Last month we welcomed my brother and sister-in-law for a visit, taking in three plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in three days and squeezing in a few dinners as well. As it turned out, we saw one play in each of the festival’s three theaters, beginning with a performance of Macbeth in the indoor Angus Bowmer Theatre at a weekday matinee. The theater, opened in 1970, seats 600, but the auditorium was far from full for our performance. I have seen several professional stagings of the Scottish Play, and this was definitely in my top three. All of the main roles were well-acted by the actors, but what really made it stand out was the way the three witches were depicted and their scenes staged. All of their lines were sung, rather than spoken, in an eerie, somewhat atonal way. It really helped to lend a powerfully doomed atmosphere to the play.

The next day we arrived in Ashland about 6 p.m., well ahead of the 8 p.m. curtain for our next show. We stopped in at Blue Toba, the first Indonesian restaurant in Oregon, which opened several years ago as a tiny spot in the south end of town that quickly garnered a large and loyal following. As things opened up after the pandemic, the owners found a much larger building in a prime location along the main street, very close to the Festival grounds. Chef Birong Hutabarat, a longtime Ashland resident who originally haled from the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, travels often to Indonesia to gather and bring back the unique spices and ingredients he uses in the kitchen. The restaurant is named for Sumatra’s Lake Toba, the largest volcanic crater lake in the world — very fitting for a restaurant located only 90 minutes or so from Oregon’s deep blue Crater Lake!

We passed through the large, lovely bar and lounge at the front of the new restaurant to the spacious dining area in the rear. We started with a shared appetizer of Indonesian corn fritters — Bakwan Jagung — served with a sweet and sour chili dip and organic carrot and cucumber vinegar marinade.  The fritters were pleasantly crunchy on the outside and creamy and sweet inside, and the sauce offered just the right amount of tang. We then ordered two different entrées, Ayam Baka, a Sumatran grilled chicken marinated in coconut milk and some 10 different spices, and Rendang, the house specialty of rich, tender, spicy beef curry cooked in 19 spices and coconut milk for five hours. Both were served with an organic coconut, tumeric and lime leaf rice and urap, a green bean dish served with grated coconut, coconut milk and Indonesian spices. The chicken was so tender and boasted a complex, lightly spiced flavor, while the beef, as advertised, offered some heat that yet didn’t overwhelm or smother the tastebuds.

We then headed uphill to the Thomas Theatre, and intimate space with flexible seating configurations, hosting 230 to 360 audience members. There we were completely entertained by the three-member cast of Lizard Boy, a 90-minute, one-act indie-rock musical telling the story of Trevor, whose encounter as a fifth grader with a dragon who was released from the bowels of Mt. St. Helens when it erupted in 1980 left him with green, scaly skin and a reclusive life ever since. It is wildly inventive, original, sweet and funny, deservedly winning awards and accolades from Seattle (where it is set and premiered) to San Francisco and New York. Everything about the show charmed us: the songs and the musicianship of the actors; the minimalist but clever staging; the quirky but endearing story, told with humor and heart.

The next evening was a girls’ night for just my sister-in-law Ann and me. We started off with a little shopping in the boutiques and shops along the main street. The very hot afternoon eventually drove us inside for a cool drink and dinner at Macaroni’s, conveniently located just down a staircase from the Allen Elizabethan Theatre, where the evening’s performance of Jane Eyre would be produced. We each ordered a tall, frothy, oh-so-refreshing non-alcoholic cocktail and a not-too-heavy pasta dish. I opted for the capellini d’Mediterranean featuring fresh tomatoes, spinach, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives and feta in a white wine sauce with a generous sprinkling of jumbo shrimp. Luckily we had plenty of time to share a slice of lemon ricotta cheesecake served with an Oregon berry coulis for dessert, a light and cooling conclusion to our meal.

We then strolled to the oldest stage at OSF, the Allen Elizabethan Theatre, the latest version built where the original Festival stage stood in 1935. Its dimensions are based on those mentioned in a contract for the construction of the 1599 Fortune Theatre in London, and it boasts a four-level stage house and Tudor façade and a seating capacity of nearly 1,200. For years the seating was limited to a large amphitheater bowl, but balcony seating which encircles the original seating (reminiscent of the Globe Theatre) was added in 1992. We settled in to our seats towards the back of the orchestra seating, facing the stage house, draped with greenery and set pieces that represented the manor house of Mr. Rochester. Ann and I were both well familiar with Charlotte Brontë’s story of the plucky governess and her love for Mr. Rochester, so we had certain expectations of what we would see. In the end, we both felt somewhat disappointed in the performance overall, which seemed to lack energy, and decided Mr. Rochester was oddly rather jolly and even a bit silly at times — not our recollection of that somewhat doomed character. Perhaps the exuberance and unique performance from the night before just overshadowed the more subdued Jane Eyre.

Nevertheless, we counted ourselves fortunate to have been able to take in three very different theatrical experiences in such a short span of time, and my husband and I look forward to taking in a few more shows before the season ends in October.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor