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New twists in Ashland.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

It was Bill Rauch's debutant ball last weekend in Ashland, where four new plays opened at sold-out houses to mark his first season as artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Rauch, who took over this year with the retirement of Libby Appel, is young, quick, funny and ironic. And he has promised to take the 73-year-old festival in new directions.

After viewing the winter openings, it's clear that Rauch isn't kidding. The four plays offered under his guidance - including one under his direction - were not only different from each other but marked a clear new direction for the venerable festival, which wasn't exactly stodgy even before his arrival: Under Rauch it will be even hipper, cooler, more international in scope and more contemporary in feel than ever before.

Rauch and his lieutenants also gave more details of a huge project the festival is undertaking, commissioning a cycle of plays about moments of change in American history. The 10-year project will commission - count 'em - 37 new plays from leading playwrights, not coincidentally the exact number of plays (according to some versions) written by William Shakespeare himself.

But back to this year's offerings.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream"

The opening salvo on Friday night, and the only actual Shakespeare of the weekend, was Mark Rucker's apocalyptic disco version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," mirror ball and all.

Set in an indeterminate retro '70s, complete with bellbottoms and a flower power hippie VW van, the comedy lurched uncertainly from moments of pure splendor - the opening scene was astonishing with its sheer visual dazzle - to its slightly lame production-number finish, with all hands on deck and dancing, that seemed drawn from a high-spirited high school show....

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