Since 2014, my wife has attended the Utah Shakespeare Festival, usually with a friend, on a week that the kids and I were 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, 2024, and 2025. These days, we are down to our youngest kid, as the older ones are in college, with their own lives. Time moves on. I have mentioned that my wife and I went to see a play (Comedy of Errors) for our first date over a quarter century ago, so we anticipate being that couple after the kids all move out.
This year, due to schedule issues - a court case for me and the first day of school for our kid - we were only able to see seven out of the eight total plays. Now that new artistic director John DiAntonio has settled in, he has decided that eight will be the ideal number of plays for a season. On the one hand, this is awesome, and it is great to see that the festival has bounced back from Covid and is selling tickets and making enough money to present a large slate. On the other, this does make fitting everything in difficult. Ideally, we will be able to see all the plays next year, but we will see.
The one we skipped this year was Something Rotten, because we have seen it locally twice in the last few years, so other plays were a priority.
As I noted in last year’s post, it has been a bit disappointing that in the last few years, USF has failed to continue its project of presenting plays by authors that are not white and male. I am pleased to see that this year, at least, we have a play by a Latina woman, even if the rest are all white guys.
Next year includes a musical co-written by a woman, but that is it. I get that USF has to sell tickets, and this often means making decisions that make financial sense, but I do wish that there was a more consistent effort to feature voices that are not just white and male.
The casting was, fortunately, as wonderfully diverse as ever, and the plays themselves both contained valuable messages and were presented in ways that brought these messages out. Even to do that is an act of resistance in our current hostile political environment.
I also want to note that USF’s commitment to “complete the canon” - that is, to present all of the Shakespeare plays over time - has resulted in so many wonderful productions of the less known plays. This year was Troilus and Cressida, which was probably my favorite of the plays we saw. This brings me within three of completing my personal canon - I still have Titus Andronicus, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and King John left to see live.
Finally, before I dive into the individual plays, let me once again mention that for my wife and I, the festival is an entire experience, not just a series of stage performances. We attend the Cabaret, which is a fundraiser for young artists, held way too late at night, but still a lot of fun - in this case, after leaving for Utah at 4:30 AM, then seeing two shows. This week was a movie theme, which included scenes from the OG Star Wars movie performed using Shakespearian language - SciFi in iambic pentameter. It was lots of fun as usual.
Other events worth attending are the discussions the morning after the play, and the seminars for props, costumes, and actors. All of these are free of charge too. We did pay this year for the chance to see a set change at the indoor theater before shows, which included a discussion with the stage crew as well.
While the acting is always outstanding across the board at the USF - it’s a professional festival and no slight to the other performers - there were four actors that particularly stood out this year for their work in multiple plays. I’ll talk about them in the discussions of individual plays.
With that, I’ll jump into the individual plays, in the order we saw them.
See How They Run
(Philip King)
Every year, the USF does a farce, usually by a British playwright. This year, we got See How They Run by Philip King, a post-war British farce.
Something new I learned this year: one of the classic rules of farce is apparently that there be four doors. No more, no less. And this one met that requirement.
Let’s see: the front door, the side door, the door to the servant’s quarters and kitchen, and the closet door.
The play takes place entirely in the vicarage in a small English town. So yeah, that’s a classic setup.
According to the festival dramaturg, the always-excellent Dr. Isabel Smith-Bernstein, a few things about the play were changed from the original. Early on, the escaped German prisoner was replaced by an escaped Soviet prisoner. Because a new war requires a new villain.
For the American version (which is what we saw), the Vicar’s young wife is now an American actress, with all the attendant cultural jokes.
And, for this particular production, a joke about a crow’s nest was replaced by a joke about the LDS General Assembly.
(This was the answer to one of the seminar questions - and Dr. Smith-Bernstein noted that the fact nobody laughed was exactly why the joke had to be replaced.)
