Archives for July 11, 2008

Most of today’s Wall Street Journal drama column is devoted to a report on the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival‘s productions of Cymbeline and Twelfth Night, followed by a few testy remarks about Lincoln Center Festival’s presentation of The Bacchae. Here’s an excerpt.
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What makes a festival festive? To answer this question, hop in your car and head for Garrison, the small town across the Hudson River from West Point that is home to my favorite outdoor summer Shakespeare festival. The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, founded in 1987, is that rarity of rarities, an artistic enterprise that gets everything right. Impressive as its productions are, the real secret of the festival’s success is that it offers its patrons a total experience that adds up to more than the sum of its admirable parts. The shows are bright and lively, the performers engaging, the setting gorgeous, the atmosphere joyous. I won’t say that it’s impossible to have a bad time at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival–some people are inexplicably resistant to pleasure–but I’ve been going to Garrison for four summers now, and my annual visit has become one of the most eagerly awaited dates on my theatrical calendar.
It’s impossible to talk about the festival without first mentioning the site. The company performs in a huge tent pitched on the lawn of the Boscobel House, a lovingly restored Federal-style 1808 mansion located on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River. The performances get underway just as the evening sun slips behind the mountains of the Hudson Highlands. Wise playgoers dine on the lawn an hour or so before curtain time–tasty catered picnic baskets can be ordered in advance–and enjoy a spectacle that has been capturing the imagination of American landscape painters for the better part of two centuries.
Sunset on the Hudson can be a hard act to follow, but Hudson Valley pulls it off. The company’s productions are models of uncondescending theatrical populism, reaching out to contemporary audiences without watering down Shakespeare beyond recognition….
I’ve never found Lincoln Center Festival to be especially festive, though it often presents memorable performances. Part of the problem–maybe most of it–is that the festival takes place in the middle of a bustling, art-crammed city, thus making it difficult to turn off the hum and buzz of urban life and immerse yourself in its wide-ranging fare. Sometimes, though, the fare itself is the problem. This year’s festival, for instance, opened with the National Theatre of Scotland’s tiresomely transgressive production of “The Bacchae,” which struck me as a good working definition of Eurotrash at its trashiest. Picture Alan Cumming in a kilt, being lowered to the stage by his ankles and flashing his buttocks all the way down. Then imagine him as an ultra-campy Dionysus in drag who sashays through a wink-wink-nudge-nudge rewrite of Euripides’ classic Greek tragedy (“Don’t be so coy, big boy”) in which the chorus consists of nine school-of-Motown backup singers decked out in fire-engine red. Get the idea? I did–it took me about 30 seconds–and spent the rest of the night looking at my watch….
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Read the whole thing here.

“Critics are reprimanded when they get sarcastic. How absurd! Is the torch of criticism supposed to shine without burning?”
Franz Grillparzer, Notebooks and Diaries