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Those of you who are devoted readers will remember I mentioned a bit of Oregon Shakespeare Festival casting gossip I couldn’t relay. Well, OSF sent out this bit today to its members:

Well, let’s start with the juicy stuff. If you haven’t heard yet, two roles for the 2010 season have already been cast. The title role of Hamlet, running all season in the Angus Bowmer Theatre, will be played by Dan Donohue. And the role of the overbearing but somehow endearing mother in Lisa Kron’s Well will be played by Dee Maaske. Well will run in the New Theatre from late February – mid-June 2010.

Thank goodness! I can finally talk about this and the first thing I have to say is…OMG! Dan Donohue as Hamlet! I’m all a-flutter with joy. What awesome casting news! And Dee is amazing, too. It’s going to be good.

I found out today that a friend died. It wasn’t a shock. He’d been ill for a while now. But no one is ever really prepared, though Laurence did his best to help us along. He threw a big party a few months ago. It wasn’t sad at all, but festive. It’s one of the good things about knowing you’re going. You get to enjoy your own send-off.

I hadn’t known Laurence long. He and I were in a writing group together that meets every two weeks. He had been a member of the group for ten years. I just joined a year ago. I didn’t always like hearing what he had to say about what I wrote. But that’s because he was the best kind of friend a writer can have, one who is not afraid of the uncomfortable truths we writers don’t want to tell each other. What we don’t want to hear is what we need to know. And Laurence never backed away from that.

We meet at this sad little Chinese restaurant in the city because it’s a good location, cheap, and they don’t run us out for staying way past when the dishes are cleared. None of us particularly like the food, but we all have our regular orders. Chicken fried until you almost can’t taste the chicken, dishes with sauces the colors usually found in neon signs. I could always tell how Laurence was feeling by what he ordered. Spicy and heavy, he was doing fine. Bland and light or nothing at all, he was having a rough time of it. Many times he had to leave early because the evening dragged on past his endurance.

Once, last fall, we thought he was going to be OK. To celebrate, we splurged for dinner at upscale sushi place around the corner where they have names for food that sound like items in a Victoria Secret catalog. I got to sit across from Laurence and we made jokes about the names. He ate well that night. He was happy. And that’s how I will remember him.

A few weeks ago, our little writing group took a road trip up to the magical place in Sonoma County where Laurence was living his last days. It was a glorious day as we sat out on the deck, enjoyed each other’s company, drank wine, ate, talked of writing. Laurence gave us all a copy of his last novel. I was privileged to be among the others in the group that he thanked in the acknowledgements even though I’d hadn’t been in the group long enough to contribute nearly as much as others had. It didn’t matter. He was very gentlemanly that way.

I haven’t talked to the others yet about Laurence’s passing other than saying we will have to have a special toast to him at our next meeting. Everyone is quiet in their grief. Perhaps we’re all writing about it. Maybe we’ll share what we write with each other. And if we do, I’m sure we will all be passionately honest with other, sparing no punches, just like Laurence would want us to.

OK, folks…final bits from OSF 2009, Part Un.

Years ago, I used to love this little restaurant in Noe Valley called The Flying Saucer. At the end of the meal, they brought you the lightest cloud of pink cotton candy you’ve ever seen, piled high in a martini glass. It was supposed to cleanse your palette as you perused the desert menu. This was not your carnival cotton candy. It dissolved on your tongue so quickly, you hardly knew it was there.

The Servant of Two Masters is much like that cotton candy. It’s a fun, light, lovely bit of commedia dell’arte that’s what you would call a crowd pleaser. It cleansed my palette for weightier things. There’s lots of fun bits that are improvised and keeps the actors cracking up at themselves and getting the audience involved. It’s not really my cup of tea, but I had a good time. I just need a little bit more weight, even in my comedies.

