Utah Shakespearean Festival wants to make you feel all right with 'Cyrano de Bergerac,' World War II-themed 'Taming of the Shrew'

Cody Clark

Most people who crack open "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare" or grab a ticket to see one of his plays performed probably aren't intending to work out -- even Richard Simmons isn't sweatin' to the oldies from 1603 or 1594. Don't, however, tell that to actor Jonathan Earl Peck. "It's really great to finish a play," Peck said. "It's like running a track-and-field event. If you're not really tired at the end of it, then you haven't done enough."

And he's not just talking about the people wearing costumes and belting out centuries-old lines of dialogue. "Hopefully," Peck said, "the audience will leave and they will be somewhat exhausted."

From now until Aug. 30, Peck will be getting plenty of exercise as the titular protagonist of "Othello" at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. This is no namby-pamby Othello, either. "A lot of times he's not really played physically," Peck said. "I enjoy playing him as a general who leads from the front. He's not some guy who sits at a table and draws up plans."

The festival began its 47th season Thursday night with a preview performance of Edmond Rostand's venerable romantic drama "Cyrano de Bergerac." Monday is the first day of the festival's official opening week, with all six summer productions taking the stage by Saturday night.

Per the USF norm, three are works of Shakespeare: "Othello," "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Two Gentlemen of Verona." The remaining three are favorites from other playwrights of note, Rostand's "Cyrano," Moliere's "The School for Wives" and "Fiddler on the Roof," by Joseph Stein (book), Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics).

(A six-week encore season in September and October will feature Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," as well as "Gaslight," by Patrick Hamilton, and Ron Hutchinson's "Moonlight and Magnolias.")

It isn't just the actual performances in Cedar City that are rigorous. This sort of thing takes preparation, and lots of it. When he spoke with the Daily Herald at the end of May, festival founder Fred Adams said that the USF complex on the campus of Southern Utah University had turned into a hive of activity "from 8 in the morning until 11 at night."

When the festival is on, the atmosphere is relaxed and, well, festive, but the weeks before opening are all work and, quite literally, no play. "This morning I walked from my office over to the patio surrounding the outdoor theater," said Adams, referring to the USF's other venerable Adams, the world-famous Adams Shakespearean Theatre (named for a prominent festival donor not related to the founder).

"Out on the Greenshow stage, dancers were working, frantically working," he said. "At the Adams the carpenters were hammering away, I could hear a rehearsal going where we'll put up our gift shop in a few weeks, and there was a swordfight practice. This was all within 40 feet of me."

A "season for smiles"

There's always a swordfight or two at the festival, but there's perhaps less danger to (onstage) life and limb this year than in other years. Unlike last year, for example, when "King Lear" and "Coriolanus" pushed the body count as high as the occasionally sweltering summer temperatures, this year's festival has only the bloody-minded "Othello" and the somewhat secondary violence in "Cyrano de Bergerac" to alarm the sensibilities of the timid.

Instead, there's a definite silver thread of love and laughter tying most of the summer season together. "Cyrano" has both comedy and romance to offer, as does "The Taming of the Shrew," while the comedy is more pronounced in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "The School for Wives." And then there's "Fiddler on the Roof," which is about family love as much as romantic love and has the power to evoke both tears and laughter, as well as perhaps the occasional tears of laughter.

"I think it's a season for smiles," said actor Carole Healey, who plays wise matriarch Golde in "Fiddler" and has a trio of parts in "Cyrano." Both of the shows she's doing, Healey said, will make viewers choke up, but both are also "hysterically funny."

Brian Vaughn, a longtime player at the festival and graduate of Southern Utah University, will be playing both larger-than-life romance, as the title character in "Cyrano," and straight comedy, as the roguish servant Launce in "Two Gentlemen of Verona."

Vaughn, who was brooding Hamlet at the festival in 2006, said comedy takes more out of him than drama. "There are so many little things involved" in comedy, he said. "Getting the laugh, there are so many factors. Drama, you can live in it and you're not worrying about any kind of response."

