Staff Writer

Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane is taking a trip to the Wild West this summer in Wayd Drake’s original adaptation of “Hamlet on the Range,” which will run for two performances June 1 and June 3 the Redwood Campus of Rogue Community College.

“The concept of this play is to make Shakespeare more accessible,” said Drake. “I think he has great stories but the language can be a barrier for some. I have wanted to do a western for some time. I saw the OSF production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and as I drove home I played with the idea of Hamlet as a western and it really fits the story well, with a few changes here and there.”

Drake, enjoying his third year teaching theatre at RCC , has been active in the theatre community since a young age, and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Theatre Production and Design from Southern Oregon University. He adapted the script himself with some help from students and faculty.

“The dialogue was updated in a two stage process,” said Drake. “First just deciphering what Shakespeare was saying into modern English, then the second step was to make it sound like Old West dialogue. The actors are also helping to make the dialogue more western in nature as we rehearse.”

The cast is made up of students from Fundamentals of Acting, some of whom are newcomers to the stage.

Drake has been making the best of a limited rehearsal time and a shoestring budget comprised mostly of donations. “Rehearsals have been going great,” he said. “The actors have been working really hard. Students have been coming in on extra days to help with stage needs.”

Opening the show is a goofy spoof of melodramas, written by former RCC students to tie in with the western theme, complete with a villain, henchmen, a damsel tied to the railroad tracks, and a mayor who speaks his own language. According to Drake, there were more students in his class than roles in the play, so the opening sketch was a good way to let everyone in on the fun.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Drake says the violence will be somewhere around a 5. “We have a gun fight, a stabbing, a poisoning and the stage is covered in dead bodies by the end,” said Drake.

“Every term, the acting class will put on a show a week before finals week,” said Drake, regarding future theatrical endeavors at the Redwood Campus. “I think that Bobbi Kidder will be doing a play Winter term, and a student has mentioned that he would like to do a musical in the fall. It will be exciting no matter what, so stay tuned!”

“Hamlet on the Range” runs from June 1 and June 3 from 4:00 pm – 6:00pm. Tickets can be purchased at the door, and the admission is on a pay-what-you-can basis.

By Mig Windows

Staff Writer

The Warehouse on Bartlett has inspired and entertained the hearts of RCC students, faculty members, and just about anybody who has seen a show there in the past six years or so, and when it’s decked out for a show, you wouldn’t recognize it as the building you take Yoga or Karate in during the day. The entire theatre is set up and struck down nightly by the power of love, dedication and elbow grease, which lends the Warehouse its funkadelic rustic charm.

“Love’s Not Time’s Fool,” a compilation of 38 Shakespearean sonnets, will be the last show to take place in RCC’s Warehouse. Helmed by the very ambitious RCC Instructor Ron Danko, the play opened on May 14th to a packed and enthusiastic house. In the lobby, pictures of past productions were set up on display, and Danko and producer John Cole mingled with the audience, ready to answer any and all questions with a smile.

Danko has combined the sonnets into a loose, stream-of-consciousness narrative that depicts the story of a poet struggling with feelings of optimism, lust, fear and resentment as he embarks in a complicated love triangle. Divided among a cast of 17 performers, ranging from seasoned professionals to eager newcomers, each piece is conducted as a brief glance into a different place and time. From lonely desert highways to back alleyways, Irish weddings to Elizabethan courtyards, the sonnets take us on a frantic emotional journey that is at times funny, poignant, and profound. Many of the sonnets deal with themes of sexual politics, and Danko makes sure that the jokes and innuendos deliver promptly.

The stage, constructed almost entirely of psychedelic-patterned blue and purple building blocks, created a dreamlike atmosphere wherein the actors play with the kind of fervor and tenacity that can only be found at the theatre.

In her fifth and final show at RCC, Jennifer Phillips gives this performance her all, portraying wide range of emotions and contrasting characters. She adds a sense of refinement to the proceedings and holds the show together with her superb skill and professionalism. Rob Hirschboeck was saddled with a hefty share of sonnets and delivered them clearly and articulately, with great command of the stage. Also saddled, (though in a different sense), was Robert Kuhn, who played a horse in three consecutive sonnets quite convincingly, utilizing a great physical discipline and humility that deserves applause. His rider, David Dials, showcased his knack for dialects by playing a Cowboy, an Italian music instructor, and many other nationalities in one evening without a hitch.