But the biggest surprise for me this season was The Scottish Play…dare I say it…MACBETH. After this production, I walked out of the theater with a bounce in my step, grinning from ear to ear, thinking “that was fun!” How many times can you say that about the scowly Scot and his wife? Think Macbeth as Tim Burton might imagine it. They embraced the horror full on and I’m here to tell you, it’s freaky frightening. It was so awesome! Gone is the metaphysical-what-does-it-all-mean interpretation from their last production and in comes the scary witches, creepy setting, and betrayed friends dripping in blood. It was fab.

OK, so that’s it for the May trip. OSF 2009, Part Deux is the last week of September. Those of you planning to join in for the fun, let me know. Up on my agenda for the September trip:

• Much Ado About Nothing
• Henry VIII (Seriously, when do you ever get a chance to see this one?)
• All’s Well That Ends Well
• Paradise Lost
• Don Quixote (Come on, ladies. It’s Armando Duran!)

If you’re coming on the big trip in September, it’s the same gig as usual. You find your own place to stay and buy your own tix. We’ll meet up there for plays and great food and drinks and shopping and fun. I may have room for two people or more in the suite at Arden Forest Inn, so let me know if you’re interested. Don’t miss out on this season. It’s been awesome so far.

A 2 1/2 hour play that could have been done in 45 minutes: So, Thursday night was Death and the King’s Horseman. An African chief plans to kill himself in a ritual that will ensure the prosperity of his people and the British government, not understanding the culture and not wanting to, tries to stop him. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this play because, honestly, I didn’t like it. The performances were great. I just didn’t care for the material. Most of the play was people saying the same thing over and over again with awkward blocking because something had to happen on the stage. Certainly nothing was happening in the play. I completely zoned out through most of it and didn’t miss a thing. My advice? Skip it.

Wars are easy, budgets are hard: I love theater. I see a lot of good stuff. And every once in a while, I see something extraordinary that makes all the electricity in my body rush to surface and my skin tingles. Equivocation was that kind of play. It’s a world premiere of Bill Cain’s new play here at OSF and it’s a masterpiece. Robert Cecil summons Shakespeare to his office to commission a play based on the Powder Plot. It’s meant to be a propaganda piece to inform the masses of what “really happened.” Shakespeare goes all Columbo and tries to figure out what really did happen. At least you think that’s what the play is about and so do the characters. It’s not until the end when it all comes together in a beautiful perfect moment that you really see that the real question is not “What happened” but …well…I’m not going to tell you. It’s real, contemporary world stuff that’s told to use through the reflection of history.

The language is extraordinary, witty, and poignant. (When Shakespeare congratulates Cecil on his victories, he replies, “Wars are easy. But I also balanced the budget. You never get credit for that.” The production and acting is off the charts good. I’m going to see it again when I come back in September. I’ve not seen anything like it since Arcadia.

So, fluffy fun this afternoon with The Servant of  Two Masters and the Macbeth for the big finale tomorrow night. It’s a great season this year. Get here if you can.

I never knew it could be like this: I arrived in Ashland around lunch yesterday and having a couple of hours before I could check into my room, I did what I always consider doing when I have a couple of hours to kill. I went to get a pedicure. I tried out a new place, Chloe Salon on Lithia Way next to the yogurt shop. Best…pedicure…EVER! It was like great sex with a ginger scrub. I’ll never be the same woman again.

Where the boys are: With my beloved Arden Forest Inn booked until Friday, I’m spending my first two nights at The Palms, a old-fashioned motor court converted into Ashland style. I have to say, quite lovely with beautiful flowers and gardens and lovely rooms. I recommend it, especially if you’re on a budget. But my favorite innkeepers, Bill and Corbett, met me for dinner last night at Standing Stone (which now serves sweet potato fries!). I can’t wait to join “the boys” at Arden Forest on Friday! Bill said to come over as quickly as I can on Friday to start enjoying the pool. The best part about the evening was a juicy bit of casting gossip for next year. But I’m sworn to secrecy! Those who know me well know how much this is killing me.

