High-quality Utah festival improves attendance

Friday, July 23, 2004 | 8:31 a.m.

CEDAR CITY, Utah -- There's good news for the Utah Shakespearean Festival unfolding in Cedar City, Utah, this summer season.

Ticket sales for the blend of Shakespeare's plays and modern bards are up 5 percent over last year, festival founder Fred Adams said.

Attendance at the festival on the Southern Utah University campus waned after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Adams said. But 25 percent of all festival visitors are coming from Las Vegas, and the three-hour drive northeast on Interstate 15 isn't keeping those sweltering in Southern Nevada's heat from heading to cooler climes.

Since 1961 Shakespeare lovers have gathered under the stately pine trees of the university campus to attend authentic reproductions at the open, outdoor Adams Shakespearean Theatre, voted most authentic to The Globe Theatre in London by the BBC after a worldwide search. And that was before the festival won a Tony award in 2000 for best regional theater.

Afternoon matinees are staged in the Randall L. Jones Theatre across the street from the campus.

A seasoned cast and experienced directors are offering a delicious array of live theater for those venturing northeast on Interstate 15 from Las Vegas.

'Taming Of The Shrew'

Normally, "The Taming of the Shrew" is produced with youthful energy, portraying Katherina as a plain-Jane daughter who cannot woo a man because her tongue is too tart.

Instead, director Henry Woronicz has matched the shrew and her tamer, Petruchio (Kiernan Connolly), measure for measure. Leslie Brott plays the fiery Kate, who is much older than traditional portrayals. Brott defies any tempering from her husband with a fiery passion.

Even the characters' movements match, blow by blow, as though they were practicing T'ai Chi before they dissolve into laughter at finding their true love in one another.

A seasoned cast supports the dust-up couple. A. Bryan Humphrey plays the scheming father (after all, he does marry his eldest daughter off), along with Michael David Edwards as Tranio and Megan Noble as Kate's beautiful, younger sister, Bianca.

An interesting touch in this production was a male actor in drag playing a widow in the final scene. While this may befuddle modern audiences, Shakespeare's casts often had young boys playing female roles.

Brava.

'Mornings At Seven'

Paul Osborn's work is enjoying a revival of sorts. "Mornings at Seven" opened on Broadway in 1939 and then faded until the 1980s and 1990s.

This play needs to be seen, since it follows the lives of nine people, running between two Midwestern houses, who almost everyone in the audience could relate to, whether they came from the heartland or Yankee country.

Director Kathleen F. Conlin introduces us to two sisters living with their husbands, one household harboring a third maiden sister, another with 40-year-old son Homer, who hasn't left Mama's side, and a fourth sister who lives apart, but in the neighborhood.

As the play opens, the question of whether Homer, played by David Ivers, will marry his 39-year-old fiancee, whom he's been dating for seven years, is paramount. As the play unfolds, the family interacts with all the quirks and questions everyone's experiences growing up in America.

Cora, played by Jane Ridley, is bent on shaping the perfect life with her husband. Richard Kinter as Carl periodically parks himself forehead first against a tree trunk. Actor Corliss Preston as Homer's girlfriend, Myrtle, is saccharine, compared to Anne Newhall as the single sister, Aaronetta, adrift and alone.

Drawing them all together is the set designed by R. Eric Stone, a design hearkening back to gentler times when families were often neighbors.

'Henry IV, Part I'

When Shakespeare wrote "Henry IV, Part I," the character of Falstaff was meant to be larger than life. Some Shakespearean scholars and critics say this one belongs to Falstaff.

This is a history play with a dose of humor. In this production, however, something has gone awry.

Director J.R. Sullivan cast Jonathan Brathwaite as Prince Hal, a character that needs force and depth. In this production, Brathwaite is overshadowed by the other characters.

Since Brathwaite's character is so unemotional, Hal's place is lost.

Brian Vaughn as Hotspur dominates the performance. Hotspur is supposed to play a secondary role to Hal, but in this production he outshines the prince.

Actor Kiernan Connolly as Falstaff plays his role physically broad, but it is mostly gestures, not emotion from the heart, that he projects.

The battle scenes are dramatic and blood-rushing.

Other notable performances include singer Vanessa Ballam Brenchley soothingly delivering a Welsh ballad and Charles Metten as the rogue Bardolph always disguised, delivering a delicious punch as a thief in the night.

'My Fair Lady'

When Professor Henry Higgins takes 21-year-old flower girl Eliza Doolittle off the streets of London and turns her into the perfect lady, everyone recognizes the 1956 musical "My Fair Lady," based on George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion," produced in 1916.

After the professor passes her off at a society ball, treating her as little more than one of his phonics recordings, she walks out, only to return and fetch his slippers.

Fortunately, director Marc Robin knew how to put the passionate longing into the play, an undercurrent as haunting as Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe wrote in the lines and lyrics of the original.

Kurt Ziskie, who played John Adams in "1776" last season, performs a masterful, professorial role in this production.

Richard Kinter, Higgins' partner Colonel Pickering, plays his straight-laced role with wit and humor.

Peter Sham as Eliza's father dances and sings, delighting the audience. However, the songs and dancing before his wedding seem to come from another play, imported as comic relief, perhaps?

The real star of this show is former University of Nevada, Las Vegas graduate student Melinda Pfundstein as a captivating Eliza, who develops wisdom as she rises from street smart to a lady fit for a professor.

'A Winter's Tale'

Shakespeare wrote "A Winter's Tale" as a romance with a touch of tragedy. This production, directed by Fontaine Syer, hit the mark.

The play is about jealousy, lost love and found love.

Sicilia's King Leontes is jealous when his friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia, pays too much attention to his pregnant wife, Hermione. Leontes imprisons Hermione and banishes his newborn daughter. Close friend Paulina tells Leontes that Hermione has died and the husband grieves, believing he is being punished for his misdeeds.

The abandoned baby grows up in a bucolic setting among shepherds, falling in love with the son of Polixenes, another wild thing. It is Paulina who schemes to bring the daughter and father together again.

The play is enchanting, including statues that come to life and a bear on a rampage, not so fantastical after a tiger ran loose in real life for hours in Florida this summer.

Raymond Chapman as Leontes leaps the chasm between jealous husband to sorrowful widower in a realistic way. Michael David Edwards portrays a cast of characters including Autolycus in disguise, the storyteller and the bear. David Ivers as Polixenes casts off his country bumpkin demeanor and acts with a dignity befitting royalty.

Jane Ridley grounds the play as Paulina and shapes the delightful chaos into a believable end.

'Forever Plaid'

Stuart Ross produced "Forever Plaid" off Broadway in 1990, and reading a synopsis of the plot, many theatergoers may have wished it had stayed there.

Four white boys singing 50s songs sounds insipid. It would be easy to produce this as sappy, but this production avoids that trap and succeeded in delighting audiences, even those who prefer Moliere.

The play begins on Feb. 9, 1964, when a boy band -- Frankie (Aaron Galligan-Stierle), Jinx (Kevin Kiler), Smudge (Brian Vaughn) and Sparky (Daniel Robert Sullivan) -- has been killed in an auto accident.

Through the gentle direction of Russell Treyz, this quartet regroups and warbles in perfect harmony. For those planning to see this presentation, rest assured the lads can sing in harmony and they are as amazing and intimate as any Vegas lounge act.

Each character reaches across the footlights and touches hearts. Most audiences have a love-hate relationship with "Forever Plaid." After all, the festival gave up Moliere for this production. Fuggedaboudit. This is wonderful theater.

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