In "Two Gents," Vaughn will be both helped and maybe a little bit hindered by having a doggy sidekick. The role of Crab, canine companion to Launce, is being played by a specially auditioned local pooch named Jake. Dogs keep you on your toes, Vaughn said, because they're "never consistent and they will just do what they want to do. I'm sure it's going to be a night-to-night adventure."

"Shrew" is back in the USF mix after being away for just three summers, which J.R. Sullivan, the festival's associate artistic director, said is something that festivalgoers have grown to expect.

"There's a great desire among our audience to have a romantic comedy in the mix. There are fewer of those," he said, and so plays like "Shrew," "Twelfth Night," "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Much Ado About Nothing," get back into the rotation faster than, say, "Timon of Athens" or "Titus Andronicus."

Seeds of the future

Because it's been done in Cedar City so recently, the 2008 production of "Taming of the Shrew" will have a colorful twist. The story is being set in post-World War II Sicily, with mid-20th century costumes and sets. "Audiences my age," said Adams, "will recognize the uniforms, the posters."

And younger viewers may relate more readily to Petruchio as a loutish Italian-American G.I. than as a loutish soldier of fortune in medieval or even Renaissance garb.

It's all part of an ongoing balancing act that requires the festival to continue to please its longtime patrons while reaching out to, as Adams put it, kids who "text people sitting in the same car with them, because to carry on a conversation would be so foreign."

Those are the people, after all, who are being counted on to keep the non-profit festival moving forward, ensuring that there's a second 50 years to follow the USF's first half-century, which will culminate in 2011. Sort of the like the family that lives paycheck-to-paycheck, the festival pays for each new season (price tag: somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million) with the proceeds from the one before it, albeit with a steady stream of grants and donations required to make up the difference.

Hence, thinking ahead is par for the course in Cedar City -- tickets for the 2009 season are already on sale. It's critical, USF executive director Scott Phillips said, for festival planners to be able to tell you what's happening next year "when you walk out of a play, and you're excited and you've just had a very moving experience."

(Want to know what you'll see next summer? "The Comedy of Errors," "Henry V" and "As You Like It" by Shakespeare, along with Hume Cronyn and Susan Cooper's "Foxfire," the Broadway musical version of "The Secret Garden" and Noel Coward's "Private Lives." And in the fall: Shakespeare's "Pericles," the Broadway musical "Pump Boys and Dinettes" and "The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story," by Stephen Mallatratt.)

The festival is also listening if you have something to say. In response to a longstanding request from patrons, USF changed its scheduling of plays this year. In the past, the same plays were done on the same days of the week from June through August. This year, however, the schedule has been designed to rotate all six shows to different days of the week, giving patrons greater freedom to plan their visit.

There's also new premium seating, which includes bottled water, a seat cushion (in the Adams) or blanket (in the Randall L. Jones Theatre) and early entrance privileges in the price of the most expensive seats ($56-$60 at both theaters).

And the USF doesn't just invest in its own future, though plans for its elaborate Centre for the Performing Arts remain in place, with cash on hand up to $12 million. ("I need $10 million more and we dig a hole," Adams said. He'd like to break ground in time for USF's 50th season in 2011.)

The festival has the future of theatre in mind as well, something that it encourages with its annual New American Playwrights Project. SUU graduate Matt Bennett, 30, who is playwright-in-residence at Salt Lake City's Plan B Theatre Company, is part of this year's NAPP. Bennett's script "Di Esperienza" ("Of Experience"), is about the formative years of Leonardo da Vinci.

Bennett said his "big dream" is to eventually produce the play in Rome, in da Vinci's native Italy. If it happens, then he can tell his grandkids about the little-known connection between history's most famous painter ... and its most famous painter.

• Cody Clark can be reached at 344-2542 or cclark@heraldextra.com.

Cat(alog) o' Nine Tales

During its 10-week summer season, the Utah Shakespearean Festival will present six plays, three from the works of William Shakespeare and three by other playwrights of note. Three additional plays (one by Shakespeare) are produced during a five-week encore season in September and October.