The Think Method: And now the stuff people really care about…the plays! OK, so I did go see The Music Man last night despite my pouty protesting at the idea of musicals at OSF. OK, OK, fine. It was good. OK, actually it was more than good. It was quite good and lovely and charming. I have to admit that I really liked it. But not because it was the big technicolor Music Man, but because it was understated and depended on the music to carry it through. I don’t think I care for musicals much because they’ve become carnival rides with crashing chandeliers and helicopters. But I love the music from so many musicals. It’s the music that makes the show for me. So by trusting the music, the show worked for me.

Also, I think casting Gwendolyn Mulamba as Marian was a brilliant idea. Her Marian is earthy and womanly. We know from the first minute we lay eyes on her that she doesn’t belong in a corset. She’s a woman who has forgotten what it’s like to feel like a woman, and her blossoming is wondrous.

Eternal ringing: I was also a bit skeptical about seeing Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone. I haven’t liked any of the other plays I’ve seen by her, but everyone’s been raving about this one. And for good reason. It’s great. Just brilliant. I get her now or at least this play. A young woman, Jean, is annoyed by a man’s cell phone constantly going off in a cafe. When she goes to his table to ask him to turn it off, she finds him dead…and then answers his phone. Jean is pulled into Gordon’s life, going to his mother’s for dinner (”Meat, we have lots and lots of meat”), becoming his wife’s confidant, and falling in love with his brother. Even as she learns Gordon was not the nice man she wanted him to be, she continues to create lies in an attempt to soothe the wounds he left building to a chaotic, absurd, existential bundle of fun. I’m not kidding. It’s hysterical, in that crazy Fuddy Meers sort of way.

It’s Death Day: I’m off to see Death and the King’s Horseman tonight. Having seen Dead Man’s Cell Phone this afternoon, it seems I’ve got theme going.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, the first of my two trips to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I was somewhat horrified when my boss asked me if I had a costume ready. It’s not a Ren Faire people! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) OSF is the largest repertory theater in the country. Over 8 1/2 months, they perform 11 plays in three theaters including a huge Elizabethan stage.

I’m trying something new and going by myself this year. I need some time to write and read and think and renew myself a bit. And what better place! I’ll see my favorite innkeepers, Corbett and Bill, at the Arden Forest Inn and go to my favorite restaurants and lay by the pool and walk in Lithia park and shop and many, many other things. And here’s the play line-up:

• Death and the King’s Horseman
• Equivocation
• Servant of Two Masters
• The Scottish play (come on, don’t make me say it….argh…OK, Macbeth)

I may try to squeeze in Dead Man’s Cell Phone (even though I’ve not like the two other Sarah Ruhl plays I’ve seen) and, dare I say it, The Music Man, just because it’s the only thing playing my first night. Sigh…musicals.

A shout out to my friends planning to go on the September trip, will post here soon what I’m going to see then, but I think Henry VIII (because when do you get a chance to see that!) and Don Quixote are shoe-ins. Check back soon because I’ll be posting about the plays I’m seeing this time around.

More about OSF Part Un soon!

I’m not a big Star Trek fan but I did really like TNG in the 90s. I had a group of friends I’d watch it with each week and learned a lot more than I ever could imagine about Star Trek lore from them. It’ll be a couple of weeks before I’ll get a chance to catch the new Star Trek movie. But in the meantime, watching Leornard Nimoy on SNL last week will have to hold me through. That voice!

My friend Julie just posted a funny article about how swine flu is turning her son into Woody Allen. It cracked me up remembering what little hypochondriacs kids can be.

Julie’s article

I just sent this Mother’s Day card to my mom. She always said I was more trouble than all my brothers put together, but she always smiled when she said it.

Dom DeLuise died last night. He was so great in Blazing Saddles and other movies but I always loved him best as a guest on those 70s talk shows and game shows when I was a kid. He was so full of sweetness and silliness and always seemed completely bemused at the chaos he created. Here’s one of my favorite bits from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I love this old school stuff. I hope Conan will bring back more of it.