The farce is based on, as is often the case, mistaken identity, disguises, and compromising situations. And, in this case, no fewer than four characters dressed as vicars, and one real vicar in his underpants.
But the funniest part of the play was the character of Miss Skillon, the town busybody and gossip - and the mortal enemy of Penelope, the vicar’s wife.
Played by Caitlin Wise, who is consistently amazing in whatever she is in, Miss Skillon required a breathtakingly physical performance and impeccable comedic timing. I honestly do not know how Wise bent her body the way she did, and how she managed to still be ambulatory after the many pratfalls and collisions she did in the few hours of the play. Not to mention the fact that she has significant roles in two other plays running simultaneously, and keeps it all up for several months.
Just a quick glance at the last couple years of the USF in my posts will reveal the many roles she has filled, from Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew to Louise in Dear Jack, Dear Louise. She is currently (in my opinion) the best comic actor at the USF, particularly since Michael Dougherty moved on to other projects. I would see her in literally anything. She is one of the actors that I particularly enjoyed this year.
The plot itself is, of course, silly. And like any farce, don’t think about it too much. Lots of running (see title), mistaken identities, slapstick, and one joke after another.
The set for this one was pretty complicated, and everything had to be reinforced to withstand the physicality of the performances. The couch had to be able to hold five people, sitting on various places. The doors were slammed over and over and over (and in different ways - this was scripted by the director.) Rugs had to stay in place and not harm the actors.
Learning about these various things at the props and sets seminars was really fun.
Anyway, nothing deep or profound here, just a good old-fashioned over-the-top bit of fluff and nonsense.
Troilus and Cressida
This play was the main attraction for me this year - it is almost never performed, and thus difficult to add to the canon.
This really is a shame, because, done right, the play has a great anti-war message, and is filled with some of Shakespeare’s finest insults.
To begin with, though, do not confuse this play with the Iliad, even though it covers roughly the same period of the Trojan War. The title characters are essentially a new addition - Cressida doesn’t appear in the Iliad at all, and Troilus is a very minor character.
But even more than that, Shakespeare isn’t here to praise the heroes of Homer’s epic, he is there to talk trash about them. To expose them as the anti-heroes he thinks they are.
Okay, except perhaps for Hector, who comes off as the one marginally sane warrior one either side.
For the USF production, the setting wasn’t a particular time, but the entire history of wars involving the United States, starting with the Revolutionary War (Nestor as the old guy hearkens back to that first war), and drawing imagery through at least Vietnam.
The scenery is covered in faux newspaper clippings about the war and Helen and the rest of the mythology. There is rubble everywhere, and a damaged (but giant) angel of death statue presiding over the whole thing.
The two sides are represented with colors: Troy in red, Greece in blue. Except Helen herself, who glams it up as a pinup girl, the incitement to war. (The second act opens with an actual vintage patriotic number, with just a few words changed, and Helen crooning and writhing on a baby grand piano.)
Despite giving the play its title, Troilus and Cressida are actually fairly minor characters, in what is the minor plot of the play. Trojan prince Troilus falls in love with Cressida, or at least the idea of being in love, and enlists her uncle Pandarus to make the match. Which he does, including providing a place for the couple to make “the beast with two backs.” (Sorry, that’s from Othello, but it fits here…)
Yes, in case you wondered, Pandarus is in fact the source of the word “pander.” Originally, the word meant more what Pandarus does in the play: procure sex for others. This usage lingers in the crime that pimps are typically charged with, “pandering.”
It was only later that our more modern meaning of “catering to” or “flattering” caught on. Or, perhaps, as the applicability shifted from sex to politics, it also shifted from the pimp to the prostitute. (Or, the White Stripes notwithstanding, maybe you can be a pimp and a prostitute too.)
Anyway, things go wrong late in the play when Cressida is traded to the Greeks in a prisoner exchange, and, as women often do when they are used as property, she becomes the concubine of one of the Greek officers, to Troilus’ horror, leaving him cynical about love by the end of the play.
