Anyone for time travel?

Mind-blowing Pericles at Bard

by Christopher Key

OK, so there are two must-see productions at Bard on the Beach this year and the second one is also on the Howard Family Stage.  If the name of Pericles director Lois Anderson seems familiar, it’s because she’s been an onstage favorite for years.  Anderson also knows how to make an entrance as a director and her first effort is going to be tough to top.

The sheer amount of work Anderson put in on this adaptation is evident in her Director’s Notes wherein she cites everyone from Joseph Campbell to Euripedes to George Lucas.  Another indication of hard work and attention to detail is how much time she and the techies must have spent together.

How often have you heard an audience at a Shakespeare festival spontaneously break into applause at some wizardly feat of stage magic?  It happened several times on opening night and that means the backstage geniuses get first billing.

Photo credit - David Blue

Anderson not only borrows a speech from Euripedes, but much of the classical Greek dramatic form.  That demands some vocal acrobatics from the actors and Alison Matthews coaches them very well.  There are ghostly presences whose statuesque appearance is thanks to an unnamed makeup artist and Marie Le Bihan, in charge of wig construction.

This production is marvelously mystical, somewhat reminiscent of The Tempest and time is somewhat fluid as we travel forward and back.  That required a lot of creativity from Costume Designer Carmen Alatorre and it shows in every stitch.

I’ve never been able to discern very clearly the fine line between choreography and movement.  But I know it when I see it and the atmospheric movement in this play springs from the fertile imagination of Wendy Gorling.

None of this would work without close attention to scenic design.  Amir Ofek delivers a set that you’ll want to explore carefully before the show begins in order to appreciate the attention to detail.  Tip of the fedora to Indiana Jones.

Photo credit - David Blue

Even though the oft-underappreciated backstage barbarians steal this one, there are also some actors who contribute mightily and endure some serious staging challenges.  The title role is played Kaymar Pazandeh who runs away with Rookie of the Year honors.  

Photo credit - David Blue

David Warburton is appropriately Obi-wan Kenobish as Cerimon, a healer and tour guide on the side. 

Photo credit - David Blue

Pericles' long-lost daughter Marina is portrayed by Luisa Jojic, who spreads purity and innocence like an STD.  She even has weird hair like Princess Leia.

One of the reasons the Douglas Campbell Theatre occupies a special place in my heart is because that’s where I get to see those rarely-produced, non-canonical works.  Thanks to an informative Bard program, I now know that scholars consider the first nine scenes of Pericles to have been written by George Wilkins while ‘ol Bill is responsible for the rest.  Lay that one on ‘em at Trivia Tuesday!  All of the Bard shows live up to their rep, but Pericles is the cherry on top of this sundae of a season.

Pericles plays in repertory with Othello under the Bard on the Beach tents at Vancouver, BC’s, lovely Vanier Park.  The drive and the border hassles are all worth it and you can see the schedule and score tickets at the Bard website.

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An uncivil war

Othello soars at Bard

by Christopher Key

Director Bob Frazer credits actors Luc Roderique and Kayvon Kelly for the idea of setting Shakespeare’s tragic Othello in 1864 during the American Civil War.  Their motives may not have been entirely pure since they ended up with the two biggest roles, but the concept is brilliant.

Othello has always struck me as the most accessible of the Bard’s tragedies because who hasn’t felt twinges of jealousy at some point?  Never mind that the characters are in positions of power; it’s the human emotions that grab us and won’t let go.  If you’re not physically and emotionally limp by the time Othello ends, you need to check your vitals.

I’ve always found that the shows on the Howard Family Stage in the Douglas Campbell Theatre represent the very best of Bard on the Beach.  The theatre is smaller and the thrust stage sweeps the audience into the action.  But it’s also where Bard goes out on the edge and takes risks that are not always evident in the mainstage productions.

While Shakespeare’s script focuses on “the green-eyed monster,” which is as old as Cain and Abel, Frazer’s adaptation highlights racism and bigotry, which is as contemporary as this morning’s 

headlines.

