American Shakespeare Center

It's now officially time for Othello to be put away for a little bit and move on to The Merry Wives of Windsor. It's a very exciting change-over because we have just finished dress rehearsals for Othello and they went well. The show is coming along quite nicely. The cast will still have rehearsals before previews start but since they are a touring company that performs three different shows, they need to start working on others before they go into previews. It's all very exciting Othello has been a great learning experience in learning about Shakespeare in one of his more familiar plays. Merry Wives is not quite as well known but will be an exciting adventure to undertake. I really enjoyed watching the cast work together for scene-work, fight calls, and music. The way they approached each other as actors and as a team was really impressive and shows with the story. They solve their problems quickly and efficiently which makes all the difference in the world. 

This week I also went to go see All's Well That Ends Well which was a really fascinating experience. I loved the way ASC handled it because it is definitely a hard play to figure out. It's labeled as a comedy but it doesn't always feel like a comedy. For example Much Ado about Nothing is hilarious and a lot of fun. There were moments in All's Well that weren't fun but quite honest and heart-breaking in a non-tragedy way. It's a little hard to describe. I can see where it would be considered a problem play in Shakespeare's canon. The cast and director made it quite understandable though, they helped pull the piece together and tell the story in a really cool way. I really liked the character of Helena, I thought she had a really powerful voice but I wished she would have been more powerful, she was very human. The characters that really made the show were Parolles and Lavatch one was Betram's friend and the other was the clown. They both had a great relationship with the audience, they were what made the play fun, and even though Parolles has some struggles of his own they way he handled his situation made him really interesting. He felt like a Don Armado type but not quite as Don Quixote as Don Armado is. 

So all in all I've had an interesting last few days at ASC, very busy but very fun. 

- Lauren Dentler