A large number of the sonnets were performed as songs (songets?) with music composed by SOU musical composition major Gina Scaccia. The styles of the songs range from Gregorian monk chants to rock, and the singers did the songs justice, particularly Sarah Schwarz, who boasts a lovely set of pipes indeed, and Windy Gish, an RCC graduate who returned to lend her vocal talents to the performance. The avant garde nature of the production allowed for some bold and unusual choices, like the integration of dancing, pantomime, painting, and a power-point presentation, all of which make for a showcase unlike any other. The understated black costumes, designed by RCC student Chelsea Raikes, managed to unify the performers as an ensemble while giving each character their own unique style and “look.”

“Love’s Not Time’s Fool” sucks you into a world where people speak or sing in couplets and quatrains; where a character is as ephemeral as a lighting cue; a world of swirly bluish-purplish bricks and black curtains. The sudden jolt of the fluorescent houselights pulls you back out into the real world, and it makes the show all the more striking for this sharp juxtaposition of fantasy with reality.

It really is a show that needs to be seen in order to be believed.

Performing from May 21-23 at 8pm Fri-Sat and at 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM Sunday. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students. For reservations call (541) 245-7637.

Ron Danko’s adaptation of the Bard’s sonnets will be a world premiere. Will “Love’s Not Time’s Fool” be the (final) final production at the Warehouse?

BY MIG WINDOWS

BYLINE STAFF

Photos by Elijah Sullivan

RCC instructor Ron Danko is a very busy man these days. In the absence of long-time friend and co-director John Cole, Danko has undertaken the task of directing “Love’s Not Time’s Fool,” a compilation of 48 sonnets by William Shakespeare. According to Danko, it will be the last play in RCC’s Warehouse Theatre.

“This will be an exciting project,” Danko said. “Very few fully staged productions [of the sonnets] have been done. I went online and boy, there’s nothing. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has done every play x amount of times, but never the sonnets. I’ll bet most of the OSF are not familiar with them,” said Danko.

According to Danko, the absence of sonnets from the theatre scene has drawn many actors to this project, including actor Rob Hirschboek, who played Shylock in the Warehouse’s production of “The Merchant of Venice” in 2008.

Danko was aware of a recent production of Shakespeare’s Sonnets on Broadway, called “Love is My Sin,” directed by stage legend Peter Brook.

“It was the 400th anniversary of the sonnets, and he did around 31 of them at the Duke Theatre. It was just his wife and an actor friend of theirs, dramatized as a conversation,” said Danko.

For this production, Danko has picked the sonnets in random order to create a cohesive story between three characters: The Poet, The Beloved, and The Dark Lady. “I’ve woven a story of love, how it’s nurtured, the encounter of desolation, betrayal, romantic rivals…” said Danko. “People view the sonnets as complex, but they forget that underlying those sonnets, a playwright was at work. They are dramatic. There are characters. My goal is to make them understood and recognized. I’ve updated the settings, but not the language.”

“In the beginning, the sonnets are aimed toward “The Beloved,”” said Veteran RCC actress and cast member Jen Phillips. “There’s this sense of fresh, beautiful warmth. Toward the second act, the sonnets are targeted at “The Dark Lady.” Somehow there’s this sense that she’s a barrier to [The Poet’s] hope, and there’s a real sense of sorrow, and sorrow for his anger.”

The sonnets have been divided amongst twenty-five RCC students, SOU students, and community members as monologues, duets, ensemble efforts, and songs composed by SOU Composition Major Gina Scaccia. Her recent composition of a monk incantation has the cast – and Danko – very excited.

“It’s a beautiful, spooky ghost chant we sing as an ensemble,” said cast member Sarah Schwarz at a recent rehearsal in H Building. “I think it’ll be cool. It’s the introduction to the cast.”

The cast shares a similar enthusiasm for a “siren chant” of three interwoven sonnets to be sung by a female trio, concerning the elusive nature of time.

“Boy we’ve got some voices,” said Danko. “Those gals!”

So far, the process has been slow, what with the students balancing school and work schedules. Many of the actors rehearse with Danko individually, and are enjoying the process.

“Ron has a true vision with this assemblage of sonnets,” said cast member and Daily Tidings columnist Evalyn Hansen. “He’s so imaginative, and has really assembled a fine, talented cast.”

