Exhibit number one for the latter - The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Founded in 1935, the Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) ranks among the oldest and largest professional non-profit theatre companies in the nation. Three modern theatres inhabited by a superb troupe, perform Shakespeare plays, other classics, and modern works. One of the theatres is designed as an Elizabethan Stage, with 1,200 seats. In addition, we found other theatre companies and a town with shops named on Elizabethan and Shakesperean themes.
We attended four productions in seven days.
1 Glengarry Glen Ross at the Oregon Stage Works, written by David Mamet.
2 What’s Going On, at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre, a 70s music review.
And finally two superb productions at OSF:
3 Don Quixote, an imaginative presentation of the Spanish classic written in 1605/1615. Over the top stage craft, including rolling toy ducks, stylized sheep, noble steed Rocinante comprised of actors playing his front and rear quarters. A child's tricycle made up as squire Sancho Panza's donkey. Wonderful.
4 Paradise Lost, written in 1935 about the impact of the Great Depression on an extended Jewish family in the Bronx. Poignant in its own right, with meaningful performances and pithy dialogue, it holds greater meaning now in the midst of the greatest economic setback since that time. So sad to see how little has changed.
We hope to return each Spring to see new productions.
We also enjoyed the Emigrant Lake RV park, a county facility just outside of town. This picture says it all.
More about this week in the next posts.
Bruce
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