The plays were the thing

The eight plays we saw in Ashland, Oregon: The Cherry Orchard; an adaptation of a William Saroyan novella called Tracy's Tiger, cast as a musical; an August Wilson work, Gem of the Ocean; As You Like It; a new play called Distracted; The Tempest; The Taming of the Shrew; and a translation of an old Austrian farce called On the Razzle, by Tom Stoppard. Having immersed myself for a bit in Chekov earlier this summer, I really appreciated The Cherry Orchard. It enriched my viewing a good deal to have a feeling for his voice, and his time. We were lucky to catch the final performance of this play for the season. The Saroyan work was odd, but ultimately I did like it. Gem of the Ocean was excellent, and kept a little patch of mystery even after it had ended, not all things explained and laid out to dry for literal-minded folks; I prefer to be able to think about a work afterwards, rather than declare it as being utterly realistic or "true to life." We have far too much of real life to have to put up with it in fiction. Distracted was better than I had thought it would be after reading the introductory information about it, set in modern times and about a family enduring the trials of having a possibly ADD son. Sounds potentially awful, but it was funny and a bit painful now and then.
The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare works, and of course the Oregon Shakespeare Co. did a bang up job on it. Several of my favorite company members were in it, and the evening swirled away on Prospero's magic. Taming of the Shrew, well, I don't care if I see it again. Yes, yes, I realize one needs to keep the chauvinistic abuse and palavering in context, but it's difficult to completely throw off my 21st century sensibilities while we listen to how women need to obey their husbands, kiss their feet, etc. I think I'll put it in the shredder with The Merchant of Venice, which is a lousier play, chock full of antisemitism. Fine, it was the times, but there are still too many of those old time notions floating around. I suppose they're useful as cautionary tales, to show us how far we could slip backwards. The Stoppard play was the only one I could have missed and not felt bad. It struck me as creaky and corny, despite the fine actors' endeavors.
We took a couple of nice day hikes, and walked a fair amount. On the trail up on Mt. Ashland, as we tramped along part of the Pacific Crest Trail, I had one of those universal moments of feeling it was full on summer, like I used to as a kid, deep enough into the season that the start of school wasn't too close, no sinking of the stomach at the prospect of the end of long sunny days; we could have been a couple of kids on the lam.