The main plot is similar to that of the Iliad: Achilles and Agamemnon have a fight and Achilles goes and pouts in his tent, enjoying the company of his lover Patroclus.
Left without their best fighter, they turn to their second best, the dimwitted lunk, Ajax, when the Trojans propose to resolve the war by single combat.
That’s at least the basic outline.
For Shakespeare, however, there will be a new twist. Members of both armies are doubting the war, wondering if it is worth it. So many dead bodies already, and many more to come. Hector actually comes out and asks if they shouldn’t just give Helen back. Ulysses, ever the schemer, tries to have it both ways.
It is this doubt that leads Hector to propose the trial by combat, confining the risk to himself (he hopes), and saving further slaughter.
Shakespeare then gets to poke a lot of fun at Ajax, who even in Homer, is the OG “himbo,” vain about his muscles, and more than a little dumb. He gets the two best insults in the play, from the jester character, Thercides, who is styled as a jaded war correspondent in the USF version:
E'en so; a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your
sinews, or else there be liars. Hector have a great
catch, if he knock out either of your brains: a'
were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.
And, from Alexandra (Alexander in the original) to Cressida:
This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts
of their particular additions. He is as valiant as the
lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant, a
man into whom nature hath so crowded humors
that his valor is crushed into folly, his folly sauced
with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that
he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint
but he carries some stain of it. He is melancholy
without cause and merry against the hair. He hath
the joints of everything, but everything so out of
joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and
no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.
Ajax was performed in this version by Lavour Addison, who has been at USF for a number of years, and can be a badass and plenty serious. But in this case, he uses his seriously built physique to strut and flex and do meathead stuff. Fortunately, that included his trademark flips and one-handed pushups.
In contrast to Ajax, there is the serious and sincere Hector, played by John Keabler. And also Achilles, who is played as a 1970s rock star by Walter Kmiec, who absolutely killed it as Macbeth last year. And man, I loved his version of Achilles.
There are some significant changes to the way the events unfold in Shakespeare’s version. First, Hector doesn’t kill Patroclus, but only wounds him. It is left to Ulysses to do the dirty deed, which he does in order to accomplish his own political goals.
Second, Achilles doesn’t kill Hector fair and square in combat as he did in the Iliad - the scandal in that version is his mistreatment of Hector’s body. In the Shakespeare version, Achilles takes his posse of thugs and ambushes Hector unarmed, and the thugs beat him to death.
Yeah, as I said, Shakespeare intends to expose the “heroes” as the vicious brutes they are.
I should also mention that Blake Henri, as Thersites, was the best part of this play. And honestly, he was fantastic in all three Shakespeare plays. He is the next of the four actors that I particularly enjoyed this year.
In my opinion, Troilus and Cressida was the best play this year, with a clear artistic vision and message, superb acting, and sets and costumes that truly aided the storytelling.
She Loves Me
(Joe Masteroff, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick)
This is my wife’s favorite musical of all time. We previously saw it locally, but she was looking forward to seeing it in a larger budget professional version this time.
Since I already wrote about the plot extensively in my prior post, I won’t reiterate it here.
I do have some comments, however, about this particular production.
First, one of the things discussed in the seminar before the show was that She Loves Me is an example of a musical that is a play first, with the songs being built around the plot. This is in contrast to many other musicals, where the songs come first, and the plot has to be created to hold it all together. Not that one is better than the other, but plenty of great songs have ended up orphaned by the musicals they first appeared in.
I am reminded of Andrea Long Chu’s observation regarding Richard Rodgers:
"In his earlier partnership with lyricist Lorenz Hart, Rodgers had written the melodies first, crafting sparkling tunes for forgettable plays, whereas with Hammerstein, the words had come first, requiring a more mature Rodgers to compose music with a clear dramatic purpose in mind. The former duo produced classic songs; only the latter produced classic musicals."
