Since 2014, my wife has attended the Utah Shakespeare Festival, usually with a friend, on a week that the kids and I are camping somewhere. We have dropped by occasionally if we are camping in the area. Back in 2016, however, we joined her for a second trip to see the fall plays. (They used to have some in summer, some in fall, with a brief overlap if you did it right. At this time, they appear to be doing just one set of plays throughout the whole period.) That 2016 trip was a lot of fun, so we returned in 2021, and again in 2023.
This year, the two youngest kids and I ended up splitting our attendance. Not knowing if we would get to go later, we caught a pair of plays on the first leg of our two week Colorado camping trip. Fortunately, my wife was able to take a couple of days off, and we headed back for the rest of the plays. I decided again to just write up all of them briefly in one post, rather than try to find time to write longer posts. These are in the order we saw them.
The 39 Steps
I saw this one locally back in 2016, with the lead character played by one of my local favorites, Kevin McDonald. The kids hadn’t seen it, though, so it was definitely worth seeing again.
It is always interesting to see how different productions approach the same play. In this one, two of the festival’s finest comic actors took on the two clown roles, portraying a huge variety of characters. As I noted in my previous post, in some cases, the character changes are so fast that there is only time to change hats.
After a year’s absence (apparently because he got a dream role elsewhere), Michael Dougherty was back as one of the clowns - and he is such a wonderful physical actor. Joining him was Bailey Savage, and the two of them had great chemistry. And also, because of the way the roles work, they each played male and female roles, to great hilarity.
The other two actors have to be straight man and woman by comparision. Richard Hannay in particular has to convince the audience that he is literally the only person not in on the joke most of the time. Tom Coiner took on this role, mustache included, and took a very stuffy British approach to the whole thing. A bit different than McDonald, but it worked well. Given Dougherty and Savage, he had to be careful not to upstage them or get in their way. Tracie Lane covered the three female parts that served as love interests, or at least close.
The costumes and sets are always a big part of this play - so much has to be done with so little, so it is fun to see how the designers envision things. I am particularly looking forward (if it works out) to attending one of the morning sessions on costumes and sets.
The Taming of the Shrew
Of all Shakespeare’s plays, this one is the most problematic. The entire premise is sexist, although, as with all of Shakespeare, nothing is quite that simple. (Another problematic one is The Merchant of Venice, of course.) I haven’t seen Taming in a decade, but the performance I did see was particularly good because Kate and Petruchio were married in real life, and had such great chemistry that the whole thing felt natural rather than awkward.
USF took a bit of a different approach, by playing up the framing story. You know, where the drunken boor Sylvester Sly is hoodwinked into thinking he is a nobleman, and then set to watch the play as a lesson to him? Sometimes this is left out, but I think it needs to stay.
In this version, Sly barges into the tavern already drunk, and proceeds to make an ass of himself, being the kind of entitled guy who hits on the barmaids and expects everyone to let him get away with it. Topher Embrey, who I am pretty sure has been in past productions, laid it on pretty thick. (He was also in two other Shakespeare plays - all very different characters.) At the end, though, in a mirror image of Kate putting her hand under Petruchio’s foot, Sly does the same to the woman he has offended. It’s a nice touch, and ties things together.
One of the most fun parts about this production were the costumes. The troupe of players are in such over the top period outfits in garish colors, that you have to laugh just at how they look. Likewise Petruchio in his mismatched garb.
The festival also continues its commitment to using non-deadly weaponry, substituting everything from plush vegetables to fish for swords. In a comedy in particular, this is perfect hilarity.
I’ll give a few shout-outs to actors in this production. The leads (Caitlin Wise as Kate, John DiAntonio as Petruchio) were outstanding, and carried the tough weight of making what should be awkward come off as organic. DiAntonio was particularly excellent in the careful restraint to avoid becoming abusive. It’s a tough line to walk given the play itself. Wise brought a feral feline vibe, literally hissing and spitting at times. This was particularly believable given the utter contempt shown to her by her father and sister - that is part of Shakespeare’s point, of course. She is feral because she has not been loved. Petruchio must find a way to make her accept his love, and once he does that, she responds with loyalty.
The elderly Gremio (Rodney Lizcano) and smarmy Hortensio (John Harrell) were hilarious. Valerie Martire (as Bianca) was ditzy enough that you wonder why anyone would go for her…but, as Mr. Bennett once put it, “he may prefer a stupid wife, as others have done before.” The cast rounded out an excellent and hilarious production.
