16. Ashland

Ashland is where the adventure really began on this trip -- our first foray into unexplored territory. We awoke early in Vacaville and drove north on I-5, intending to get to Ashland as early as possible to maximize our time there. We got to Ashland before 3 p.m. Our motel was run-down and it was far from the town, and we had some trouble finding it, but at least it was cheap.

Downtown Ashland is everything that you want it to be; lots of little restaurants with creekside dining, little bookstores and used clothing shops, lots of brick.

The Shakespeare Festival consists of three theatres, showing twelve plays in repertory. Each season they show three Shakespeare plays, all at the Elizabethan Theatre. We were there to see The Tempest (which I had read but never seen). We rested at the motel until 5pm, then we went into town to pick up our tickets and get dinner. The play began at 8:30. I discovered that there is something called a "preface" which is presented at 6:30. Its purpose is to give you enough background on the story that it will be easy to follow, even if you are not up on your
Elizabethan English. Unfortunately, I also discovered that you had to buy a separate ticket for that, and they were sold out, so we had to do without the preface. We had a creekside dinner at a place called Louie's, where one finds the best burgers in Ashland. I had the delicious Oregonzola Burger.

There is a green outside of the three theatres, and at 7pm they put on a free "Green Show", which was half an hour of modern dance set to medieval music. There were 8 dancers and they were quite good. They did a lot of cool athletic things; not quite at the level of Cirque to Soleil,
but really beautiful to watch.

The Elizabethan Theatre is a beautiful open-air space with large comfortable seats, and a great faux wood-and-wattle stage, which looks a lot like the stage at the Globe in London. The set for the Tempest was extremely simple -- just 8 tree trunks.

The play was wonderfully done. They made two small changes -- Ariel was played as female, and so was Antonio (changed to Antonia). I think both changes are improvements. I always imagined Ariel as female anyway. In making Antonia female they added a layer to the relationship with Sebastian, with the added implication that they are lovers as well as conspirators.

The Tempest is different from just about any other story I've seen. In most drama, the protagonist has an external conflict he or she must overcome. The Tempest is unique in that Prospero is in complete control of the situation from the opening to the final curtain. Yes, there
is a conspiracy to kill him, but the conspirators are so comically inept that the audience is never worried for a moment that Prospero is in any danger. Propero is an all-powerful magician, with magical sprites who serve him willingly and a monster who serves him unwillingly, and he has every one of his enemies in his grasp. So where does the dramatic tension come in?

The brilliance of the play is that even when the good guy holds all the cards through the whole show, the drama is still there. If you were in Prospero's position -- in complete control of enemies who deserve death -- what would you do? Would you choose Justice or Mercy?

If you ever get a chance to see a performance of The Tempest, don't pass it up!