Don’t think for a moment, though, that the songs are an afterthought in She Loves Me. The songs are great, witty, and sophisticated. For me, as a classical musician, I love the score, because it is musically complex, based on klezmer music, and deliciously dramatic.
The set was definitely one of the most interesting I have seen. The perfume shop is mostly built on a portable turntable, so we get both inside and outside scenes. Because the USF is a repertory theater, the whole thing has to be moveable, and the process of dismantling one set and assembling another needs to be done in a mere hour. Yes, that is crazy. And the backstage people at USF are total badasses in how they do this.
The cast in this musical was clearly chosen because of their ability to sing - and most sounded like they had trained in opera. Matt Koenig as Georg and Ali Ewoldt as Amalia were particularly strong, but really, not a single weak voice in the production. They could belt, but also handle the difficult and soft passages with delicacy. As a musician, I really enjoyed it all.
I will note that I do not think I had heard Chris Mixon sing before, but he was quite good as Mr. Maraczek. I have mentioned that he is the ever-present good old boy at the USF, raffling off his homemade nuts and pickles at the fundraisers, and usually playing a variety of bit parts. This was definitely a less expected turn, but I always like to see him on stage. His love of theater is apparent in everything he does.
Hamlet
Believe it or not, I had never seen a professional version of Hamlet on stage before. Yes, I have seen it at BC - and it was good for a student production. I also saw the Benedict Cumberbatch filmed version during the pandemic. But not a live professional version.
I went into this one with really high hopes - after all, Walter Kmiec as Hamlet and Kayland Jordan as Horatio? That’s a dream casting for sure. Add in John Keabler as Claudius and Mare Trevathan as Gertrude, and it should have been amazing.
Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The particular cuts and rearrangement of the play seemed to me to muddle the character arc, and everything felt mixed up and directionless.
The core of the problem started with the removal of all plot points connected with Fortinbras. It is an understandable choice by itself, leaving (in theory) more time in which to include the “extra” monologues for Hamlet.
But by removing Fortinbras, there just wasn’t much action left for the second half of the play, so the director chose to move the most famous soliloquy to right before the final scene in Act 5.
To me, this caused to serious problems. First, it ruined the character arc for Hamlet. Why is he getting cold feet and musing about whether he will take action? He’s already said that violence is the only way forward now that Claudius has tried to kill him, and all that remains is for him to fence with Laertes. It felt totally disconnected to the plot and character arc to be placed there.
Second, for those of us who know the play fairly well, we noticed the absence of the speech were it belongs. (Or, perhaps, in one of the places it was originally set.) It was clearly needed where it was placed: Hamlet’s trajectory of rushing into vows of action alternating with self-doubt and inaction requires insight into his thinking. Plus, once the scene went by without the speech, I ended up worried that it would be cut altogether - this has been done before, although I suspect even the sedate older crowd at the USF would have rioted.
I really still am a bit sore about this, because there was so much to love about the production otherwise.
As usual, the acting was superb. Kmiec and Jordan were perfect in their parts, with Jordan making much of the role, almost transforming the play into the tragedy of Horatio.
Keabler managed to make the role of Claudius ambiguous and morally complicated. It is easy to miss that the Denmark of the play is more like a constitutional democracy than a true monarchy - Claudius is elected to succeed old Hamlet.
Trevathan is so good in everything - I list her as one of the four most memorable actors this year, along with Kayland Jordan, Caitlin Wise, and Blake Henri. Like Keabler, she added depth and pathos to an otherwise unlikeable character.
I will also mention that, although it was disappointing that Kathryn Tkel was ill, and was unable to play Ophelia, Brianna Miller was excellent filling in.
Again, so much to love about it - it could have been great. But the script choices undermined the story, and left me disappointed, which is super rare for the USF.
