Lili-Anne Brown’s direction is to the point, and Breon Arzell’s choreography is dazzling. The gods go crazy to sort things out, and there is gorgeous singing, especially by Ti Moune, her rival Andrea (Hannah Rose Honoré) and Erzulie (Camille Robinson).īased on a novel, “My Love, My Love” by Rosa Guy, the music (composer Stephen Flaherty/lyricist Lynn Aherns) flashes from calypso to ballad to Vodou ritual, with an all-star cast that dances as if inspirited by the lwa/gods themselves. Ti Moune (Ciera Dawn) and Daniel (Dominique Lawson) are in love, but as an aristocrat, he must marry within his circle, and she must remain on the wrong side of the island. What drives the plot of the show is the inequity between rich and poor, white and Black, and other racial and economic disasters leftover from colonialism, ostensibly in Haiti. “Once on This Island” is a musical fantasy set in the Caribbean, with song and dance so exuberant it’s easy to miss the sadness of its narrative. 30) From left, Hannah Rose Honoré, Ciera Dawn and Dominique Lawson star in “Once on This Island,” a romantic fantasy set in the aftermath of colonialism in the Caribbean. Outstanding in the cast are Geoffrey Warren Barnes II as an exceptionally high-spirited Ariel, James Ryen as a somewhat sympathetic Caliban and Grace Chan Ng and William Thomas Hodgson as daughter Miranda and her husband-to-be. The play is the last wholly written by Shakespeare, who tells us that his work is substantially finished: “Now my charms are all o’erthrown, and what strength I have is now mine own.” It is thought that the author decamped from London for Stratford after writing the epilogue to the play and collaborated on only two more works after that. He plays the role with warmth and humor rather than the bitterness often shown, generous in forgiving, not overly rough with Caliban or Ariel, the spirit he has enslaved to do his bidding. Kevin Kenerly is excellent, a good-hearted Prospero, a duke who has been exiled to an island with his daughter after having his dukedom usurped by his brother. No trendy updates or tampering with the language to make it “more accessible.” The upshot of traditional staging is that audiences can better decipher not only what the Bard wrote but also the many common parallels between the playwright’s time and our own, in this case family dissension, betrayal, forgiveness. Avila stages “The Tempest” in a lean and uncluttered manner, a staging Elizabethans would have readily understood. 15) Prospero (Kevin Kenerly), right, uses magical powers to keep Caliban (James Ryen), the only native inhabitant of the island he’s been exiled to, enslaved in Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s traditional staging of “The Tempest.” (Photo courtesy Jenny Graham)Īs for the single and very solid Shakespeare production, Nicolas C. The cast and creative team bring the play home with nuance and power. The brief scenes and flashbacks are prefaced by brilliant projections of battle, of destroyed buildings and victims of war, and the actors manage to steer clear of stereotypes: Mia (Helen Sadler) is more than a do-gooder with a high-minded mission, Jane (Caroline Shaffer) is more than just a ditzy mother and Derya (Nora el Samahy) is a caring, if rather glib, lover. She has been trying to recover her mental stability in the company of her Turkish lover Derya and her mother Jane, who has come to take care of her.ĭirector Evren Odcikin handles the stop-start episodes with precision, and the morality of conflict reporting is the discussion: Should the public see the worst? Should the suffering be made public? The play’s most poignant moment comes when in a film clip of a bereaved mother asks Mia if she sees her subjects.
American photographer Mia is recovering from an attack in the Middle East, where she is on assignment, that was so gruesome she can’t recall it.
The most unusual play at Oregon Shakespeare Festival is Mona Mansour’s 2017 “unseen,” a one-act drama that looks at the effects of violence on those who photograph wars and the difficult choices they make. ‘unseen’ (through July 31) American conflict photographer Mia (Helen Sadler), at right, talks to her mother (Caroline Shaffer), left, and her Turkish lover Derya (Nora el Samahy) in the wake of an attack she can’t remember that she experienced while on assignment in the Middle East. Here are mini-reviews of four plays running now. Shakespeare, a song-and-dance extravaganza, a brilliant monologue, a provocative contemporary work - all this and more make it worth it to make the trek from the Bay Area to Ashland, Oregon, for the esteemed West Coast theater festival.
Ashland shakespeer full#
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is in the midst of its first full season since 2019, with five plays on the boards and two more opening in October.
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