The Great River Shakespeare Festival

This weekend Patrick and I went down to Winona, MN to see our favorite Shakespeare Company. The Great River Shakespeare Festival is in its 6th season this year and performed The Tempest and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

::The Tempest::
The company did a great job of performing The Tempest and the effects were very cool. We did decide however that this was not one of Shakespeare’s better plays. It was rather anti-climactic and seemed to be cut short. Still, it did provide a new favorite line for me. This line is spoken to the son of the king by Prospero, a father.

Then, as my gift and thine own acquisition
Worthily purchas’d, take my daughter: but,
If dost thou break her virgin knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minisiter’d,
No sweet aspiration shall the heaven’s let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-ey’d distain and discord shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed

This is the Shakespeare version of Dad sitting at home with a gun waiting for her daughter to be dropped off by her new boyfriend.

My favorite character in the play was Caliban, and sort of monster played by Christopher Gerson. It helps that Gerson is my favorite actor in the company because of the diversity of characters that he can play. Caliban is a very intense character that is more animal than human. He was raised on the island by his mother who was a witch. Caliban ran around on all fours with his knuckles curled and scars and stress marks all over his back and chest. We were close enough to see the sweat dripping off of Gerson’s face. It was wonderful to see someone get so into their character.

Ariel was another great character that was a sprite of the island. She was played by Tarah Flanagan (Who last I heard was engaged to Gerson), another actor that I have a great respect for. Not only is she talented but so darn cute.
Ariel was another great character that was a sprite of the island. She was played by Tarah Flanagan (Who last I heard was engaged to Gerson), another actor that I have a great respect for. Not only is she talented but so darn cute. Ariel was completely devoted to Prospero and would do anything for him since he saved her from the Witch - and I believe she loved him and he loved her back. Flanagan stayed up in a tower throughout the entire show and did incredible movements from up there. She never touched the ground - she even stayed up there during intermission.

::Love's Labour's Lost::
I’m not a huge fan of Shakespeare’s stories that are purely just love stories. As Virginia would say, I found it trite. The whole thing is men running after women, the men disguise themselves, the women disguise themselves, there is a big mix-up and so on. The only thing I really liked about this play was that it didn’t end in a giant wedding. It ended with the men’s labour’s of love being lost when the women had to suddenly leave. As Patrick pointed out, the comedy had a sort of Marx brothers feel to it when the jokes would be rambling out at such a speed you were lucky to catch every other.

None of the characters really stood out to me in this play. Flanagan did a great job as the Princess and Doug Scholz-Carlson was great as the King. For both of these actors it was nice to see them in a role that was purely comedic or fictitious (sprite, fairy, etc.) Now don’t read me wrong, I absolutely loved Flanagan in Taming of the Shrew last year and as you just read as Ariel this year – but I do enjoy being able to witness diversity in acting abilities. Scholz-Carlson was fantastic last year in the Merchant of Venice in a very comedic role. It was nice to see him in a slightly more serious role.

All in all it was a good weekend in Winona. Anytime I get to see the Great River Shakespeare Festival crew at work it’s going to be good. If you ever want to plan a great summer vacation plan it around GRSF. It runs the end of June through the end of July and there is always something happening in Winona. Here is their link for GRSF. http://www.GRSF.org