Preppy "Romeo," trying "Tiger" in Ashland

ASHLAND, Ore. — With three outdoor Shakespeare openings and the premiere of a new chamber musical, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival quietly ends one artistic era before a new chapter for this enduring Ashland theater center starts to unfold.

It makes poetic sense that artistic director Libby Appel, who retires at this season's end, finishes her tenure with a staging of William Shakespeare's final play, "The Tempest."

There is symbolism too, in having Appel's successor, Bill Rauch, mount "Romeo and Juliet" (an early Shakespeare masterwork) at the same outdoor venue, the Elizabethan Stage.

These open-air outings, along with a guest-directed "Taming of the Shrew" and the new musical "Tracy's Tiger," provide an honest reflection of OSF's strengths and weaknesses over the past 12 years, when Appel has guided it through record-high attendance and financial stability but erratic artistry.

A devoted, upbeat leader, Appel will be back. Rauch, whom Appel hired to direct a half-dozen shows, is returning the favor by tagging her to stage Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge" next season.

But Rauch will gradually be shaking up the often predictable, sometimes pedestrian OSF aesthetic. His freshman year in 2008 will include works by playwrights new to the fest, a rare outdoor run of a 20th-century work ("Our Town") and an international thrust that embraces a classic drama from India ("The Clay Cart").

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The 2007 season runs through October at OSF's three theaters, and includes these recently opened shows.

"The Tempest"

In repertory at the Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion through Oct. 6

Derrick Lee Weeden and Dan Donohue, two of OSF's finest and most-missed acting alumni, have returned to the fold for Appel's valedictory mounting of Shakespeare's elegiac romance. And that is good news.

The strapping, basso-voiced Weeden commands the stage with customary vitality as Prospero, the deposed Italian duke whose exile on an exotic isle has made him an expert sorcerer and creative avenger.

And Donohue's Caliban is wonderfully fresh, strange and pitiably funny. Pale and mud-caked, his torso netted in rope, this creature is slow of wit, but acutely aware of the hypocrisies of his human masters.

And his drunken revels with the shipwrecked servants, Stephano (Michael J. Hume) and Trinculo (Christopher DuVal), earn belly laughs without resorting to the hammy buffoonery that's marred many a classic comedy at OSF.

This "Tempest" also boasts gorgeous Elizabethan-era costumes (by Deborah M. Dryden) and a dewy Miranda (Prospero's naive daughter) in Nell Geisslinger.

Still, one wishes Appel had concentrated less on the show's stately music and pageantry and more on animating the power conflicts. And on plumbing the circuitry of revenge, regret and rebirth that make this such a wise coda for its author's matchless canon.

"Romeo & Juliet"

In repertory at the Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion through Oct. 5

There's a stirring boldness in Rauch's decision to split this familiar tragedy asunder.

The schism he accentuates is not between Verona's warring Montague and Capulet clans, but between the younger characters, in their modern-day parochial school uniforms, and the elders dressed in fuddy-duddy Italian Renaissance threads.

What's with this "school-kid chic" costume trend, also shared by Broadway's "Spring Awakening"?

Rauch explains it in a program note as a desire to explore "the antithesis of old and young" in what is already so obviously a drama with a yawning generation gap. But after the novelty wears off, the costume effect has little more impact than the show's jocular musical nod to "West Side Story" or its use of prop junk food.

A less obvious, more intriguing departure from the norm is Rauch's conflation of parallel scenes between Juliet (Christine Albright) and her doting nurse (Demetra Pittman), and Romeo (John Tufts) and his worried "mentor," Friar Laurence (Mark Murphey).

In the end, though, it boils down to the scene-by-scene potency of the actors. Dan Donohue shines again, as a cool-dude Mercutio so nonchalant, his fatal wound in a duel really does seem like a "trifle" — until it kills him.

But Albright's bold, excitable Juliet is not well-matched by Tufts' handsomely bland Romeo. He lacks the variety for that character's fatal evolution from giddy schoolboy to tragic lover.

"The Taming of the Shrew"

In repertory at the Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion through Oct. 7

Less ambitious but more pleasurable than the other two Elizabethan Stage offerings is Kate Buckley's energetic treatment of the Bard's most problematic romantic comedy.

From a clever Punch 'n' Judy prelude to a plethora of graceful commedia dell'arte shtick and funny sight gags, this is a bona fide romp — even if it endorses the notion that sly Petruchio is doing feisty Kate a favor by starving and blackmailing her into the Renaissance equivalent of a Stepford Wife.

Feminist qualms aside, the show is better cast than many a recent OSF effort. The ever-agile Michael Elich cuts a swath as a cunning and nimble Petruchio, and Vilma Silva's Kate is his zesty, double-taking match.

The show boasts crisply choreographed and delivered comic business by the bushel, from equally well-cast supporting buffoons.

And Elich works hard to convince you he really has Kate's best interests at heart — and almost does. At the very least, you feel that zing! of mutual chemistry as the couple spars and woos.

"Tracy's Tiger"

In repertory at the New Theatre through Oct. 28

One of Appel's initiatives at OSF was to expand its program to commission and premiere new works.

The end results have been spotty, however. And this musical fashioned by resident director Penny Metropulos, actor Linda Alper, composer Sterling Tinsley and ex-literary manager Douglas Langworthy misfires badly.

Largely but loosely based on a William Saroyan novella, "Tracy's Tiger" receives a classy production in the New Theatre, with a live band and a nifty set by William Bloodgood.

But such accoutrements can't disguise how contrived, attenuated and cloying this attempt at find-your-bliss whimsy is.

Set in 1950s San Francisco, the show has a fatal case of the cutes from Scene 1. It focuses on young Thomas Tracy (Jeremy Peter Johnson), who works for a coffee company chock-full of jolly, colorful souls. And Tracy has a yen for Laura (Laura Morache), a prim secretary who makes the big mistake of bringing him home to meet her lusty, mentally unstable mother Viola (Miriam A. Laube).

The story goes haywire, and incoherent, once Tracy's inner tiger gets loose and creates media and police havoc. Beware of any musical that sets animal alter egos on a rampage, and offers Jungian pearls of wisdom intoned by the lovable old Viennese shrink. The peppy music gets boring, too.

Let's leave it at this: If OSF does another musical, make it a fresh-roasted double latte, with more froth and a bigger kick.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com