Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Sirrah! It's Ashland, Oregon!

jtChatter reporting here with exclusive reports from lovely Ashland, Oregon. News, reviews, and paparazzi-style photos.

We arrived yesterday in Medford. Pal Lew Nelson picked us up at the airport, drove us to Ashland. Lew is the long-time leader of the Corvallis Mac User Group, probably the best and most active Mac user group in the world. So, in addition to Shakespeare, we'll be having great Mac discussions for the next few days. I just hope we can conjure up the will power to NOT iChat with each other during the plays. That would be rude (but fun).

Last night we attended A Comedy of Errors at the Elizabethan Theater. The theater is spectacular. The play was an adaption, meaning they took huge liberties with the plot and dialog. The setting was a western town of cowboys (instead of ancient Greece). It was also a musical. A very good one actually. Costuming, acting, singing, and set designs were great. Unfortunately, the second half after intermission became chaotic and silly to the point of transforming into a mixture of the Keystone Cops and the Three Stooges. I was, however, impressed that someone could choreograph such chaos. The fascinating thing was that while Robin and I were sitting there sober-faced, thinking how over-the-top silly it was getting, most of the audience was practically falling out of their chairs laughing. It was like they'd never seen slapstick humor before. A woman (and her young daughter) was sitting in the same box seats with us and she was beside herself, laughing hysterically, leaning over the balcony and pointing at the actors. Interestingly, her young daughter (looked about 9 years old) had the same sober reaction that Robin and I had… huh?

Pictures later. Meanwhile, here's the link to a web gallery.