The Book Club Play
(Karen Zacarias)
This was the sole female-written play of the festival, and was performed in the Anes Theater. I have a great fondness for the venue, as it is small enough that even the cheap seats give a great view of the actors’ faces. I have always loved intimate theater, and the actors who make such good use of it.
The Book Club Play is, unsurprisingly, about a book club. For those of us who are in at least one book club, this play feels very familiar indeed. Sure, the drama is a bit over-the-top, and the characters a bit more “out there” than the ones in The Literary Lush, but there are so many similarities. The characters don’t match exactly, but they have characteristics drawn from the sorts of people who are in book clubs. Like me - my fellow book clubbers probably were thinking “hey, I know a guy like that…)
There is the guy who is there because of the food. Who is also the guy who pretty much never reads the book, but sometimes watches the movie.
There is the host who takes the club a bit too seriously. The guy who is a total pedant and a bit of a book snob. The recently invited new member who doesn’t yet know all of the unwritten rules.
The guy who is known for his creative suits. The literature professor who fell out of love with reading, before loosening up and learning to read popular literature.
I really don’t want to reveal plot points, other than to say that there are plenty of awkward moments, moments of self-discovery, a coming out scene, and enough drama to, well, make a play about.
I had fun watching this one, although, as my wife points out, the playwright has a bit of an addiction to tying up all the ends very neatly, even when a more open ending would have been a bit less trite.
To me, the best part of this play was the great ensemble cast. With one exception, the six actors in this one were also together in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, so the chemistry carried over between the plays, even though they played very different characters in each.
I guess I might give a bit of a summary of the play. The club is a longstanding one, founded by Ana and Will, who both take literature a bit too seriously. Ana is married to Rob, who is there for the food and would rather watch the movie. Another longtime member is Ana’s friend Jen, who has a bit of a secret history involving a congressman. More recently, Lily has joined the club. She is Ana’s co-worker at the newspaper.
The book club has just been selected by legendary documentary maker Lars Knudsen, and the cameras are rolling, making everyone more awkward.
Things get shaken up, however, when Lily invites literature professor Alex, without taking a vote first. Alex, fortunately, is good natured and firm enough to make himself at home anyway. But his presence, and his openness to popular books like Rob might read, turns the club upside down, and much drama ensues.
I’ll just mention a few things that I particularly noted. First, the idea of a jock sort of guy having an epiphany about life after reading The Age of Innocence is both hilarious and brilliant. It totally turns on its head the usual cliche about women and books like that about repressed women.
Second, I think I may have been the only person at the seminars who has actually read Ulysses. It has a daunting reputation, of course, and I suspect that more people know of it than have any intention of reading it. Oh well.
Third, it was very interesting to experience the coming-out scene. Utah’s crowds skew older (like most live theater and arts), white (because Utah), and fairly conservative. But the times they are a changin’: there was a near universal cheer when the character came out, and my wife and I have noted that the discussions at the seminars are not what they used to be a decade ago.
We both think that in its own way, the USF has been part of this shift, by nudging people to think more deeply, to challenge the assumptions of white male supremacy, to consider our cultural baggage surrounding gender, roles, expressions, and sexuality.
I haven’t read any of the other books they discussed, though. I do want to read Moby Dick, but probably will give Twilight and The Da Vinci Code a pass.
Twelfth Night
I can’t really decide for sure if I prefer Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing as my favorite Shakespeare comedy. Maybe I love whichever one I am seeing next the best.
In any case, I never get tired of Twelfth Night, with its gender bending, homoeroticism, bawdy humor, and the delicious humiliation of a self-absorbed puritan.
There are also so many great lines.
It turns out that it has been a decade since I last saw it, which was a bit surprising. I guess I was due.
This production was wonderful, and I don’t think I could improve on anything.
The setting was the age of Mozart, complete with fancy costumes and a harpsichord.