[Reviews of the six summer plays by Daily Herald film critic Cody Clark will be printed in the Life & Style section July 6 and 7.]

1. "Othello" (William Shakespeare)

Through Aug. 29 at the Adams Shakespearean Theatre

If green is the hue of envy, then this romantic tragedy would be entirely camouflaged in a basket of ripe limes. Ruined the name "Iago" for all future usage except by monstrous cads.

2. "The Taming of the Shrew" (William Shakespeare)

Tuesday through Aug. 29 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

Money can't buy you love, but love can get you a whole lot of money. You just have to love the right person. Kiss me, Kate, and I'll make us both rich.

3. "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (William Shakespeare)

Through Aug. 30 at the Adams Shakespearean Theatre and the Auditorium Theatre

In the film "Shakespeare in Love," Henslowe explains, "You see ... comedy. Love, and a bit with a dog. That's what they want." That's precisely what W. Shakespeare gives "them" in this oft-overlooked play, and he never even saw the movie.

4. "Cyrano de Bergerac" (Edmond Rostand)

Through through Aug. 30 at the Adams Shakespearean Theatre and the Auditorium Theatre

Monty Python said, "Blessed are the big-noses." For extravagant Cyrano, however, his sizable schnozz is the curse that forces him to conceal his passion for the lovely Roxane.

5. "Fiddler on the Roof" (Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick)

Wednesday through Aug. 30 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

The Russians are coming! The Russian are coming! The Russian Jews, that is. A good, decent man gets caused a lot of trouble by all of the women in his life. Ain't it always the way?

6. "The School for Wives" (Moliere)

Monday through Aug. 30 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

You can lead a woman to marriage but you can't make her think ... that you are the one she must choose. Men: Don't try this at home.

7. "Julius Caesar" (William Shakespeare)

Sept. 19 through Oct. 25 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

The great conqueror of Rome asks not for whom the bell tolls, but it tolls for him anyway. Irrefutable evidence that it isn't always good to be the king.

8. "Gaslight" (Patrick Hamilton)

Sept. 20 through Oct. 25 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

A dark drama about a woman terrified by nighttime noises in her home. Sort of like "The Strangers," only if it didn't suck and took place in the late 19th century.

9. "Moonlight and Magnolias" (Ron Hutchinson)

Sept. 20 through Oct. 24 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

Ben Hecht and Victor Fleming have a contract to write a screenplay based on "Gone with the Wind" -- only Hecht has never read the book! Allegedly a comedy. Famous authors everywhere know better.

Two for the show: 'Cyrano' special for spouses

THE DAILY HERALD

How do you know that they love you at the Utah Shakespearean Festival? If Brian Vaughn and Melinda Pfundstein weren't already aware that regular USF patrons watch for their names each year, then they probably sensed it a little after festival publicists issued a special news release to announce that the popular husband-and-wife team would be in Cedar City in 2008 to play the lead roles in "Cyrano de Bergerac."

"I don't think that I'll ever get used to people knowing details about my life and knowing things about me and me not knowing their names," Pfundstein told the Daily Herald.

Not that she doesn't appreciate it: "It's really nice that the audiences here are so invested in us personally," she said.

For Pfundstein, just preparing to play the role of Roxane, the beauty who inflames courtly Cyrano's soul, has been thrilling. "I really love this play, I come home from rehearsal completely inspired," she said. "I don't know that I've ever felt this way about working in a play."

The experience is that much richer, Pfundstein said, because her co-star is her husband.

Vaughn was a few years ahead of Pfundstein in school -- both attended Southern Utah University, where the festival is held each year -- and met her after graduating, when he returned to Cedar City to emcee a campus function.

He said that as Cyrano, "It's pretty wonderful to be able to say all these things about someone who you really do feel them for."

Another fun aspect of the production, especially for Vaughn, is that it's being directed by USF regular David Ivers, a friend who created a small sensation with Vaughn as the entire cast of the 2005 production "Stones in His Pockets," in which both men played numerous roles.

"He's extremely passionate about this play," Vaughn said. "It's really wonderful to have a chance to do his Cyrano, as well as my own."

