Shakespeare Summer -- Ashland Shakespeare Opens With A Great `White Devil' And An Injured `Antony'

ASHLAND, Ore. - Mark Antony strutted around Cleopatra's boudoir with his arm in a sling. The fairies of midsummer looked (and sounded) more like discordant insects than diaphanous naiads. And the most theatrical excitement was generated by a nasty Italian family prone to settling its internecine squabbles with poison, ropes, and daggers.

That's the basic bulletin from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 58th summer season, which opened last weekend with two familiar works (the Bard of Avon's "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Midsummer Night's Dream"), and a delectably murky Jacobean revenge tragedy by Shakespeare's contemporary John Webster ("The White Devil").

The three alternating outdoor productions, and a rolling repertory of seven indoor shows (including "Richard III" and a terrific "Joe Turner's Come and Gone"), give festival visitors an array of viewing choices. And despite the economic recession, Ashland remains a happy destination for many vacationers.

Last year, OSF's attendance of 354,708 set a record. Since February, when the company began its 1993 performances, the box office take has dipped only slightly and could finish on par with, or even higher than, last year. (Things haven't been so rosy for OSF Portland's operation: 1992-'93 subscription sales suffered after a much-publicized personnel shake-up.)

But just as the experience of visiting artsy, bucolic Ashland never seems to lose its charm, the business of watching Shakespeare there still hits and misses. The work at OSF upholds a baseline of competence and confidence. But rarely does the Shakespeare rise to the glorious level of the surroundings that contain it.

Artistic director Henry Woronicz, who inherited his mantle two years ago from Jerry Turner, is quietly nudging OSF in the direction other regional theaters are taking. This year's non-classical lineup of plays like "Lips Together, Teeth Apart," "Mad Forest" and "The Baltimore Waltz" is much more up-to-date than it used to be.

There's still a lot of inconsistency, though, in the quality of the 74-member acting company, and how directors and designers use the highly stylized, Tudor-looking outdoor Elizabethan Stage - the largest of OSF's three theaters, and its main showcase for Shakespeare.

`Antony' in a sling

Woronicz, an OSF leading man for nine years, vowed not to give up acting when he took over leadership duties. He's made good on that promise by returning to the stage, after a year's absence, in "Antony and Cleopatra." (He's also signed on to star in "Hamlet" in 1994.)

Mounted by first-time guest director Charles Towers, "Antony and Cleopatra" suffered an unfortunate body blow while in previews. Performing on a rain-slicked stage, Woronicz took a bad fall and dislocated his shoulder. Ouch! In true old-trouper fashion, he bounced back for opening night - wearing an unobtrusive sling in some scenes, and with his more exuberant embraces of Cleopatra (Megan Cole) toned down.

Such fortitude is admirable. But Woronicz's opening-night Mark Antony, perhaps thrown askew by the injury, was blustery and unfocused. He raced through the more lyrical speeches as if eager to get them out of the way, and accentuated Antony's impatience over his amorousness and tragic delusions of invincibility.

Woronicz may settle into better balance as the run continues and his shoulder heals. More problematic, though, is the lack of romantic electricity between him and Cole. Though they depict one of history's most ardent and manipulative power couples, they seem more like competitive siblings than red-hot lovers.

While her vocal enunciation is affectedly classical (a problem for other OSF actors, too), Cole seems to have modeled her Cleopatra after Sigourney Weaver in "Alien." This tanned, sinewy Queen of the Nile clearly spends more time at the gym than lolling in a milk bath. Her allure is further hampered by the shag haircut and unisex togs she wears, when she isn't in a revealing but unflattering white peek-a-boo lounging outfit.

But then, everyone dresses down. The Romans march about in designer Candice Cain's drab, dun-colored martial togs. That's a heavy-handed, ineffective way to contrast Rome's dull rationality with Egypt's mystic sensuality - as Todd Barton's music contrasts heavy kettle drumming with ethereal twittering.