Photo credit - David Blue

Roderique plays the title role with enormous sensitivity, making the audience squirm while watching an essentially good man be utterly destroyed by his emotions.  Yes, I know that not everyone likes to squirm, but it’s one of the hallmarks of great theatre.  Like good priests, good playwrights comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Photo credit - David Blue

The scheming Iago is the most interesting character in the show as he manipulates his superior officer like an Elizabethan Dick Cheney.  Kelly’s interpretation pulls no punches, but he manages to score his points about racism without inflicting blunt trauma injuries on the audience.

Kayla Deorksen sparkles as she delivers a spirited and sensual Desdemona.  This character must be played just right or the audience won’t identify with the insane jealousy her husband feels over her fictional betrayals.  Deorksen is firmly in Goldilocks territory.

As expected at Bard on the Beach, the supporting cast is as solid as Donald Trump’s head.  Watch for outstanding performances by Andrew Cownden, Luisa Jojic, David Warburton and Sereana Malani.

Costume Designer Mara Gottler handles military uniforms and hoop skirts with equal ease and Sound Designer Steve Charles brilliantly captures the music of that turbulent American era.  Fight director Nicholas Harrison makes all the mayhem frighteningly real and Lighting Designer John Webber has obviously seen what light looks like in Charleston.

I’ve got one more show to review, but at this point, Othello is this year’s must-see production.  It plays in repertory with Pericles on the second stage through September 17^th.  See the Bard on the Beach website for a complete schedule and to purchase tickets.

Remember what I said about dressing for Junuary?  This year, it also holds for Julember.

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Wherefore art thou, Posthumus?

Shakespeare Northwest delights with second show

By Lily Olason

We’re lucky that the folks at Shakespeare Northwest give us a three-part festival. The Merchant of Vegas ran Tuesday, and last night dazzled with the classic Cymbeline. People have a hard time deciding if this is a comedy, a tragedy, or a dramedy. And I think that suits it just fine.

The love story drips with backstory and plot. But for the Bard hath written it heretofore, here’s the skinny: Evil queen marries unassuming king with a daughter named Imogen, and tries to get the crown all for her greedy self.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

Caroline Rensel makes a perfect choice for the role of Imogen. She brings vocal clarity, masterful presence, and a youthful exuberance unconquerable by all the horrible things that happen to her character. Her rather distrusting husband Posthumus is played by James Brown, who brings a commendable and searing, love-scorned agony to the part, tempered only by the occasional and explosive duel.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

Trey Hatch plays dad to Imogen as King Cymbeline. Hatch, who also plays the Duke in The Merchant of Vegas, gives a great authority figure: lines and energy are delivered with ease and command.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

His conniving Queen is given life by Glynna Goff. Goff projects so well and with such quaking force that the rock behind her reverberates and echoes. Her scenes with son Cloten are bottled lightning.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

Jesse Collins perfectly plays the petulant prince Cloten. He’s sullen and single-minded in his pursuit of royal glory and marriage to Imogen, even though she’s already married and wants nothing to do with him. Though there were several contenders due to his tremendous acting, Collins’ winning scene involves him serenading Rensel with an out-of-tune guitar, which he implores to tune itself.

While Postumus is banished to Rome after marrying his beloved, he meets Iachimo (Glen Nelson Bristow). Iachimo bets he can seduce Imogen and cause her to flub her vows. Bristow gives a wonderful performance as Iachimo, and his scenes with Imogen, Cymbeline, Posthumus and the like are all equally brilliant.

Iachimo’s right-hand dignitary is Caius Lucious, played by Sam Schlobaum. He performs with the precise level of bureaucracy and wit.

Carolyn Travis Hatch plays the oft-exasperated disgruntled ex-courtier, Belaria, with show-stealing humor and theatric prowess. Her physical comedy is reminiscent of Lucy Ricardo and that isn’t easy. Kidnapping the king’s other two daughters and raising them as her own, Hatch runs a veritable off-the-grid existence until Imogen comes a’knockin’.  Sisters Guideria and Arviraga are played by Jessie Spangler and Gilly Kellher, who rock the self-sufficiency wilderness deal. Spangler’s scene bouncing the beach-ball head of Cloten is fine work.

