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.