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado is one of my favorite Shakespeare Comedies - the other is Twelfth Night. The problem is, every performance of this one will be compared to the USF version from 2016, when Ben Livingston and Kim Martin-Cotten played the leads. They were so good and so memorable that I find it difficult to like any Beatrice and Benedick quite as much.
This production was excellent, but just not quite the incredible comic chemistry of the 2016 version. Oh well. This isn’t to throw any shade on Melinda Parrett, who played a strong and wry Beatrice, or Walter Kmiec, who was more thoughtful, if a bit less constantly comic, as Benedick. Again, the chemistry really came through, which is the most important part.
I really loved the staging of this version. For the first time in USF history, it was performed in the indoor theater, which meant a more intimate setting, and creative sets. These were very minimalist, ethereal, and stylized, kind of like the classic Narnia book covers. The costumes were vaguely fin de siecle, of no particular place - definitely in line with the unnamed war in the play.
Benedick stomping around with his foot stuck in a bucket was a nice moment, as was the somber funeral scene for Hero. The vision of the director and the designers was top notch.
One thing that really stood out to me this time, particularly in light of the other plays this year, is how much havoc is caused in Shakespeare plays, whether comedy or tragedy, simply because immature characters can’t talk to each other.
Hero and Claudio fall out largely because they are in love without remotely knowing the other person, and because they are too tongue tied to talk until it is too late. I mean, seriously, if someone accused my wife of infidelity, I would hardly pull a public shaming stunt. We know each other pretty well, and I would assume any accusation was false, because we, you know, talk.
I felt bad for Hero, because she ended up with virtue in question, and then pretty much had to marry the dick that shamed her. And the dick wasn’t the one who Benedick….just saying.
This production really brought out the fact that it is the central couple - Beatrice and Benedick - who smell a rat right away. (And also the priest, who is the only character to talk about “noting.”) They are so used to their banter that they get on the same wavelength pretty quickly, even if Benedick is reluctant to duel his friend Claudio. They also know Hero well enough to realize that her personality and character do not match the accusation.
There is another way in which this particular production truly excelled, and that is in the Dogberry scenes. Blake Henri played the character as comic, of course, but he also used superb diction to make each and every malaprop come out clearly. His version was not so much a fool, as a man who has been promoted above his level of education. He is surrounded by idiots, yet keeps everyone in line. He just can’t project competence, particularly when having to deal with educated idiots like Borrachio.
Also, Verges as Dogberry’s mother was a fun twist.
I still am waiting for USF to leave the line about women and their bucklers in, but I realize the scene isn’t that important to the plot. But at least there is arguably the most romantic line in all of literature:
“I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes…and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.”
Henry VIII
One of the reasons I wanted to attend this year’s festival was to add this play to my list. The last several times we have gone to the USF, we have been able to add additional Shakespeare plays to the ones we have seen live. Kudos to USF for taking the risk of doing the less popular ones as well.
For those keeping count, this is now 30 of Shakespeare’s plays I have seen live. Later this year, I will be adding the Henry VI plays. If we are able to go to the USF next year, they will be doing Antony and Cleopatra, which would be another new one.
Henry VIII is a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher - also a skilled playwright. It is impossible at my level of knowledge to figure out exactly where each wrote, but the language is different in a variety of ways.
The play, like all of Shakespeare’s histories, isn’t exactly factually accurate. Often, events are compressed or changed for dramatic purposes. In others, Shakespeare is creating mythology, and portraying his human characters as either better or worse than they were. Richard III, for example, becomes a villain he wasn’t in real life, and Henry VII is let off the hook. The worst is probably Macbeth, who was grossly slandered for political purposes: Banquo was an ancestor of James I, who happened to be king at the time.
In this play, Elizabeth I is predicted to be the greatest monarch of all time. It is clear just how fawning the writing is, honestly, which may be one reason the play is less often performed. There is also a fascinating approach to Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife. By the time the play was written, Elizabeth herself had been dead for a decade, and Catherine’s reputation had grown, making it politically safe and even perhaps advantageous to portray her positively. With Henry long dead, and the Tudor dynasty at an end, he could be portrayed as a less than ideal ruler.
As with any Shakespeare work in our time, there are cuts to the text, and even some changes. In this play, as the USF’s wonderful dramaturg explained, there are a plethora of characters who had historical significance then but are largely forgotten today, who appear on stage briefly to deliver a line or two, then disappear. For this production, those lines were largely assigned to other characters already on stage, as any political valence has long since been lost for modern audiences.
