountains and rediscovered the horrible taste that the water has. Honestly, the water tastes like liquid fart. But it keeps you young and healthy.  With a taste like that, it better!

One of the most amazing parts of Measure For Measure, was the minimalist set. It converted from chapel, to night club, to jail, to office with ease. (It's conference room table! It's a desk! It's a different desk!). The rear set projections were a wonder of technology. Honestly amazing. Shifting from portraits of staid old white men to the interior of a prison to a beautiful field where it actually rained real water down the windows. It was truly extraordinary.

Before our ratings, we would like to say a word about the venue. The Bowmer Theater has been home to many productions over the years, but all the shows that it housed for the 2011 season to be halted when the main support beam that holds the theater up had a huge crack in it in June. The theater was closed for six weeks so that the beam could be fixed (so it would not fall and kill people) and during these renovations all the productions had to be housed in different locations. Shows took place at the Southern Oregon University campus, the Ashland Armory, and even a huge tent that was put up in Lithia Park (later to be nicknamed "Bowmer in the Park" or BIP). The Bowmer Theater was re-opened on August 2, and 2.4 million dollars later you can't even tell that that there was anything wrong.

Until Amanda gets her own, she'll visit this Tony Award.

Amanda would rate the venue to be a 10. She love love loves it! She says, "Sure the color scheme is outdated and faded, but the sight lines can't be beat, no matter where you sit. And the technical wizardry that they do there is state of the art and makes me wish that I had stayed a technician." She loves that there is a Tony Award in the lobby and takes a picture with it every trip. Wendy also loves the Bowmer because of the acoustics. She loves that no matter where you sit you can hear the actors, even without microphones.

Amanda would rate the production to be a 10 as well. This is because it was "just a pure delight to watch". She likes that the characters were fully realized and was impressed that it took looking in the program to realize that Stephanie Beatriz, who played the lead of Isabella, also played Maggie The Cat in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof last season. Also impressive was Anthony Heald,  veteran screen and stage actor, as the Duke. Amanda thinks his portrayal really "captured the complexities of this conniving manipulator." Finally, Amanda liked that the actor playing Lucio, Kenajuan Bentley, really embodied the spirit of an R. Crumb character "hangin' loose" as comic relief.  She also loved the attention to detail of the costumes, having been alive in the 70's.  Particularly funny was the bad guy judge wearing Supreme Court Justice robes with the gold fringed sleeves like the old Chief Justice William Reinquist used to wear.  Pretentious much?

Wendy would rate the production to be a 10 also. She really loved the sets and how universal the stage becomes in Ashland. Year after year she had been impressed with the stage design at these shows (her favorite would be for Hamlet last season). She loves that a desk can  be used in almost every scene, but also converted to a table and used for other purposes. Wendy liked the Spanish influences that were peppered throughout this production. Spanish songs and language were very apparent and nice to listen to. She really liked the music in this production as well, played by a Mariachi trio consisting of a violin, a twelve string guitar and a Mariachi acoustic bass, a guitarron. The actors really knew how to blend with each other and create music that was very soothing to the ear. A very nice change of pace from Much Ado a couple days ago. Wendy also loves the fact that even though it is toward the end of the season for these actors, they still seem as excited for every show as if it were opening night. They clearly love their jobs.

Wendy with Jonathan Dyrud

 
We both agree that it is a sign of a good show when, after a five hour car drive, sitting in a theater for another three hours is not a chore.   As evidenced by the fact that they stayed for the post-show discussion with actor Jonathan Dyrud.