It's a saving grace that the deficiencies of this "Antony and Cleopatra" don't altogether obscure the power of the poetry and force of the plot (the "flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.")

Towers (who probably didn't have much say in the casting) maintains a limber tempo and delivers the Roman scenes with brisk clarity. And some of the acting is just fine. As Antony's aide-de-camp Enobarbus, Dennis Robertson has a wry naturalness that refreshes. And if Cleopatra isn't much of a hedonist, Domenique Lozano and Luck Hari, as her loyal servants, take up the slack.

`White Devil' at white heat

Lozano also turns up as the female lead in "The White Devil," and helps make it Ashland's most satisfying outdoor excursion of the year. Despite Jerry Turner's visually splendid, often gripping production, it could also be the hardest sell. Will ticket seekers on vacation flock to a semi-obscure 1612 tragedy that's a roiling cauldron of lust, deceit, greed, and homicide?

They should - in fact, why not skip the latest Stallone movie and get your violent thrills from this wicked, witty portrait of an Italian clan?

Webster ponders the joined fates of two aristocratic families, related - and contaminated - by marriage. Though hitched to Camillo (Ray Porter), beauteous Vittoria (Lozano) prefers her richer, lustier lover, the Duke of Brachiano (Rick Hamilton).

So does Vittoria's scheming brother Flamineo (James Newcomb), who will stoop to anything to get a piece of the duke's fortune. That means wasting Camillo, offing Brachiano's pious wife Isabella (Fredi Olster), and turning on his own brother, Marcello (Robert Lisell-Frank).

How these murders are accomplished, then avenged by Camillo's uncle, the Cardinal Monticelso (Paul Vincent O'Connor) and Isabella's wily brother, the Duke of Florence (Dan Kremer), makes for an evening of horrifying and hilarious mischief.

The crosses and double-crosses keep your eyes riveted to the stage, as does Richard Hay's marvelous set design, in which he again shows how to transform that cheery Elizabethan facade into something else entirely.

The panels of emerald-green faux marble against black pillars and walls, and James Sale's spooky lighting, conjure the perfect ambiance of lethal elegance. And they don't distract from Elizabeth Novak's period costumes, richly appointed in dark velvet, gold brocade, and glittering beadwork.

Turner streamlined Webster's Latin-clotted script, and cast it with actors who can play to their strengths - from the frigidly righteous O'Connor, to the buffoonish Porter and the sultry Lozano. Newcomb is an actor of too limited resources to plumb the depths of Flamineo, potentially as juicy a villain as Richard III or Edmund. But he does well enough, and his athleticism (he's also OSF's fight choreographer) comes in very handy.

Webster's plunge into the recesses of human treachery is not for the faint of heart. But it's a far better show than "Antony and Cleopatra."

Middling `Midsummer'

Somewhere in between lies the new "Midsummer Night's Dream."

OSF associate director Cynthia White has spread out Shakespeare's multilayered romantic romp on multilevels. Some tie-dye/psychedelic costuming, the aggressive insect mannerisms of the fairies, and the cheesy-looking floral banners on display don't complement matters much. And the more aristocratic characters come off as real stiffs.

But having actors cavort on three stories of set - clambering up ladders and whisking down a metal pole - gives the forest scenes an apt buoyancy, and furthers an illusion of multiple realms.

The young renegade couples (played by B.W. Gonzalez, Kelly AuCoin, Aldo Billingslea and Jillian Crane) make a likable lot. Doubly ingratiating are the "rude mechanicals," the earnest amateur actors preparing a skit for a royal wedding (Shakespeare, by the way, penned "Midsummer" for a nuptial celebration). Anthony DeFonte as Bottom leads the clowning, with hearty support from Ray Porter, J.P. Phillips, and Kenneth L. Crow.

As Puck, Newcomb again excels more at zesty antics than contoured emoting. But in OSF's "Midsummer" revel, it's the acrobatics - the dives into hidden pools, journeys down slippery poles, and aeronautic twirling of trapezist - that carry the night.