Adventure 459: Emigrant Recreation Area/Post B/Shakespeare

Pray, What life is this?

Our first day at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival left us delighted. Our good friends and organizers of this experience, the Cobles, arrived for lunch with Dinah's sister, Paula, and her husband Phil. We chatted and in keeping with the Low Country Boil technique we learned from Jack and Ronda, we stood around the picnic table knoshing away until it was time to head into town for our first play, Sense and Sensibility. The play, presented with professional crispness, excellent staging, incredible choreography, and wonderful acting left us buoyant not only because of the happy ending, but also because the energy so countered the misery that abounds these days in the land of chump. We left the production hopeful that there is still much good in this world. We sipped a glass of wine in the warm sun and everyone shared the parts they liked best. Then, the four of us headed back to the camp ground to attend to Scout, the Ulmen's beloved dog. The Coble group went to their hotel for a rest. We met again at the start of the evening play, The Book of Will, which was a smart, and again sharply produced and performed story of how the collected works of Shakespeare were saved for posterity in written form. The evening performance was presented in Ashland's outside theater which is modeled after the famed Globe theater of Elizabethan times. I had many favorite moments, but my most favorite was the slide show at the end showing people from around the world performing Shakespeare. As their faces flashed across the many screens, I couldn't help but tingle at the idea of inclusion. The director had sent out a request to people around the world to send a clip of themselves performing their favorite scene from Shakespeare's work. A multitude of humanity surfaced. Different languages were spoken, but in all cases the passion for the "words" was evident. That ending gives me hope that at some point the human race will stop this competitive blood letting and realize that we're in this life together, and that it's not necessary to subject others to dominion, oppression, torture, insult, abuse, and the rest of the long list of words that injure. I'm hopeful. Watching these amazing actors, and realizing the enormous amount of time and positive energy it takes to create "story", I smile at the notion that our "Good Angels" are hard at work making life good, especially today.

 Scout, lounging in the shade.

 The Shakespeare crew arrives for lunch.

 The set for Sense and Sensibility.

Sisters,  Paula and Dinah.

 Phil and Paula

 No photos are allowed in the theater. I snapped this shot on the way in.

 As a renaissance man who was checking the score to the Cleveland/Golden State game, I appreciate that this monument to the arts is almost as large as most athletic stadiums.  

 The Ulmen's armed with blankets, ready for the evening air.

 Me and my Bunny in the wings of the theater, just before entering.