The Ayes Have It, But.....

(Thursday, September 18). "The Clay Cart" is billed as 2,000 year old romantic comedy from India with a "modern" feel and similarities to works of Will Shakespeare in that genre of playwriting. (Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, girl loves boy, they come from difference classes, forces of evil and duplicity try to keep them apart, but in the end, love triumphs!).
Despite the difficulty initially trying to sort out he names of the characters (is Maitreya the girl-slave, or the guy with the shaved head and little ponytail? Is Vasantasena the heroine or the bad guy?),the plot line was pretty simple to follow (unlike that in the play we saw yesterday, "Breakfast, Lunch in Dinner"). But we found the comedic efforts slapstickish and the play not all that entertaining even though it had a huge cast (something over 30) by Ashland standards and the performance by all was outstanding.
About half or more of the audience stood and applauded loudly at the end, and one of the cast (speaking to us and others in attendance at a post-play talk) said we had been the most enthusiastic audience in the last three months. We believe this is the first play coming from a non-Western European or American culture ever performed at the Festival. So putting it on was a big gamble and, at least today, it seems to have paid off for OSF. (Click here for a favorable review from the San Francisco Chronicle.)

So this year, for us, "Othello" was the "crowed pleaser" and the other two plays were okay at best.