We survived our family gathering at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where we, as usual, watched 5 plays in 3 days. At least, three of us did.
Between Two Knees
This is a show created by the group The 1491s and it covers the time period between two events at Wounded Knee. The story is a sort of family biography. It’s absurd on many levels, but the hard truths the show asks of its usually mainly white audience to accept are best taken with a heap of absurdity. Satire is the most effective form of criticism there is. Absurdist comedy is probably the second-most effective form of criticism.
There are facts presented in the show, the way Native Americans of all tribes were rounded up, stripped of their language and culture, and whipped into a shape more pleasing to white people. Genocide and abuse are covered, with a bit of of a laugh. If that seems strange, well, it’s a strange show.
It is a good show, though, and one that needs to be seen.
Mother Road
I never read The Grapes of Wrath, nor have I seed the movie, so my understanding of it is “Joads look for a better life and don’t find one”. Mother Road is a sequel to the Joad family story and traces the great road trip backwards from California to Oklahoma.
Macbeth
I was looking forward to this, as Danforth Comins is one my favorite actors at OSF right now, but this production did not add any insights to my understanding of the tragedy. They added a notion that the Macbeths had lost a child, and the witches were on stage in many scenes masquerading in other roles, which I took to mean the witches were monitoring their meddling instead of the actors swapping roles.
Lady Macbeth’s suicide, however, was beautifully done.
As You Like It
This was well done. The genderflipping didn’t hurt the production at all. Jessica Ko nails Rosalind. Hell, everything about this was fun, silly, overblown, just like a Shakespearean comedy should be.
Too many weddings at the end, but I think old Will was going for a record when he wrote it.
Alice in Wonderland
This was absurdly fun, and it was good to see children in the audience. There’s not much you can do with it other than tell it the way Carroll wrote it.
The costumes and props were incredible. The way they used the props to tell the story was incredible. It was a good way to close the weekend.