Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2017: UniSon

Left to right: Asia Mark, Steven Sapp, Yvette Monique Clark, Kevin Kenerly. Photo courtesy Jenny Graham and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

UNIVERSES (Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, and William Ruiz) burst onto the Oregon stage in 2012 with their piece Party People, a daring examination of the lives of the Black Panthers and Young Lords. Now, in 2017’s UniSon, they’re using their unique style, which blends emphatic prose, spoken word, light, sound, and movement, to examine and reinterpret the unpublished poetry of the legendary playwright August Wilson. In the midst of a festival dedicated to interpreting and reimagining the works of Shakespeare, it seems fitting that one of the greatest American playwrights gains the same honor.

UniSon has a vague plot, but there’s no conventional story progression or character development. Rather, it uses a series of fragments from Wilson’s poetry to construct a metaphorical tale about an apprentice poet who, Pandora-like, opens a chest from her deceased mentor that he told her to destroy. Within it lies the poet’s failings, pains, and regrets, organized into seven “terrors” – each one represented by a member of the acting company – that give the play structure.

My favorite terror, in an aesthetic sense, is the morbidly funny Butcher (William Ruiz), a hulking figure who killed his wife when he discovered the Poet was sleeping with her. The segment is intense, with Ruiz hoarsely shouting his anger at the world and at his wife as the stage glows bright red and a butchered pig dangles from the ceiling, but its comedic elements make it reminiscent of Sweeney Todd or perhaps OSF’s 2013 The Unfortunates.  Thematically, the most interesting terror is Hunter (Mildred Ruiz-Sapp), who in a haunting tale examines the medium of poetry as a whole and whether a poet has the right to tell other people’s stories for them.

Consistent in every terror is the poet (Steven Sapp) and his distraught apprentice (Asia Mark). Asia Mark remains a terrified outsider, both in her actions and in her language, which is down-to-earth and plain compared to the poetry that surrounds her. Her shock and dismay at discovering, through his hidden work, that her image of the Poet as a kindly father figure was distorted, questions whether it’s right to keep some art hidden. Sapp’s Poet is at times remorseful, at times impishly immune, and at times torn by anguish – especially by the question of his father’s true identity. His development over the course of the play represents both his own acceptance of his past and the Apprentice’s growing understanding of him as a complete person.

The lighting and set design of UniSon is at times as important to the expression of Wilson’s poetry as the actors. Christopher Acebo’s angular set (making heavy use of video effects from Kaitlyn Pietras) juts into the middle of the action, its sharp angles hewing to modern design construction. The set is, in a way, symbolic of the show as a whole, a combination of 20^th-century poetry with UNIVERSES’ postmodern theatre. Alex Jainchills’ lights pulse wildly across the stage, both in the standard top-down lights and through panels installed in the floor: This fully converts the space into whatever the play requires for its emotional expression.

UniSon is not a poetry slam, nor does it meander idly through a garden of August Wilson’s poetry. UNIVERSES has taken the work of one of the greatest American masters of language and, while still paying respect to its origins, synthesized it into a truly astounding piece that questions the need for “public” and “private” art, our views of our own heroes, and the skeletons in the closet of artistic expression that nobody wants to address. When you leave the venue, you’ll be asking a number of questions, both about the show and yourself.

UniSon runs until October 28th.

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Our Comprehensive Coverage of the OSF 2017 Season

• Coverage Overview
• UniSon
• Hannah and the Dread Gazebo
• Julius Caesar
• Henry IV, Part 1
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Odyssey
• Beauty And The Beast

Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2017: Coverage Overview

Julius Caesar at OSF. Left to right: Rodney Gardiner, Armando Durán, Danforth Comins. Photo courtesy Jenny Graham and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Check here to see our comprehensive coverage of the OSF 2017 season as it is posted.

Introducing the Season:

Season Preview

Coverage Overview

Visiting the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (coming soon)

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The Plays We've Covered:

UniSon: UNIVERSES adapts the poetry of August Wilson to the stage.

The performance troupe UNIVERSES, also responsible for 2012’s intriguing Party People, adapts to the stage the little-known poetry of August Wilson (Fences, The Piano Lesson.) This daring piece reinterprets the work of one of the greatest minds of African-American theatre by combining the classic language of the 20^thCentury with the structure of the 21^st.

Hannah And The Dread Gazebo: A world premiere about family, identity, and the ghost of Kim Jong Il.

This world premiere from playwright Jiehae Park grapples with questions of family and national identity in a tight 90-minute show. Much of the action concerns the tensions between North and South Korea and the DMZ in between them.

Julius Caesar: Shakespeare’s legendary tragedy about leadership, violence, and betrayal.

Shakespeare’s political thriller Julius Caesar occupies a position among his greatest tragic works, alongside such plays as Hamlet and King Lear. While OSF’s previous production, in 2011, was a general look at leaders whose deeds were both great and terrible, the 2017 version, as described in the “From The Director” statement on OSF’s website, more specifically examines the culture of American violence and politics. Armando Durán, who also played roles in Hamlet, King Lear, and The Tempest in his 18-year residency at OSF, takes on the part of Caesar.

Henry IV, Part 1: A young Prince Hal is torn between duty to his country and his rollicking life with Falstaff.

The first part of the Henry V trilogy features a youthful, irresponsible Prince Hal (Daniel José Molina) beginning to choose between the responsibilities of leading a country and the pleasures of tavern life with his friend John Falstaff. OSF is producing the entire trilogy over two seasons, performing Parts 1 and 2 of Henry IV this year and Henry V as part of the 2018 season.