The careful trimming allowed a story to be told that is less dependent on Tudor politics, and more recognizably universal and human.
Henry, disappointed that Catherine has been unable to produce an heir, falls in love with Anne Boleyn. In order to get the marriage annulled, Henry obsesses over the fact that Catherine had previously been married to Henry’s brother, before his death. This, to him, is incest. (Although both legally and in Biblical law, this would not be the case.)
Meanwhile, there is a heck ton of political intrigue going on. Cardinal Wolsey (the always wonderful Chris Mixon) is portrayed as the main villain. First he gets the Duke of Buckingham (Geoffrey Kent) arrested and executed. He then incites the king to seek an end to his marriage to Catherine. He is playing both sides, though, writing to the Pope opposing the annulment.
Eventually, his duplicity brings about his downfall, and he himself is executed. Thomas More will take over his place of religious influence, while Thomas Cromwell will become the political advisor. (And both would lose their heads in due time…)
One of the fun things about a true repertory theater like USF is that the same actors portray very different characters in the different plays. Here, Topher Embry is Sylvester Sly in Taming, Henry VIII in this play, and the shepherd’s son in The Winter’s Tale. Three completely different characters. There is a fun connection, however - in Taming, Sly is given a playbill with his face as Henry VIII.
The true protagonist of the play, however, is Catherine. The play has an introduction and an apology at the end, and these scenes were given to Catherine - a fascinating decision that worked incredibly well. In the middle, the scenes of her trial and her old age are the best parts of the play, touching and dramatic. Cassandra Bissell was wonderful in this role.
In the same way that the Henry IV plays are really about Falstaff rather than Henry, I think this play is really and truly about Catherine more than anything. Wolsey is a more central character as well - one could read the play as a classical tragedy with Wolsey as the character doomed by his own hubris. Shakespeare really drew out the way that playing with power is a dangerous game, and ultimately consumes everyone.
Henry VIII was a bit of a different experience from the usual Shakespeare history, but intriguing in its own way, not least because of Catherine’s role as a strong woman who stands up for herself.
The Mountaintop
I was very much looking forward to this play, and liked it even more than I expected. The author, Katori Hall, is pretty well known, but I have never managed to see one of her plays before.
The Mountaintop is a fictionalized account of Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night, before his assassination. He had just given his “Mountaintop” speech, and was working on his “Poor People’s Campaign.
In the play, MLK is in his hotel room, when he is visited by a maid, Camae, who is not all she seems. As it turns out, she is a rookie angel sent to collect his soul. She doesn’t disclose this until later in the play, however, so MLK thinks she is just the maid.
To even try to describe the plot would be difficult. The two of them talk extensively about everything from civil rights to his childhood to his deepest fears and insecurities. They flirt (MLK had a few affairs and a bit of a reputation), have a pillow fight, and become close as the time draws near.
For such a heavy topic, the play is surprisingly funny. I mean, laugh out loud funny at times. There are also some unexpected moments. For example, when Camae stands on the bed and gives a speech reminiscent of Malcolm X, finally breaking down into “Fuck the white man!” Or when Camae lights a cigarette without a lighter.
I wonder how many audience members got the many layers of symbolism. It went by too fast to catch everything, but I will say that there are easter eggs everywhere for the finding.
As one who grew up in Evangelicalism and knew his Bible really well, it was obvious that the play drew heavily from the last day in the life of Moses. And indeed, the title itself is a reference to the speech in which MLK describes that moment: Moses is led by an angel of the Lord to a mountaintop to overlook the Promised Land. Moses knows he will never be able to enter that land, but he is permitted to see it from a distance.
The similarities to the play are apparent. An angel of the Lord meets MLK, and by the end of the play, as a carefully assembled series of images show on the walls and the sets as Camae recites names and ideas and events, MLK has seen the future - the promised land.
(Note: the play was written during the Obama presidency, so it felt a little premature now that Trumpist fascism has taken over one of our parties, and the whitelash to our first black president is all too apparent. We have a long way to go.)
That slide show, assembled by the director of the play, Cameron Knight, was seriously badass, and well executed. Other images were projected at intervals throughout the play, with a lot of horror-inspired imagery.
