Shakespeare is no rarity in the West. San Diego and Orinda in the Bay Area have put on splendid productions for years, and the legacy of the Bard is robustly preserved through the efforts of drama departments at dozens of western universities and colleges.Still, for location, atmosphere, tradition and renown, Ashland, Oregon’s annual Shakespeare Festival has to be the West’s best regarded.For starters, its semi-rural location in southern Oregon charms visitors. This area is drier and balmier than the state’s north, and physically is an appealing region of low, forested mountains, interspersed with warm valleys and grassy hills. The area has long drawn retirees who like a four-season weather pattern that’s neither humid in summer nor bitingly cold in winter. Housing costs are reasonable and the proximity of Southern Oregon University affords locals a good cultural life. (In a pinch, those folks who absolutely must have periodic doses of the big city can drive 200 miles north to Portland or 400 miles south to the Bay Area.)
Ashland itself is set on the eastern slope of a broad hill, about a mile west of Interstate 5. Its 20,000 citizens, many of whom used to be festival visitors from other states, are used to the 380,000 outsiders who crowd their town each year during the eight-month festival. Besides its three venues for plays, the city is graced by Lithia Park, a slender green strip of grass and woods that squeezes along a creek and was designed by John McLaren, the architect of San Francisco’s fabled Golden Gate Park. Because it’s located next to the Elizabethan Theatre and the Angus Bowmer Theatre, for years a pre-show picnic in Lithia Park has been a tradition for many playgoers. The downtown architecture has been carefully preserved, with many two-story business buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Like any institution that is now honored and revered, the festival started humbly. The first one, in 1935, was the brainstorm of a young college teacher who mounted a production of Twelfth Night amidst the ruins of a building that had once housed Chautauqua entertainments. The city was initially reluctant about the production, fearing that it might cut even further into the negative revenues of the money-losing boxing matches it sponsored at the same site. But the Shakespeare production was successful (it even made up for the boxing match losses) and Ashland realized it might be on to something.Over the years the festival grew, eventually settling into three theaters (the Elizabethan, the Angus Bowmer and the Black Swan; an affiliated fourth venue, the 350-seat New Theatre, opened just this year), expanding its range of offerings, and creating a buzz among Bard aficionados nationwide. There’s a palpable excitement that surrounds this festival. Attendees sense that the organizers will never be ready to let their institution turn staid.