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ASHLAND, ORE. - Libby Appel thinks big. At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's opening weekend press conference Sunday, the new OSF artistic director expressed some astonishingly ambitious goals for the festival.
"We do a kind of work and a quality of work that isn't being done anywhere else in this country," she said, stating an intention to bring future productions to such prestigious venues as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Kennedy Center and the Spoleto, Edinburgh and Avignon festivals. It's time, she said, for OSF to receive the kind of recognition accorded the Royal Shakespeare Company, Moscow Art Theatre and Piccolo Teatro of Milan.
That level of prestige may be a long time coming for Ashland's much-loved, well-attended but, truth to tell, not exactly world-class festival. After five seasons in which outgoing artistic director Henry Woronicz worked doggedly to nudge the massive institution into the present, OSF is still poised to enter the next millennium as a popular recreational destination with a hit-or-miss menu of unexceptional theater.
Three months after her appointment, Appel (still finishing up as artistic director at Indiana Repertory Theatre) can't be held responsible for the current season. Her first season, which she plans to announce shortly, won't begin until next February. This year's first shows, however, fall far short of the goals to which Appel aspires.
As is its custom, OSF opened its first four indoorshows over the last weekend in February (the summer season opens in June). As usual, only one of the openers, "The Winter's Tale," is by Shakespeare. The other three - Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," Nagle Jackson's "Moliere Plays Paris" and Drury Pifer's "Strindberg in Hollywood" - are all new, to one degree or another.
All are capably produced. None is entirely successful. The most engaging is Stephen Hollis' staging...