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| 7/10/2009 1:54:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Andrew Carlson and Michael Fitzpatrick in Love’s Labours Lost, 2009 (Dir. Paul Barnes). |
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Shakespeare returns to Southeastern Minnesota
By Bonnie Prinsen
The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona opened its sixth season with the plays Love's Labours Lost and The Tempest last weekend.
The festival is the pioneering event in what has become a surprising cultural renaissance in this humble river town of southeastern Minnesota.
This year's plays really bookend the work of the great English bard, with the first being one of his early comedies and the second written late in his career.
Love's Labours Lost, directed by producing director Paul Barnes, is the story of the King of Navarre and three of his lords who decide to take an oath to scholarship, an idea that sounds noble, but ends up being less than enjoyable in its undertaking. The oath includes fasting from food, and more importantly-women.
The men have vowed to stay away from women for a three year period, so, of course, four lovelies soon enter the scene, distracting the gentlemen from their scholarly oath.
The results are typically humorous and peppered with misunderstandings and mistaken identities. In the end, the men learn, in a speech by Lord Berowne, played by the popular Chris Mixon, that love is the "true text" of knowledge and that by looking at the face of a woman he loves, a man can learn more about beauty than he can from a book.
Comic relief abounds, particularly in the form of the intellectually limited Don Adriano de Armado, played by festival favorite Christopher Gerson.
The costumes and music for the play are set at the turn-of-the century, evoking a wistfulness for the simplicity of summers past.
The Tempest, directed by associate director Alec Wild, has an entirely different feel. The story is classified as a romance because of the exotic island setting and magical elements.
This play begins with a shipwreck, staged simply and beautifully by the company. The program for the season mentions that due to budgetary concerns, the company has had to do "more with less" and the opening shipwreck scene is an excellent example of what a little imagination and effort can produce.
After the shipwreck, the audience is introduced to Prospero (Jonathan Gillard Daly) and Miranda (Nicole Rodenburg), father and daughter and inhabitants of the island where the ship has come aground. Prospero announces that it is time Miranda knows who she really is.
Miranda learns that Prospero was the Duke of Milan until his brother Antonio, conspiring with Alonso, the King of Naples, overtook his position and ran Prospero out of Milan. With the help of the kindly Gonzalo, Prospero was able to escape with his infant daughter and with the books that are the source of his magic and power.
Prospero and his daughter have now been on the island for twelve years. Only now, Prospero says, has Fortune at last sent his enemies his way, and he has raised The Tempest, along with his magical helper Ariel (spritely Tara Flanagan), in order to make things right with his enemies.
The GRSF is committed to taking a textual approach to Shakespeare's plays and spends a great deal of time first studying the dialogue to be certain of what is happening in the play. Because of this study, the plays become easier to understand for the audience when presented by well-informed actors.
As usual, the festival, which runs through July 26, offers additional entertainment in the form of free concerts, and educational opportunities with lectures, discussions, and workshops for all ages. Truly a hallmark of this festival is the outreach into the community. And the community responds with hundreds of volunteers to assist with everything from fundraising to sewing costumes. A visit to the website ( www.grsf.org ) is well worth the time.
One gets the feeling that the entire festival is a labor of love from the company to its audiences, which is appropriate since, in addition to the themes of forgiveness, love, and reconciliation, the Shakespeare plays offered this year celebrate, above all else, humanity-warts and all.
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