The Mighty Mighty Ashland Trip, Part I

[bardic_lady]

Divided into two parts so as not to overload, here is the tale of how dramaturgca and lornelover went to Southern Oregon, survived despite the heat, and had a generally fabulous time.

Cab got to my apartment at 6:15. I got to the airport at 6:45 (I don't know why I think it takes 45 minutes to get to the airport. It never does.) Waited for the Alaska/Horizon desk to open. Security was so bored they literally stood in front of me with bins going "And now can we have your shoes? And now can we have your sweater?" Dudes, I get that it's slow at 7am, but I am fully capable of prepping myself for the security process. Sat in the gate area. My flight was postponed nearly an hour due to fog in Seattle. Yup, that's right, there was weather in Seattle. Apparently it took everyone by surprise. *eyeroll* So that shut down SeaTac for a couple hours. When we got in, the customer service rep came onboard to discuss the customs process. She warned us that because of the fog and the shutdown, all the international flights were just landing and to be prepared for huge lines through customs. So it shocked me when I literally walked up to a customs officer to have my passport checked, waited less than 10min for my bag, walked through the second stage of customs, and took less than 10min to go through security again. It took 15min on the shuttle trains to get to my gate, where I discovered that we had been delayed due to the fog. It ended up being about an hour and ten of delay. I called lornelover to let her know and grabbed a muffin, my first food of the day. PDX was pretty calm and lornelover picked me up curbside. We were both starving so we went for food. The first two places were closed, so we ended up at Jimmy John's, which was quite tasty. After lunch, we got on the road, ready for the five hour drive down. Me being me, I was quite anxious and spent a lot of time trying to mentally talk myself out of being ill. It sucks when your brain wants you to be nervous even around your best friends. We rolled into Medford at about 10:30 and made a quick run to Fred Meyer for frozen dinners and cookies. Then Merlin watching happened and we both fell asleep.

On Friday we went and heard the festival artistic director talk about the season planning process and what it's like to do his job, which was sometimes very interesting and sometimes very clearly directed at the elderly Ashlandians who come to everything at the Festival ever, which kind of excludes people who are new and just came for fun and information. It's not that I begrudge them special events that take into account their patronage and history with the festival, but if you're going to advertise an event and make it open to anyone, that should be taken into consideration. The discussion of the play selection process was interesting, and casting and how directors and designers (and dramaturgs because I asked) become attached to projects. So on whole it was quite educational. And he's gay and had no problem saying so and it didn't seem to make anyone in the audience unhappy, so that was nice.

Then we had lunch at a little way organic hippydippy cafe and wandered the mean streets of Ashland, shopping for several hours, lots of time in the yarn store, the vintage store, and the festival gift shop. I got yarn for my aunt for Hanukkah and a skein of dark green shot through with silver for me at the yarn store (The Websters), A Cheshire cat lunchbox, a frog pendant for my mum, Shakespearean insult gum, a blue silk scarf with gold bead tassels and a floor length full red satin skirt with a purple ruffle at the vintage store (Renaissance Rose), and an alternate history novel where Shakespeare saves Britain, a little porcelain box for my aunt, two Shakespeare charms to work into jewelry projects, the play guide to this season at the festival, another Immortal Longings card (Winter's Tale this time) and a Hamlet: Frog Prince of Denmark card for my mum at the Tudor Guild.

And then we had dinner at an even hippierdipper deli before we saw Henry IV I, which we didn't originally plan to see, but it was MASSIVELY undersold, so they were offering people between 19 & 35 tickets for $19.35, so we decided to go on Thursday night and picked up our tickets Friday morning. *poof*

It wasn't as bad as its massive underselling would indicate. It was easily the worst show we saw all weekend, but it wasn't ghastly or anything. Henry IV himself was pretty bad, but I don't think I've ever actually seen a good Henry IV, so I'm starting to wonder if it's the part.

They started the first Hal scene with Hal and a whore half-naked under a blanket and then eventually revealed that Falstaff was under the blanket too. Which kind of made me go ick. On the plus side, Hal was shirtless for basically the whole first scene. I admit, in my head I was picturing Jamie Bamber. For sometimes I am intensely shallow. The biggest problem with that first sequence was that the whore, with no lines, managed to completely steal the scene. so... oops. Both lornelover and I agreed that Hal was much better looking onstage and in head shot than on the poster, which seems like a flaw in the advertising as, shallow though it may be, one of the reasons we didn't initially plan to see Henry IV was because Hal and Hotspur didn't appear to be pretty enough.

Poins was deaf and just signing and Hal and Falstaff signed back and partially translated, but not entirely, but there was never any doubt of what he was saying and that ROCKED. Among the best parts of the show, easily. So SO good.

Other than that... Hotspur didn't do much for me and there wasn't much chemistry between him and Kate, Lady Percy which was very disappointing. Their scenes felt forced, and she seemed to be straining for emotions. Also, she was severely undercut in her second scene by a horrifying pink skirt and an olive green vest. Ugh. On the other hand, she was fabulous as the whore from the beginning, so I don't exactly know what went wrong there.

And then there was this weird bit in the Hal-Hotspur fight at the end where they were grappling and wresting on the ground and then they broke apart and lay on the stage on their backs panting holding hands. I never shipped Hal/Hotspur before, but now...

So that was that. the sound design was really jarring. And the set was weird. Lots of levels and stairs that really impeded the fighting at the end. Narrow stairs and broadswords will never go well together. So, all in all, it was okay, better than the last H IV I I saw, but not spectacular in any way. Though I did like the black silver-button fly pants on Hal and Hotspur.

Saturday, we went into Ashland to see a First Folio (nice copy, has a wormhole in it, which confirms that Shakespeare was a time traveler, which explains everything) and then went back to the hotel by way of the Harry & David outlet. Harry & David outlets are DANGEROUS. They will eat you. Or make you eat.

I bought six different flavours of Moose Munch (peanut butter milk chocolate, dark chocolate coconut macaroon, dark chocolate butter pecan, dark chocolate butterscotch, milk chocolate pumpkin, and milk chocolate mint chip), a plushie moose, two kinds of cookies(berry galettes and berry cream galettes), four kinds of tea (spiced apple cider tea, nectarine ginger green, ginger spice, and sweet orange spice), and a jar of creole mustard for my father. And dark chocolate covered blackberries. Oof.

So then we watched all of Beeb Sherlock and some Merlin, and the horrible HORRIBLE 2010 Sherlock movie with Gareth David-Lloyd in. (lornelover made me. And she said we wouldn't watch the whole thing. But she lied. Lying lying liar) SO BAD. Aside from the bad acting and bad costuming, they CHANGED THE NAMES. ROBERT SHERLOCK HOLMES. And his brother THORPE. Who was the villain. WTF?! Then we watched an ep of Bill Nye so we could sleep properly.