The Merry Wives of Windsor: A small town conspires to trick the mischievous Falstaff (yes, the same Falstaff).

This classic comedy features the lecherous drunk Falstaff, a returning character from the Henry IV cycle. K.T. Vogt, who appeared in other OSF comedies like Animal Crackers and The Yeomen of the Guard, assumes the role in this production, which uses the play’s original setting of Elizabethan England – a place and time Shakespeare rarely used. This is the first time since 2006 that OSF has produced this play, though the company produced a modern adaptation called The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa in 2012.

The Odyssey: Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of Homer’s epic story of adventure.

Director Mary Zimmerman (see my reviews for two other plays she directed, Guys and Dolls at OSF and Treasure Island at Berkeley Rep) brings one of the oldest adventure stories known to humankind to the Ashland stage. The Odyssey is set in the Elizabethan Theatre, which possesses significantly more vertical space than OSF’s other two venues; Zimmerman's movement-oriented direction should put this extra room to great use. 

Beauty And The Beast: The classic Disney musical, brought to the outdoor Elizabethan Theatre.

OSF’s musical this year is a stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, an animated movie from Disney’s early-90s renaissance. Though the decision to run a Disney musical may raise some eyebrows, the show boasts a score from the legendary Alan Menken (Little Shop of Horrors). This music, combined with OSF’s ability to breathe new life even into Broadway’s most venerable standards, promises an exciting show.

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Restaurants We've Enjoyed:

Morning Glory

Smithfields

Thai Pepper

Flip

California Shakespeare Theater: Fences

Left to right: Aldo Billingslea, Margo Hall. Photo courtesy California Shakespeare Theater.

August Wilson’s work was instrumental in the promotion of African-American theatre, and his Pulitzer-winning Fences, which depicts a family reacting to their patriarch’s slow disintegration, could be considered Wilson’s masterpiece. Director Raelle Myrick-Hodges’ rendition of this classic tale of pain, anger, and loss, currently playing at California Shakespeare Theater does justice to Wilson’s language and characters. Under her direction, the play’s themes are explored partially using a framework of women’s issues discovered within the text.

Central to the story of Fences is Troy Maxson, a former baseball player and current garbage man who stands in the pantheon of American theatre’s deepest, most complex characters. Aldo Billingslea, a cornerstone of the Bay Area acting community, interprets Troy as a character desperate to believe that he is the hero of his own story. Troy is willing to do anything, from telling fanciful tales about wrestling with Death to exaggerating his children’s failings, to reinforce his belief that he is the sole good person in a world full of evildoers. As he falls over the course of the play and fewer people believe in or respect him, he works harder than ever to convince himself of his own lies. Billingslea’s Troy is not necessarily sympathetic, but he is, in his own way, understandable.

Margo Hall plays Rose, Troy’s wife; in the program, director Myrick-Hodges notes that she had been confused and angered for decades at what seemed like Rose’s eternal tolerance of her undeserving husband. Under Myrick-Hodges’ direction, Rose’s willingness to forgive becomes a major part of her character arc, while she maintains a high status throughout the play, refusing to defer to Troy. Her actions don’t indicate subservience or undue loyalty as much as an unshakable moral compass and a desire to do what’s right. Myrick-Hodges integrates the theme of forgiveness throughout the play, interspersing interviews with local women about the subject during scene changes.

Troy’s two children process living with him differently from each other: Thirty-four-year-old Lyons (Lance Gardner) has mostly cut ties and only drifts in to borrow or repay money, while teenage Cory (J. Alphonse Nicholson) has to balance his dreams of college football with living under his disillusioned father’s rule. Gardner’s Lyon is slick and friendly, but still shows a hidden honesty and vulnerability – indeed, his façade isn’t something he cares about maintaining among his family but rather something he picked up as a musician. Nicholson’s Cory defers to his father throughout much of the play, but he also pierces Troy’s lies most deeply, and he switches from innocence into outrage seamlessly.

The rest of the cast is equally stellar. Guiesseppe Jones plays Troy’s best friend Bono; whereas Troy slowly descends into paranoia over the course of the play, Bono behaves roughly the same way he did at the beginning, serving as an emotional baseline that contrasts with Troy’s descent. Troy’s brother Gabriel (Donald E. Lacy, Jr.), suffering from brain damage, acts as both the subtle supernatural element present in many Wilson plays and as proof that there is some good within Troy – even at his worst, Troy always treats him with kindness. Most commendable is Lacy’s precise body language, with intense gazes and trumpet-playing hand gestures showing his eagerness to blast open the gates of Heaven.

The technical side of the production is subtle yet clever. One of the challenges in producing Fences at Cal Shakes’ outdoor venue is confining a stage graced with a wide view of California’s rolling hills into the Maxson’s tiny property in the Pittsburgh suburbs. Scenic designer Michael Locher accomplishes this by barricading a tiny, screened-in cube of a house between the titular fence and a series of dusty patio furniture. With the exits covered, and much of the action taking place center stage, the set conveys the barrier Troy has chosen to create between his family and the outside world. Costumes (Alina Bokovikova) are time-period appropriate, but the children’s clothing is fresher and more modern than those of their parents, hinting at both economic circumstances and Cory’s yet-uncovered potential.

Fences at California Shakespeare Theater is a breathtaking rendition of one of August Wilson’s greatest works. Director Raelle Myrick-Hodges reinterprets major themes in the play, choosing to illustrate Rose’s difficult decisions, bringing her further into the spotlight and giving the production a fresh perspective.

Note: Actor Aldo Billingslea was my professor at Santa Clara University.