“It’s all-encompassing,” said Phillips. “We’re doing it in such a way that we can convey Shakespeare’s words clearly to a modern audience and still be artistic. Each sonnet is characteristic, but conveys the proper emotion. Each has its own story, to keep it fresh and entertaining.”

Danko appreciates the growth potential that theatre has to offer, especially at a community college. “We’re not just some place you buzz in and out of for classes,” said Danko. “There’s more here.”

“I miss John,” chuckled actor David Dials, in reference to Danko’s longtime directing partner, John Cole. Cole has been on hiatus in New York, but has been contributing to the production via telephone and email. Cole is expected to return in the fall when the New Warehouse Theatre is ready for use. “They complimented each other, but Ron’s a lot of fun to work with. Rehearsals are lively and funny.”

Featured in 10 of the sonnets, Dials plays everything from an Italian music teacher to a cowboy. “He’s given me such different characters that it’s really fun to do this,” said Dials.

“Love’s Not Time’s Fool” will run for 8 performances from May 16th – 18th and 21st -23rd.

For more information, check out the posters around campus (designed by student Michael Sexton), or call (541) 245- 7637 to make reservations.

Byline Contributor

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is one of the most famous female authors of all time. Of the handful of novels that she completed in her lifetime — and one that she came near to completing — Pride and Prejudice endures as a classroom favorite. Frequently adapted by Hollywood and the BBC, it has inspired spinoffs, knockoffs, urban retellings, and even a Bollywood musical.

So it was only a matter of time before Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival, now in its 75th season, would eventually bring this literary classic to the stage.

Directed by former artistic director Libby Appel, Pride and Prejudice hit the Angus Bowmer Stage on February 27, using an adaptation by JR Sullivan and Joseph Hanreddy just fresh from the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.

For those of you unfamiliar with the novel, it concerns the Bennets of Longbourn, a family whose social status far outweighs their wealth. They have five daughters: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia. Mrs. Bennet fusses over filling the coffers while clearing out more spots at her dinner table by marrying off her daughters, while Mr. Bennet, the sole male wandering through this cloud of estrogen, spends most of the story hiding out in the library, popping out once in a while to make a witty remark.

Actually it isn’t really about that – that’s just the backdrop. What the play is really about is Elizabeth, the second-oldest Bennet daughter, and her love/hate acquaintanceship with a gentleman who goes by the name of Mr. Darcy, because his first name is FitzWilliam, and the kids probably teased him in school about it. Darcy and Elizabeth argue, banter, tease, and eventually confide in each other much in the same vein as Benedick and Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, though in (surprisingly) longer sentences.

As is almost always the case with OSF, the production is aesthetically agreeable, with exquisite costumes that capture the feel of Regency-era England, some enviable interior set pieces, and not one, but four chandeliers!

The set, too, is gorgeous, though it would have been nice for there to have been more of them. As it was, there was one multi-functional set used throughout the play, with the furniture pieces swapped for one another depending on where the action of the scene was to take place. When Elizabeth arrives at Mr. Darcy’s grand estate of Pemberley toward the end of Act I, the back wall separates, revealing to the audience at last that huge watercolor mural that had been teasing us through those windows for all that hour or so. Once the wall splits, it never comes back together; perhaps signifying new openings into Elizabeth’s prospects, or perhaps because it looked neat, I’m not sure. It’s a somewhat confusing moment toward the beginning of the play when the Bennets arrive at a rich estate called Netherfield and comment excitingly about how beautiful it is – when it looks exactly the same as their home, Longbourn, and exactly the same as Katherine de Bourgh’s house and later slightly the same as Pemberley, only with a really big hole in the wall.

The reasoning behind this, I’m sure, is to let the audience imagine for themselves the rich interiors of Netherfield, Rosings, and Pemberley — or because, hey, sets are expensive. Perhaps it was an underhanded remark on the similarity of English households in the early Nineteenth century, but whatever the reason, the set was quite lovely and anyone who isn’t a picker of nits when it comes to set design should not be nearly as whiny as I am.

