AshFranShakespeare

Well, it's (more or less) official: my time as a resident of Bellingham, Washington, has come to an end. It was a very lovely four-ish years of meeting new friends, packing knowledge into my distracted globe, discovering new things about myself and the world, and all kinds of other squee-worthy heartwarming things that university should be. Of course, there was also a hefty dose of tears, anger, frustration, stress, and sadness, but that's all over now, right? (Hah...)

Anyway, having decided that we should end our time together in Bellingham with a bang, and that there's no better bang for your buck than a four-hundred-year-old tragedy about murder and incest, three of my friends and I took a road trip south, primarily with the goal of seeing Hamlet in Ashland, OR. That original idea (dashing to Ashland, seeing the play, and hurrying back up in a weekend) somehow mutated into a week-long odyssey including two plays and a "side trip" to San Francisco, a mere six-hour-each-way detour. However, as road trips go, this was definitely just about as good as it could get.

We drove through Washington the first day, stopping to say hello to various parental figures before we arrived in Vancouver, WA, at Shannon's house, to stay the night. The next day was the Vancouver-to-Ashland leg, but before we left the Portland area, of course we had to stop at Powell's Books, which might be one of the most wondrous and joyful places in existence. We barely managed to make it back to our car in time after an hour inside, and regretfully continued on our way--although now well-stocked with reading material.

In Ashland, we met our first couchsurfing host. If you are unfamiliar with couchsurfing, it's essentially a worldwide network of hosts who are willing to open their homes to travelers. Through CS, I found hosts for us in both Ashland and San Francisco. Our Ashland host, Karen, was cheerful and generous woman with a very energetic and adorable four-year-old son. She was an employee of the Shakespeare Festival, so she gave us some insider tips and advice on getting the most out of our time there.

We spent the day wandering around Ashland, buying more books (it's an addiction) and enjoying the sunny weather. That evening, we saw Twelfth Night in the open-air theater. As much love and respect as I have for Shakespeare, comedies don't really interest me, but this one was fairly well done. I'm not sure what other details to add but that the costumes were beautiful and the comedy adult enough that the sweet pastor lady on sabbatical that had been sitting next to me didn't come back after intermission.

We left bright and early the next day and sprinted to San Francisco. Our second CS host, Edie, and her husband live in a beautiful townhouse with one of the most glorious red-walled, floor-to-ceiling-bookshelved rooms I've ever seen. Both were very kind, and Edie helped us plan our one-day whirlwind tour of San Fran for the next day. We went out for dinner and a short walk around the town--I tried avocado ice cream. No, don't grimace, it was nice. :D

Next day we got a later start than we had hoped because we had some trouble meeting up with friends of Caitlin's who were meeting us downtown. We saw Alcatraz across the water (but didn't visit), ate clam chowder on Fisherman's Wharf, rode a cable car to Ghiradelli Square, and had a delightful sushi dinner in the Castro distract--basically everything you're supposed to do in SF. We finally staggered home at about 10 (aren't we just party animals?).

Next day was the trek back to Ashland. We made it back with plenty of time to spare for a picnic in the park and a look around the bookstore before our show. This was the most important part: the reason for this trip in the first place and what we had all been waiting for for months. We were some of the first through the door.

We had heard a little bit about what to expect from Hamlet from one of the actors who had given a talk previously, but seeing it was something else altogether. When we entered the theater, the actors were already on stage: a dark wood casket draped with the flag of Denmark sat before rows of chairs, only one of which was occupied by a solemn and motionless man in mourning black and sunglasses. Some of the palace staff were trying to clean up after the funeral, but unsure of how to proceed since the young prince showed no sign of moving, they scurried about whispering to each other and bowing to the prince as they cleared away all the other chairs and put out the candles over the course of half an hour. When the theater was full and the crowd settled, Hamlet finally rose, walked to the casket, put his hand out to touch it--and the lights went down to begin.

The play just kept getting better from there, and pardon me if I spend a few minutes describing the glory of it all. One of the most marked additions was that Hamlet's father, Hamlet Sr., was deaf, as is the actor playing him. Hamlet and Gertrude both worked sign language into their acting throughout the play, and the graveyard scene between Hamlet and his father was entirely signed, with some interpretation by Hamlet. The overall effect was both fascinating and chilling; the sign for "murder" especially was repeated several times throughout the play, and lent a visible as well as audible strength to the word.

The script was also slightly rearranged to incorporate Hamlet's soliloquies into the action. In the original script, there is some scene between several characters--for example, Act I Scene II, where Claudius and Gertrude talk to Hamlet and Laertes and set up most of the main plot elements. In Shakespeare's original, everyone then leaves except Hamlet, who then gives his first soliloquy ("Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt..."). The OSF instead had the entire cast except Hamlet freeze on stage in the middle of the scene; as if merely voicing his thoughts as the action happened around him, Hamlet, strutted, stalked, and slunk across the stage, raging in his uncle's face about their o'erhasty marriage. As he ended, he returned to where he had begun, and the action started up again around him. This reinterpretation seemed perfectly natural and presented the soliloquies as Hamlet's thoughts in the moment instead of his reflections afterwards. We all loved it.

Of course, the entire play was brilliant in too many ways to list here. Claudius was excellent: smarmy, falsely friendly, and mocking, and did his one soliloquy in his bathroom. Hamlet was somewhat pitiable and somewhat terrifying, reminding me in mannerisms and voice of Dark Knight's Joker while being altogether too sympathetic. My favorite addition, though, was that at the very end, after Fortinbras had taken control and all of the nobility of Denmark lay dead, the ghost staggered back out on stage to hold his son in his arms.

Of course, none of us could stop talking stop talking about the play on the way home, which was good, because we drove all the way from Ashland back to Woodinville (and for Stacy and I, all the way to Snohomish) the last day, with the compulsory stop in Vancouver, WA, to drop Shannon off and watch the first half of the season finale of Doctor Who. I shall be watching the last episode in London!

So that, in a nutshell, was the AshFranShakespeare trip. It was way too much time in a car, but it was with some wonderful friends, and we had a great time. The whole thing would've still been worth it, though, if all we had seen was Hamlet.