Preview of 2012 Colorado Shakespeare Fest

The 2011, 2012 Colorado Shakespeare Festivals are streamlined things, compared to other seasons, in the overall number of performances. And yet, the festival is back to five productions (the 2011 festival had four), and all five plays of the 2012 season are good ones. There are only two plays in this year's festival that come directly from the plumed pen of the Bard - the comedy 'Twelfth Night', and the drama and tragedy of the villainous 'Richard III'. And yet the three other plays of the festival, 'Noises Off', 'Treasure Island' and 'Women of Will, The Complete Voyage' were selected because they somehow reverberate with the great Bard's immortal spirit. And 'Women of Will, The Complete Voyage' does more than just reverberate with the Bards great, immortal spirit. This play of five sub-plays traces the moral and spiritual evolution of Shakespeare in his creation of his most vivid female characters. Twelfth Night, directed by Philip C. Sneed, and co-producted with the Arvada Center is a classic very Shakespearean situation of mistaken sexual identity involving Viola, who in the wake of a shipwreck on the shores of Albania dresses as a boy to become the page of Duke Orsino. Though smitten by her new master, she must obey when he sends her to woo the Countess Olivia on his behalf. Meanwhile, tricked into believing she shares his love, Olivia’s stuffy steward Malvolio hysterically humiliates himself to please her. This year’s production features a rich late 18th-century European design and setting. Richard III, directed by Tina Packer, is Shakespeare's most villainous and Machiavellian monarch, who makes chilling asides and confidences to the audience as his atrocities unfold. This vivid, suspenseful period production, directed by the legendary Tina Packer, founder of Shakespeare & Company, speaks to our current time and world where the murderous machinations and narratives of the fall of tyrants such as Libya's Khaddafi and Syria's Assad are current events. The play is a dark meditation on the will for absolute power over others. Treasure Island directed by Carolyn Howarth features Long John Silver, who is Original Pirate. He is Robert Louis Stevenson's roguish, irresistible hero-villain. Ken Ludwig’s high-flying 2007 adaptation follows young Jim Hawkins as he takes to the high seas in search of treasure and contends with a band of buccaneers including the brutal Billy Bones, sinister Blind Pew, and brash Anne Bonny. Through swordplay, treachery and musket smoke on a far-flung isle, Jim finds himself becoming a man. Noises Off by Michael Frayn, directed by Lynne Collins, tells of a fourth-rate acting company on tour to perform an atrocious bedroom comedy, 'Nothing On' which features gratuitous lingerie, uncooperative props, and a painful lack of talent. This play-within-a-play narrates the company's stumbles and fumbles through three progressively chaotic performances as the players inevitably reveal who they truly are. Women of Will: The complete journey, from Kate to Cordelia, directed by Eric Tucker features Tina Packer and her acting partner Nigel Gore as they explore the creative evolution of William Shakespeare’s consciousness through his depiction of women. Deeply inhabiting and interpreting characters from the Bard’s rich cast of female alter egos, from poisonous Lady Macbeth to winsome Juliet, Packer takes us on a journey from the narrow confines of the shrew to an expansive new world of hope and strength for women. Performed in its entirety for the first time outside of Massachusetts, each play in this epic, five-part cycle stands on its own, and the plays can be seen in any order. Part One: The Warrior Women, from Violence to Negotiation, examines the early writings of Shakespeare, his journey to become a playwright and actor, and the role of theatre in Elizabethan England. The play also examine the first plays Shakespeare wrote, including his early comedies (Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew,Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love’s Labor’s Lost) and early histories (Henry VI: Parts 1, 2, 3, and Richard III). The performance ends with the first major change in Shakespeare’s attitude and portrayal of women: Juliet. “How,” Packer asks, “is Shakespeare’s writing impacted when he portrays a young girl as intelligent, poetic and courageous as her Romeo?” Part Two: The Sexual Merges with the Spiritual: New Knowledge proposes that by writing about Juliet, Shakespeare gains a deeper understanding of the relationship between men and women. He perceives that sexuality can be an intensely spiritual journey, just as spirituality can be expressed in sensual terms. Using Romeo and Juliet as a foundation, Part Two looks at the continuation of this sexual/spiritual story, first with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then The Merchant of Venice, followed by Much Ado About Nothing and Troilus and Cressida. Finally, the journey finds its supreme illumination in Antony and Cleopatra. Part Three: Living Underground or Dying to Tell the Truth wrestles with the middle period of Shakespeare’s writing life. Through the women in these plays, Shakespeare gives us a clearer picture of the constraints put upon them. Increasingly, Shakespeare’s female characters articulate the truth about what they are seeing and feeling. If these women stay dressed as women, they go mad or die (either by murder or suicide). If, however, they disguise themselves as men, they’re able to find their voices, organize those around them, and enact a play that ends happily. The play begins with Isabella in Measure for Measure, goes to Twelfth Night, looks at Hamlet, and finally switches backwards and forwards between As You Like It and Othello. Part Four: Chaos is Come Again, the Lion eats the Wolf unfolds as Shakespeare enters a period of despair, he asks: what happens when women do not desire a different voice in society? What happens when they want the same power and goals as men? The answer is illuminated in Macbeth, Coriolanus and King Lear. Part Four then goes to Timon of Athens, in which women are represented as whores who bring disease to mankind. Yet, in this dark picture, a world dominated by fascism, Shakespeare writes his most sublime verse. At the end, Shakespeare asks: is there no way out of this killing picture? Part Five: The Maiden Phoenix: the Daughter Redeems the Father, Shakespeare changes the story. His plays cease to follow the exact psychological development of the protagonists, but turn instead to myths and fairy tales. In these late plays (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and finally, Henry VIII) Shakespeare finds a way to make tragic events right again. It’s the daughters who discover the way, with a few good men. By examining first Pericles and then Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare introduces the ingredients needed for redemption and forgiveness. The women find ways to heal the past and allow the future to unfold without the story of revenge. The last lines written by Shakespeare about a woman are Cranmer’s blessing over the baby Elizabeth at the end of Henry VIII, and his evocation of what the feminine spirit can do for a society was borne out by her reign. The festival will be staged at the picturesque, Greek-style Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre and in the indoor, proscenium University Theatre, both located on the grounds of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Several performances will be at the Arvada Center for the Performing Arts. The festival starts on Friday, June 8, at 8 p.m., with a preview of Twelfth Night and ends on Saturday August 18 with a 7 p.m. Performance of Treasure Island at the Arvada Center for the Performing Arts. Ticket prices range from $10 to $57.