Caitlin Wise, as Viola, was as marvelous and endearing as she could be. Kayland Jordan was excellent as Olivia, and found the perfect balance between ice queen and unwitting lovebird. The two of them had great chemistry, making that relationship the core of the play.
Lavour Addison was the hapless Orsino, besotted by Olivia and missing the disguised Viola’s love for him.
And what about the humorous subplot? Well, Rodney Lizcano was lugubrious as Malvolio, and both his acting and the choices the director made really brought out the real problem with Malvolio. It isn’t just that he is a puritan - and as we know, after Shakespeare’s death, the puritans took over the country and outlawed the theater. The bigger problem is that Malvolio is an asshole. He mistreats and demeans his underlings, all while imagining that Olivia will marry below her rank. Self-delusional, grandiose, and mean to those who he sees as beneath him, it is fitting that the real author of his downfall is Maria, the target of his arrogance.
In this production, Maria was intended to be played by Kathryn Tkel, who was ill. I’m sure she would have been great.
Instead, we got Mare Trevathan, which is kind of like having Johnny Bench as your backup catcher. She was as good a Maria as I have ever seen, and an utter pleasure to watch at all times. She also has over a thousand audiobooks to her credit, numerous stage and screen credits, and apparently is really good at all the things. Certainly, even in smaller rolls in other plays over the last few years, she is reliably excellent.
Blake Henri was Sir Toby, and, as I noted, he was electric in every role he had in every play. Sir Andrew was played by another USF veteran, John Harrell. He wasn’t as broad or slapstick as I have seen this role be played, but instead relied on the humorous lines and a general sense of dissipation and lack of brains.
Anyway, loved this play, and thought it was a great production.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(David Catlin)
This is an interesting take on the story, combining both the backstory of how it was written, and the story itself. For those of us who have read Frankenstein, it was a relief to see that the story was told in a way true to the book (although obviously simplified to fit in the time allotted), with all of the more nuanced philosophical issues still at the forefront.
After all, the book isn’t primarily a horror tale, but rather raises profound questions of science and ethics, the duty a creator owes to a creation, the trauma of loneliness, and the ultimate futility of revenge.
The play opens with the young romantics at their villa in Italy: Mary Shelley, her lover and poet Percy Shelley, Mary’s stepsister Claire Claremont, Claire’s lover Lord Byron, and the oft-forgotten fifth member, Dr. John Polidori.
I do want to mention Polidori because, unlike Percy and Byron, he actually did write something on the spooky theme, and in fact is credited with the first modern vampire story. (And, like Percy getting credit for Frankenstein, Byron initially got credit for The Vampyre.)
As the group sits around and discusses spooky stuff, Mary starts to tell her tale. The characters then morph into the characters in the story. Throughout the play, there is this shift back and forth between the real-life scenes and the monster story.
It will probably be no surprise, of course, that Byron turns into the monster, or that Percy turns into Frankenstein. Polidori turns into Henry, but also a number of other characters. Claire covers a whole bunch of minor characters, while Mary becomes Elizabeth.
Seeing this on a small stage was a lot of fun. The props from the boat to the gurney were all shrunk to fit through a very narrow passage on and off the stage, which made everything feel miniature. The actors made great use of the trapdoor on the stage, which doubled as the grave which eventually ate everyone - the epilogue to the play has Mary telling what will happen to each character, including herself, as a brain tumor eventually robs her of speech, leaving the play ending with a half a word and a fragment of a sentence. I thought it was highly effective.
As noted regarding The Book Club Play, the ensemble cast had great chemistry, and switched agilely from the realistic characters of the former to the more fantastic real and imaginary ones in Frankenstein.
This was my favorite of the non-Shakespeare plays this year, in no small part because I loved Frankenstein, and this version was true in spirit to the original, not the lurid imitations that have followed.
That is my summary of the Utah Shakespeare Festival for 2026. We are already looking forward to next year, and blocking off dates. I can certainly recommend the USF for high quality theater, and an immersive experience.
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