This brings me to my next point, which is that I’m not entirely sure that Pride and Prejudice is a story meant for the minimalist stage. The transitions occur in such a quick succession that the passage of time is not clearly conveyed – it seems to all occur within the same few days, rather than over the course of a year. Further helping this rushed feeling is the fact that the actors rarely change costumes or hairstyles, creating the illusion that these are immortal creatures who never need to sleep or bathe, carry an eternal supply of hairspray, and feel some deep inner desire to constantly wear the same ball-gown every day, even while taking a walk in the middle of nowhere. The marriage between the minimalism and grandiosity in this production is akin to that of my parents; incongruous but nonetheless entertaining.

Despite my nitpicking, the play is not bad. The script is funny and much of the dialogue is Austen’s own. The performances are excellent all around. Kate Hurster is a delightful lead as Elizabeth, and OSF veteran James Newcomb shows up in the middle of the play to steal scenes as the pompous and silly Mr. Collins. Other scene-stealers include Judith-Marie Bergan as the overly-dramatic Mrs. Bennet and Susannah Flood as the boy-crazy Lydia, who brought the house down on several occasions.

If there was one weak link in the casting, it was probably Elijah Alexander as Mr. Darcy, who was far more convincing as the wealthy and dispassionate snob than as the awkward but passionate suitor. My choice for Darcy probably would have been John Tufts, who was instead cast as the roguish Mr. Wickham. Tufts is not particularly roguish, but he has very good comedic timing and would have handled the awkward situations perfectly.

Still, the play is enjoyable. There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon or evening, especially for Austen fans and those who wish to impress them by sitting through 2 hours and 40 minutes of witty but wordy English diatribes. The former may find the play rushed and abrupt, but entertaining, while the latter may be pleasantly surprised with the play’s coherence and fluidity.

Pride and Prejudice runs till the end of October, which means that, yes, you can go see the show on Halloween and dress up as your favorite character if you want to.

By Amanda Adams

Byline Staff

Q:  What inspired you to direct this particular show?
A: When given the script, I could not stop laughing. Even after the 30th time through, I was still chuckling.

Q:  Tell me a little about the plot of “Moon Over Buffalo.”
A: A 1950s theatrical family hears that a famous Hollywood director is coming to see their play, and everything goes to shambles from there.

Q:  Is this your first time directing?
A: I have been directing professionally since 1977.

Q:  How do you find the time to direct in addition to your numerous other projects and work?
A: Theatre is who I am, so I always feel like I am “coming home” with each endeavor.  Self-care par excellence!!

Q:  Is there a character you identify with or especially like, and why?
A: I like them all as a family because they all love each other in spite of their flaws/humanity!

Q:  Favorite scene?
A: Yes, when Howard shows up to show the company the General Patton uniform he found.

Q:  What’s it like to work in a small-town theatre like Camelot?
A: Wonderful!  A strong sense of community and care.

Q:  What is your affiliation with RCC?
A: Part time instructor in music and the social sciences.

Q:  I believe you got a degree in theatre performance. Do you still perform?
A: Yes, every chance I get. I just finished a role this summer at the Camelot in the play “Cabaret,”  for which I won a Sneak Preview best actress mention.

Q:  If you could cast famous actors, who would be your leading man and lady?
A: I am so pleased to have worked with the local talent, I can’t even imagine working with anyone else (although I would like to have coffee sometime with Antonio Banderas).

Q:  You currently teach music at RCC. Did you have any say in the soundtrack for “Moon Over Buffalo”?
A: Absolutely!  I grew up with Spike Jones recordings; my father was a jazz band leader in the 50s and thought he was a cross between Red Skelton and Cab Calloway. The technical contribution by all the designers at the Camelot is professional and a true delight. Bart, Barbara and Brian rock!

Q:  What are the remaining performance dates?
A: Play continues thru March 7th (Th, F, Sat evenings and Sun matinee).

Danko has selected 45 of Shakespeare’s sonnets built around a theme. Sonnets will be accompanied by music, varying from rap to chants, dramatically presented by actors and actresses.

Casting for the show will begin around the 1st of March. In addition to actors, Danko is seeking musicians, mimes, and technicians. Students who have no acting experience are encouraged to sign up for the class as Danko plans to use a large company. There will be additional rehearsals outside the class meeting.

Everyone can be in the production by signing up for Rehearsal and Performance TA153 which meets Wednesdays from 2 to 5 pm during spring term. Students can email Danko to obtain a script and arrange individual auditions: RDanko@roguecc.edu.