2014 Exploring The Northwest – DAY 39-42 – Ashland
Arriving in Ashland yesterday, the four of us met up with Roselie’s brothers and their wives – John and Ginny, and Arthur and Terrilynn. Getting together in Ashland to see some plays, and spending quality time together has become an annual tradition. We were all ready for a change in pace and mental engagement:
Cooking sausages and marshmallows over an open fire, on a COLD evening!
The Great Society
It is the World Premiere of a play about Lyndon Johnson’s presidency in the years from 1965 to 1968 – the years of his war in Vietnam, the mission to build the Great Society, and the national turmoil about civil rights. We all remember those times. It conjures up memories of where each of us was or what we were doing during some of the events. These times were painful for the nation as a whole, and for each of us individually. It is not reaching to compare those times with todays – with all the same factors at play: Our engagement in unwinnable wars, creation and defending social programs including the Affordable Care Act, and on-going attempt to restrict voting rights. It doesn’t seem that we’ve progressed much in these last 50 years. The play was excellent, albeit hard to watch at times. We unanimously gave it a 5/5 rating
Richard III – “ A horse, horse! My kingdom for a horse!
A ticket, a ticket! Please take my ticket! We gave it a rating of 1/5.
The Comedy of Errors – Not your classic Shakespeare.
This adaption of one of Shakespeare’s funniest plays is set in the 1920’s in Harlem – the Harlem renaissance. Needless to say trying to mix Shakespeare’s early modern English with Harlem jive is a challenge. It seemed that the dialog and acting switched between these two dialogue styles, yet not able to blend them effectively. The problem could have been with me, but it was difficult to follow the dialog on any consistent basis. Adding an extraordinary amount of slapstick didn’t help matters. We gave it a rating of 2/5.
The Cocoanuts
A fun Marx Brothers romp, with music by Irving Berlin, made this a very entertaining finale to our week in Ashland. What made it special was that the script provided the basic structure, but left a lot of room for improv. In meeting with the lead actor after the performance, he described how no two shows are alike, and the length can vary plus or minus a half hour, depending on how much ‘material’ the audience provides. We gave it a rating of 4/5.
It was a fun week!
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