The play is a single act, but nearly two hours long. Sustaining interest for that long is quite the feat. It requires a well written play, but also actors who can sustain the intensity necessary to move the story along. This production accomplished that. I really felt like time flew along and before I knew it, the story was coming to an end.
Since there are only two actors in the play, both of them have to memorize a tremendous number of lines. And both of them are in another play too. Incredible work.
Abdul-Khaliq Murtadha as MLK and Alia Shakira as Camae were both amazing, truly inhabiting their characters and showing compelling chemistry with each other. It was one of those performances where you left just stunned by how good it was. Looking back, while all the plays were good, I think this one is sticking with me as the best one.
The Winter’s Tale
Because of how the timing worked out, we were actually able to see all of the plays this season, which we are not always able to do. Typically, we do a Thursday through Monday trip, which gives us six plays, the Thursday night cabaret, a bunch of seminars, and a Sunday to find a hike. (I refuse to drive back from Vegas on a Sunday. I have done it before and it is a soul-sucking experience.)
Had we chosen a play to miss, it probably would have been this one, for the simple reason that we just saw it at Bakersfield College last fall. But, well, given the chance, why not see them all? USF always does a great job, so you know it will be a fun production.
And boy was it fun. The whimsical set was creative, the costumes fun, and the acting as good as ever. There were a few things, though, that really set this production apart as the best version of this play I have seen.
First, John Harrell as the con man Autolycus was incredibly hilarious. He made the carefully choreographed pickpocketing scenes flow so naturally. He sold it as the peddler. He even made his elevation to the aristocracy seem to genuinely pain him - going straight never hurt so bad. He owned every scene he was in, and the vision for this play certainly made his role central.
The Winter’s Tale is really two plays in one. The first half is pure tragedy. The second, up until the ending, a pure comedy. Sicilia versus Bohemia. City versus country. And, of course, a raging jealous madman versus the calm and good natured counterpart.
Second, and this is so important: the bear.
The most famous stage direction in all of Shakespeare is that moment: “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
This is not the easiest moment to stage. Perhaps Shakespeare had a real bear to work with - trained bears were common enough at the time. Generations of college productions have dragged out the old bear suit. If the budget is low enough, perhaps only an offstage growl.
Some productions, however, have gotten this so badly wrong. I am thinking of the video version we saw from the London Globe during the pandemic. In an otherwise excellent production, they cheaped out and unfurled a banner with a stylized bear on it. Fail. Hard fail.
USF didn’t joke around with their bear. There are actually multiple bears hidden in the play. The toy the young prince carries, a bauble for sale by Autolycus. A bearskin rug in Leontes’ palace.
But THE bear, the one that matters? A giant puppet requiring three persons to operate it, complete with articulated jaw and huge skeleton claws. Combined with the lighting and soundtrack, this beast was totally terrifying. And, they extended the scene so that Antigonus can interact with it before being chased off stage with the bear on his heals.
Excellently done. Getting to talk with the props guy at the seminar made it worth staying a bit later on Monday.
One more thing I wanted to mention is a casting decision that made for an interesting dynamic. Tracie Lane as Hermione was outstanding - and very physical. She had to hold her statue pose - a difficult one - for about 10 minutes. And then, in her other play - The 39 Steps - she planks for about 7. Talk about core strength.
But anyway, she is white. Polixenes of Bohemia, her supposed lover was played by Geoffrey Kent (he is also superb in any role - his diction is particularly excellent) is white. Her husband, Leontes, was played by Chauncy Thomas, who is black.
So, this gives on a few things. First, the anxiety that has plagued America about black men marrying white women. (Another production that explored this well was Theatricum Botanicum’s version of All’s Well That Ends Well) One could certainly see part of Leontes’ jealousy being related to that dynamic.
Second, the related fear of insecure white guys that their white wives secretly want to fuck a black man behind their backs. (This is the source of the epithet “cuck” as used by manosphere sorts, and also a genre of porn, apparently. So, along with every phobia comes a fetish…) This one is flipped in this production: the black guy is afraid of being cuckolded by a white guy.
Third, though, and highly fascinating: young prince Mamillius (Kinsley Seegmiller - amazing job for her age) and the doll infant both looked quite plausibly the children of Herminone and...Leontes, but not Polixenes.
So, when Leontes go on and on accusing Mamillius of being another man’s son, and rejecting his daughter Perdita, he has literally gone stark raving mad. The children are clearly not the product of his suspected cuckolding - they are obviously his. The green eyed monster has possessed him for sure.