Tess Nakaishi gives a fantastic performance of court page Pisania. She plays with a sparkling innocence and good-natured charm, running back and forth delivering letters and trying to do right by everybody.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

The doctor, or the Oz-like wizard in charge of the whole enterprise, is played by Beth Salmon Greatorex. On a hunch, she switches the death potion the queen sends out for Imogen for something less potent, and swoops in at the end to recount all the puzzle pieces. Greatorex brings refinement and dexterity to the role.

Elizabeth Lundquist, Seanna Faley, and Josiah Miller are awesome multi-taskers, playing several different parts with ease. Lundquist delights as Dorothy among other roles; Faley gives a great British Captain when she’s not Helen. Josiah Miller has the out-the-road British accent down and the lopey gait of a Monty Python-esque jailer to a T.

Cymbeline runs alongside The Merchant of Vegas at the Shakespeare Northwest Festival in Rexville. You can find tickets, directions, and other info on the SNW website. As always, bring the chairs, bug spray, blankets, and tasty morsels. 

Pray not miss out, fair reader; it doth enchant.

 (The third part to SNW, in case you’re wondering, is a free traveling show that sets up shop in parks around Whatcom and Skagit Counties. Neat, eh?)

Winner takes all

Shakespeare NW puts Nevadan spin on Bard’s tale

By Lily Olason

Walk through a grotto of maple trees and find yourself in a cozy organic nook. This is the Rexville Blackrock Ampitheater, named aptly for the mammoth, earthly wonder of a rock face that serves as backdrop for actors belting everything from retro group harmonies to more classically Shakespearean soliloquies.

The SNW crew usually ruffles the (formerly) European feathers of Bard’s most classic work. This time, director Mike Wallace relocates Venice to the Nevada desert and makes it The Merchant of Vegas.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

Skagit theater veteran Carolyn Travis Hatch plays Antonia with sparkle and a flooring talent. Her timing is exquisite and humor exceedingly well played. Her big, jailbird solo on “This Town” is sultry-hammy and shows off her theatrical chops: twenty minutes later she’s on the floor, face-to-face with certain death and begging them to get it over with. We are engrossed.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

Glen Nelson Bristow plays the perfect Shylock—his delivery is crisp yet ever-so mobster, and he aces big speeches with ease (namely, “hath not a Jew eyes?”). His scenes with Hatch are a joy to watch, and the courtroom showdown in front of the Duke (Trey Hatch) is nail-bitingly good.

John Metcalf plays Bassiano with a slick charm and sensitivity, and his work with both Hatch and Lydia Randall as love-interest Portia is as versatile as it is good. He can belt it in song, too, clad in a Bobby Darin suit.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

Lydia Randall plays Portia with the just-right air of regal refinement and take-charge agency. She orchestrates, at the behest of her father’s will, a The Price Is Right-esque hand-winning contest to hopefully score the betrothal of Bassiano, and not that of the stuffy princes of Aragon and Morocco. However, Devon Breur plays both with schmaltz and hilarity.

Her handmaid/BFF Nerissa is played by Jessie Spengler with a fierce dramatic talent, sass, and formidable girl-power. She also takes the cake in the theatric eye-roll department. Randall and Spengler dress up as men to save Antonia from her mortal fate, and their interactions with their oblivious husbands is complete comedy and so well done.

Sam Schlobohm is the perfect choice for Gratiano, the take-the-bull-by-the-horns friend of Bassiano and husband of Nerissa. He plays with showmanship and whimsy.

Photo credit - Christopher Key

When starry-eyed Jessica (Tess Nakaishi) forsakes her father (and her Jewish faith) for fast-talking Lorenzo (Danny Herter), she runs off with a casket of ducats and her dad’s dignity. Nakaishi is a great choice for the role and her work with Herter, especially in the second act, is explosive drama. Lorenzo is the scheming guy you’d expect to steal a gal away. Between wooing Jessica and singing tunes, Herter plays the role with energy and wit.

