AS YOU LIKE IT -- Great River Shakespeare Festival

script: William Shakespeare
director: Paul Barnes
cast: Andrew Carlson, Carla Noack, Chris Mixon, Kern McFadden, Kim Martin-Cotten, Christopher Gerson, Tarah Flanagan, David Graham Jones, Laura Coover, Zachary Fine, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Doug Scholz-Carlson, Art Moss, Brian David Frederick, Jacques Roy
set design: Scott C. Neal
costume design: Rosemary Ingham
light design: Darren McCroom
sound design: Katharine Horowitz
composer: Daniel Kallman


Shakespeare's gender-bending, word-play comedy.



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I think that Great River Shakespeare Festival does the comedies exceedingly well. The plot and subplots, text and context and subtext are all very clear.

If there is a failing here at all, it is that this is not one of Shakespeare's better works. However, I have to admit that it has always been among my favorites -- I love the intelligent word play, the morose Jacques, the terrible love poems, the off-kilter gender-switching Rosalind, and the fact that Shakespeare even dared to have a woman fall in love with the woman (as a man). Oh what fun!

Noack as Rosalind and Carlson as Orlando didn't quite have the spark that is really necessary to make a romantic comedy click. Where there should have been fireworks in theirs eyes at their initial meeting, I instead saw actors pretending to like each other. This Rosalind seemed to take a more maternal interest in her Orlando, rather than a young woman's sudden flight into love.

Chris Gerson was brilliant as both Duke Frederick (giving us chills at his outburst toward his niece Rosalind and daughter Celia) and as William (where he made us laugh at William's simple earnestness).

The set and costumes worked well and there really wasn't a bad performance in the lot.

An exquisite night at the theatre.

MACBETH -- Great River Shakespeare Festival

Great River Shakespeare Festival
author: William Shakespeare
director: Doug Scholz-Carlson
cast: Andrew Carlson, Laura Coover, Tarah Flanagan, Zachary Fine, Art Moss, Christopher Gerson, Kim Martin-Cotten, Brain David Frederick, Chris Mixon, Carla Noack, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Jacques Roy, Kern McFadden, David Graham Jones, Emily Daly, Chris Bernard, Raelynn Peter, Theo Morgan
set design: Scott C. Neale
costume design: Meg Weedon
light design: Darren McCroom
composer: Dan Kallman
sound design: Katharine Horowitz
props: Michelle Moody

Wm Shakespeare's tragic tale of greed and power in old Scotland.

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Interesting (odd) choices by the director are balanced by strong performances to present a fair production.

All performances are good, and Christopher Gerson as Macbeth, brings wonderful humanity to the role. It was terrific to see the king agonize over his wife and her breakdown. The relationship between Macbeth and his wife seemed full of passion. I've often noted that the role of Lady Macbeth is often played by a power-hungry, strength-behind-the-man woman. But in this performance the two seemed mutually consumed by the desire to promote his wont to become king through murder. It's not necessarily how it's generally read, but I liked it. To give her too much power takes some of the guilt of what is done off of him.

The witches were annoying. First, to have an obviously male witch was distracting and jarring at every occassion they called themselves "sister." Their druid-ic look of earth-worshippers was just fine (the lines certainly lend themselves in that direction), but their constant presence (and not just silent presence, but often singing and banging a drum) took away from what was going on on the stage. Does the director think we won't get it? That we don't understand that Macbeth is living out one of the witches prophecies if they aren't drawing attention to themselves? Give us some credit!

The set seemed to work well, with the simple trees up stage representing Birnam Wood, and a scrim drop that also had tree cut outs to add to the forest look. Flying a portion of the scrim drop out to make it appear as though the woods were encroaching in on the castle was ... well, an interesting idea. Again, I don't think I needed it. It didn't really explain how the trees were moving. Having the army come through the woods suddenly seemed to make the point.

I really liked the sound. Crisp and clear, I thought they brought horses onto the stage. One particularly jarring sound cue took me completely out of the moment ... when Seyton (as a murderer?!) takes the youngest Macduff child by the hand to take her off stage, a sound of a child singing a nursery rhyme tune is played over their exit, then followed by the scream of the child being killed. What was with that sound cue? Where else in the play do we hear sound from nowhere?

For the most part, the lighting was odd. Actors walked in and out of shadows and colors throughout their scenes. It looked as patchworked as the scrim drop.

Generally I like the Hekate scenes (even though they are often cut because it is generally acknowledged that they weren't written by Shakespeare), but they were so over-shadowed by the production (heavy sound cues, weird lighting) that what Hekate was saying (hence here reason for being there) was lost.

Over-all ... not a bad production, but probably my least favorite production so far by the Great River Shakespeare Festival.