We drove up to Ashland this past Friday to attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, since we both needed the R&R away from our computers for a weekend. I’d driven through Ashland before on my way from Seattle to Oakland, and thought it to be one of those quaint towns where we could spend a day browsing art galleries and crafty stores, ala Port Angeles or Carmel. Turns out in Ashland, “The play’s the thing” - that, and eating; we had an excellent dinner at the Winchester Inn and there were plenty of nice restaurants in town to choose from. But besides dinner and a show, there’s not that much to do: the art galleries are spread out, not terribly inviting, and there weren’t any particularly interesting quaint stores.

Which isn’t to say the Ashland theatrical experience wasn’t worth it. We went on the backstage tour Saturday morning given by a local playwright/dresser. The acting company is obviously passionate about their work, and it shows in just how much work goes into it, not just from the actors but the vast number of support staff - set dressers, light, sound, costume, and even video designers. As the tour wound its way around the three theatres we were able to see first hand the stagehands all working to switch from “Taming of the Shrew” to “Tempest” in one theatre, “Distracted” to “Tartouffe” in another. Our guides anecdotes were amusing and informative, including the requisite stories about near disasters, last minute understudy replacements, and women masquerading as male swashbucklers in “Cyrano de Bergarac” who had to be repeatedly warned to not upstage the rest of the crew.

We only had time for “The Tempest” in the outdoor Elizabethan theatre Saturday night. It was well done, mostly in period costume and not strangely altered (apparently this year’s “Romeo and Juliet” was controversially modernized in both costume and dialogue - you don’t mess with the Bard’s words, man). Slightly marred by Gonzalo played by an understudy who was reading off a script, but I guess something must have happened to the main actor to justify it. Alas, The Tempest is still not high on my list of preferred Shakespeare; I’d hoped seeing it live would change my opinion, but it didn’t. Prospero has some really good lines, but I still just don’t get the play. Too much magic, perhaps, or Prospero just doesn’t seem like a believable character to me - not vengeful enough? Actually, just not entirely convincing, especially in his change of heart. And Caliban’s role is almost too pathetic to be either sympathetic or villainous, although the actor who portrayed him did an excellent job.