Because Vaughn is a resident member of Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, he flew to and from Cedar City weekly during the earliest stage of rehearsals for "Cyrano."

"He was flying in every Sunday, working with us on Monday and flying out every Tuesday at dawn," said Carole Healey, who has three roles in the play.

Pfundstein said her husband is the better actor of the two, while Vaughn said it's the other way around. Even if they weren't married, he said, there be no question in his mind that Pfundstein is "an amazing actress."

Also at the Festival

The Utah Shakespearean Festival has three stages but only two showtimes. You can see a play at 2 p.m. or 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday. You'll only be bored, however, if you really work at it.

The festival has free daily play orientations, at 1 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., where patrons can get a pre-show summary of the action (especially helpful for Shakespeare plays), and daily literary seminars (also free), at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., for festivalgoers who want to engage in a more in-depth discussion.

There's also one of three different production seminars (free) daily at 11 a.m.

The Props Seminar, Costume Seminar and Actor Seminar (meet festival cast members!) give patrons a chance to become acquainted with various different aspects of the onstage action.

Tours, exhibits, a series of readings of works by emerging playwrights and the Greenshow -- a presentation of Elizabethan song, dance and general tomfoolery held each night on the grounds outside the Adams Shakespearean Theatre -- can also fill up the hours.

For complete information, visit www.bard.org online, or contact the festival directly at (435) 586-7880

Where to stay and what to do in Cedar City

Cody Clark

THE DAILY HERALD

Bargain hunters can bunk in Southern Utah University's unoccupied student dorms during the Utah Shakespearean Festival's summer season -- contact Lee Chamberlain at (435) 865-8238 for reservations -- or perhaps rent a Kamping Kabin or pitch a tent at the Cedar City KOA: (435) 586-9872.

There are many other lodging options, however, ranging from bed and breakfast inns within walking distance of the festival, on up through an assortment of motels and hotels in Cedar City and surrounding communities, to the historic opulence of Zion Lodge (www.zionlodge.com) at the foot of Angel's Landing in (relatively) nearby Zion National Park.

The festival maintains a detailed listing of nearly three dozen local accommodations, including phone numbers, Web sites and basic rate information, online at www.bard.org/visit/lodging.html.

The frugal can plan to purchase groceries at Wal-Mart (1330 S. Providence Center Dr. in Cedar City) or Smith's (633 S. Main St.). The options for diners start with the usual assortment of fast-food eateries (Taco Bell, McDonald's, SUBWAY) and range up through the prime rib, steak and seafood at the Cedar Creek Restaurant (86 S. Main St.) or the scenic splendor offered by Milt's Stage Stop -- (435) 586-9344 -- or Rusty's Ranch House -- (435) 586-3839 -- in nearby Cedar Canyon.

(There's a more complete picture at LetsEatOutUtah.com, which lists address and phone information for 57 different Cedar City restaurants. Go to the site, click "Restaurant Search" on the home page and enter "Cedar City" in the "City" field.)

If you want a few hours away from the festival altogether, then both Cedar City and nearby St. George offer golfing at top-rated courses (see www.utah.com/golf). Nearby historical sites include Iron Mission State Park in Cedar City (stateparks.utah.gov/parks/iron-mission/) and a memorial to the victims of the Mountain Meadows Massacre south of town on State Highway 19.

Vacationers visiting the festival frequently dip into Zion National Park or Cedar Breaks National Monument. Bryce Canyon National Park and Capitol Reef National Park are farther off, though still within range of the ambitious festivalgoer, and the caves and towering sandstone cliffs of Snow Canyon State Park are just down the road.

For additional information:

• Zion National Park: www.nps.gov/zion or (435) 772-3256

• Cedar Breaks National Monument: www.nps.gov/cebr or (435) 586-9451

• Bryce Canyon National Park: www.nps.gov/brca or (435) 834-5322

• Capitol Reef National Park: www.nps.gov/care or (435) 425-3791-111

• Snow Canyon State Park: stateparks.utah.gov/parks/snow-canyon/ or (435) 628-2255