The toughest part of pulling this play off, in my opinion, is making Leontes’ repentance convincing. Otherwise, why the hell would Hermione want to come back from the “dead”? Shakespeare doesn’t help with this, leaving the actors to make it work. (Ditto for how fast his jealousy comes on - you have to suspend disbelief a bit.) In this production, it worked, but I felt other parts of the play were stronger. No shade on Thomas, who emoted quite well. The larger theater may have made it a bit more difficult for us to see the emotion from the balcony as well as in a smaller venue.
In any case, I’m glad we saw this one.
Silent Sky
This is the other play (along with The Mountaintop) that was staged in the small theater. I really like the space, and am disappointed that they aren’t using it next year. (Apparently, it is hard to make money there, a consideration which is also behind next season having a low-risk program, which is also unfortunately all white male playwrights. I’m not thrilled about that, shall we say.)
This play by Lauren Gunderson is historical fiction. It follows the career of Henrietta Leavitt, the astronomer who discovered a way to measure star distances which led to a revolution in our understanding of the universe. Suddenly, it was vastly bigger than we expected.
The real-life Leavitt was a total badass, forcing her way into a male-dominated field, and, while working as a “computer” - a tedious task given to women while the boys got to play with the telescope, she found time to work out for herself this major discovery.
There are two other real-life female scientific badasses in the play, although we don’t find out exactly what their contributions were. However, in real life, these three (and two others not in the play) did in fact work together at Harvard, and their names should be household names for their amazing work.
Henrietta Leavitt: Leavitt's Law which relates period and absolute luminosity in Cepheid variable stars. Which allows measurement of distance using apparent luminosity.
Annie Jump Cannon: Created the star classification system we still use today
Williamina Fleming: Co-created the Pickering-Fleming system for classifying stars based on chemical composition. Oh, and like in the play, she really was Mr. Pickering’s freaking maid before his wife realized she was wicked smart and told him to hire her at the university.
In addition to these three in the play, that department boasted Antonia Maury, who calculated orbits of binary stars, and insisted on her name being included on her work - she was the first woman to have her name on an observatory publication.
And also Florence Cushman, who cataloged the positions and magnitudes of 220,000 stars.
Talk about a dream team.
Recognition for these women was spotty. They often failed to get their names on their own work, and credit was often given to men. But they also were praised by other astronomers. Leavitt was a particular favorite of Edwin Hubble, who built on her work. He insisted she deserved the Nobel prize. She was in fact nominated eventually, but because the Nobel committee only awards it to living people, her early death from cancer prevented her from that honor.
The play itself focuses both on her work, and on her personal life. Her sister Margaret is a major character, as is the fictional Peter Shaw (played by Abdul-Khaliq Muradha as a very different character from MLK) who serves as a love interest and also as a stand-in for all the sexist men who failed to fully appreciate the accomplishments of women. (He’s not all bad, and does come around at the end. He’s just…blind.)
This was my final play of the festival, and an afternoon one. (My wife went on to see one more, because she didn’t see the first two - we caught those on a separate trip earlier in the month.) It was a nice low-key and inspiring way to end the run. Good performances by all.
***
I mentioned above that I am disappointed in next year’s season. My wife has been friends with the Managing Director of the festival for some years - a good friend of hers took theater from him back in the day, and he does one of the seminars, so we get a chance to talk.
Apparently, it is financial issues (which plague the arts, sigh) that led to kind of a down year on a few fronts. I know Covid was a huge hit for every theater. Then, there was a quick burst of interest when everyone went back to see stuff, but since then, audiences have settled in at a lower level than at first. So, I get that there is probably a lot of uncertainty about funding.
I also get that every arts organization has to balance the need to make money - which requires doing well-known and popular works - with the desire to stretch audiences and put on more challenging material. Heck, as a classical musician, I see this all the time. You have to do enough of the old war horses to get butts in the seats, and then take risks only as you can afford them.
Still, it was definitely disappointing to see only white males on the list. I am assured that the casting will be as wonderfully diverse as ever, which I am glad to hear, but I really do hope that USF gets back to more diverse programming.
There are a lot of great plays by people who are not white, or male. Last year, one of my kids thought A Raisin in the Sun was the best production of the run, and I heard the same from other audience members. These works are resonating with audiences, and many of us look forward to seeing them. I hope the powers that be at USF read this and take it to heart, so that 2025 can be a return to a spectrum of voices.
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