                       

Bassanio’s buddy Salerio is played by John Roberson. In between supporting Bassanio’s pursuits, he can sing, too. Dale Asplund plays Gaoler and Bathazar and does the most comical slow walking I’ve seen. James Brown expertly plays Launcelot Gobbo, who’s stuck in a theosophical quandary between the merits of the person versus their religion. He wears a patched elbow tweed jacket and snacks on candy incessantly. One of several nice touches by the SNW crew.

The Merchant of Vegas is a true Shakespearean show. Mentions of Lake Tahoe and Sin City whiz by while you’re lulled by the magnificent talents up on stage.

The Rexville Blackrock Ampitheater is a slight (but worthy) drive, so be sure and bring along a map or digital device to point you in the right direction. It’s BYO seating, so consider a lawn chair or blanket of sorts. I also recommend bug spray.  The festival runs through August 13^th, and you can find tickets and other info on the SNW website.

If you’re lucky, they might even let you play craps.

Why must I be a teenager in love?

Smokin’ hot R&J at Bard

by Christopher Key

“Hormonal” was the word that kept popping up on my inner screen as I watched opening night of Romeo and Juliet at Vancouver, BC’s, Bard on the Beach.  This is a very good thing.  Too many directors forget that the star-crossed lovers are teenagers and full of what people used to refer to as “juices.”  Those metabolic demons are what powers puberty and lead young people into making oft-disastrous decisions.

Kim Collier is not afraid to unleash those demons onstage and the result will make your hair, among other things, stand on end.  Quite frankly, R & J has never been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.  This production raised it several notches in my estimation because all of the elements come together in a way that is truly synergistic.  That’s why the techies get first billing.

I’m not sure why Pam Johnson’s set, reminiscent of Soviet brutalist architecture, works so well in the context of romantic Verona, but it does.  Nancy Bryant’s sensuous costumes are a complete contrast and maybe that’s what modifies the harshness of the set.  Certainly Brian Linds’ sound design is essential to the mood.  Ranging from raw percussion to electronica to industrial rock, the soundtrack grabs you by the short ‘n curlies and never lets go.

Photo credit - David Blue

Vancouver native Andrew Chown delivers a Romeo that gives new meaning to the phrase “testosterone poisoning.”  His acting chops are solid, but it’s his athleticism that will astound you.  Whether it’s a prodigious leap toward Juliet’s balcony or a running handstand against a wall, Chown forcibly reminds us of the male persuasion how much fun it is (was?) to show off for a girl.  Not to mention the accompanying adrenaline rush from doing something really stupid.

Photo credit - David Blue

Hailey Gillis’ Juliet is eminently worth showing off for.  There’s a theatrical axiom claiming that by the time an actor is capable of portraying Juliet, she’s too old to look the part.  Gillis puts the lie to it by thoroughly capturing the giddiness of estrogen poisoning while giving a mature performance.  R & J is all about such contradictions.

Romeo’s homies, Mercutio and Benvolio, are played by Bard vets Andrew McNee and Ben Elliott with the adolescent edginess that defines this production.  Their fight scenes with Tybalt and his Capulet cronies are frighteningly authentic, for which we can thank Fight Director David McCormick.  Anton Lipovetsky portrays Tybalt with a sneering sense of entitlement reminiscent of certain political figures.  You’ll want to run him through as much as Romeo does.

The Nurse is one of those Bardish characters that can run away with the show if played well.  Bard fave Jennifer Lines plays the role in this version and I really don’t need to say much more than that, do I?  How about bawdy, bumptious and brilliant?

Another Bard fixture, Scott Bellis, plays Friar Laurence with a hip sensibility reminiscent of a Doonesbury character.  The massive headphones are a delightful touch. 

As always at Bard, the supporting cast is bulletproof (if not swordproof) and that’s all of a piece when the whole becomes greater than its parts.

It really doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen Romeo and Juliet and all its spinoffs.  This production will give you a fresh perspective on the old story and that’s what Bard on the Beach does best.

R & J performs in repertory with The Merry Wives of Windsor on the BMO Mainstage through September 23.  For showtimes, see the Bard on the Beach website.  You can purchase tickets there, as well.

Do keep in mind that it is Junuary and dress accordingly.

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