And Another Play!

Yesterday, I went to the brand new Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival's production of As You Like It, in Eau Claire, at the newish Pablo Center.  The Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival was announced a couple of years ago, but the opening was postponed, and this is the first year.  It's also had some paring, so, for example, a student production of The Tempest was on the books, but isn't happening this year.

Eau Claire's got a lively amateur theater community, and a number of locals were in this production.  The rest of the cast looked to be (from the intro paragraphs), college students and recent graduates. 

The Pablo Center is a beautiful venue, right at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers; they've put together what they say is a replica of the Globe, but it's less a replica of the Globe than maybe something such as Blackfriars.  As you can see from the picture at the link, and from the image below:

the seating doesn't take advantage of a thrust stage, nor does it have standing room.  It's basically a pseudo Tudo backdrop to a semi-proscenium arch stage.  The lighting reflects that sensibility, so the audience's attention of fully on the stage, and there's little to no interaction between actors and audience through most of the performance.  (The exception is when the court folks join the first row of the audience to watch the guildsmen's performance.)

The performance was basically a strong student performance, a bit hard to hear clearly (I wasn't the only one who found this), but pretty solid.  Bottom was the stand out performer, and did a really lovely job.  The guildsmen's performance was especially fun, with a really creative wall part that I enjoyed a lot.

It's hard for me to think that another Shakespeare focused theater "festival" is going to be able to compete against the Guthrie in the twin cities, American Player's Theater in Spring Green, and the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona.  Ticket prices are pretty high (as they almost always are at the Pablo) for what's basically a student production, especially compared to what's available in the other venues which are fully professional productions.  On the other hand, it's always good to see new theater opportunities trying to make a go of things!

There was a fun and interesting talk after by a local Shakespearean, which I enjoyed a lot!