THEATERFEST IN SOLVANG LOPES INTO ITS 22ND YEAR

There are people knowledgeable about the theater who find Shakespeare’s “Richard II” tough sledding. And there are people bravely willing to suffer its length who wearied of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts’ production when it opened in the second week of July, largely owing to how long it took for the stagehands to move Everett Chase’s piecemeal Romanesque set through its various configurations.

For either or both reasons, “Richard II” has become the least-attended production of PCPA’s 22nd Theaterfest season so far--a season, incidentally, that has mostly smaller audiences for all of its shows. Whether that’s because of PCPA’s artistic changeover at the top or because Southern California tourism in general has been a disappointment in the summer of ’86 is hard to tell.

Jack Shouse, who has directed a number of PCPA productions and has worked in the college (Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria) and conservatory side of the operation, has been promoted to artistic director from within, following the departure last spring of former artistic director Vincent Dowling. The product of his new summer season appears frayed at the edges, and the roster of splendid actors PCPA once boasted is down some.

But there are a few familiar and welcome faces, including Sandy McCullum, Bernard Kates, Michael X. Martin and the gifted Byron Jennings, without whom the season so far would be on the dim side (except for “Annie Get Your Gun”).

“Richard “ could use some trim, particularly on a cold night in a hard outdoor theater seat (the show lets out around midnight), but it contains some of the most eloquent speeches Shakespeare ever put into any of his plays, and it’s a crucible for two of the themes that flowed through most of his tragedies: the usurpation of kings and the ruinous outcome of blind ambition. In the early going, Jennings’ Richard is a cool, aloof figure who is as inscrutably benign as a face on a coin. Only after an indecisive misstep, and much too late, does he realize that he’s put himself square in the path of the ferociously power-hungry Bolingbroke.

Jennings’ Richard is unconsciously exigent when in power, and afterward riddled with a furious unanticipated grief--not only over the conspiracy that led to his fall, but over the realization that being king doesn’t exempt a man from being fallible, from tasting grief, wanting friends; in short, from being a man. Everyone in this production, under John C. Fletcher’s direction, reflects the sad, hard knowledge that a cynosure has been brought down.

Peter Erskine has contributed a forebodingly strong score and Lewis D. Rampino’s costumes suggest an ongoing guerrilla war that doesn’t stop in any century. Bernard Kates is a fine Gaunt and Matt McKenzie’s Bolingbroke grows from heated petulance to a man chastened to the bone with the knowledge that he’s created a history that may not be for the better.

The rest of the cast is competent if undistinguished. This production doesn’t always navigate the dead spots where historical and dramatic lines pull in different directions. But this is a better “Richard” than word of mouth indicates.

Jennings and Kates team up again in Paul Giovanni’s affectionate tribute to Holmesiana, “The Crucifer of Blood,” though not as Sherlock and Dr. Watson.

Kates plays Major Alistair Ross the Elder, an unfortunate bearer of the curse of a broken covenant struck 30 years earlier at the Red Fort of Agra in India. Kates fulminates and harrumphs (figuratively speaking) in the very best British imperial style and plays up Ross with the knowledge that, when those kind of Englishmen are killed off, they don’t just fall, they crash.

Once “the game’s afoot,” meaning a case is in motion, Jennings’ body is gripped in the swift, elegant tensions of a rapier duelist; he doesn’t so much enter a room as sweep through it. His buoyancy gives this production its bounce--”Crucifer” is at heart a pure satire.

But the tight, priggish, unhappy set of Jennings’ mouth is a continuous reminder that Holmes--at least this Holmes--was a melancholiac junkie to whom sleuthing wasn’t a fulfillment of moral necessity as much as it was a blood sport for an intellectual hunter.

The rest of the production falls off from there (except for Robert Jacobs’ Ross the Younger), since no one is quite adept enough at the Victorian convention to play it up straight while giving us the merest indication of a sly-puss grin.

The company does well by “Annie Get Your Gun,” which--aside from its unfortunate stereotypes of Indians and the note that a woman can only be a romantic success if she doesn’t compete as a man’s equal--is amazingly fresh.

Under Jack Shouse’s direction, the entire cast plays with an engaging simplicity and exuberance. Michael X. Martin shies away somewhat from playing Frank Butler’s hubris--there’s hardly an instant when we doubt that Butler’s really a decent fellow for all his swagger, which means we don’t have the dramatic reward of seeing a character experience self-revelation. This Butler is more peeved than affronted at the upstart Annie’s marksman (OK, markswoman) skills.

But Martin is that rarity in the musical theater, a big, good-looking, easy-going man whose energy isn’t refracted by narcissistic self-regard, and his performance is stylish. Robynn Rodriguez as Annie Oakley is a true Western type, small and feisty and as trim as a cut of beef jerky.

She has the blond, hearty look and vitality of a rustic, and she’s convincingly canny as well. This is a forceful but tenderhearted Annie, who also has a sense of humor. You can see in Rodriguez’s performance how this Annie could be missed by a rodeo matinee idol; when she leaves the room, the party goes flat.

Craig Diffenderfer, Adrienne Andersen, Lee Shackelford, George Maquire and Edward Hopkins are spirited in the other major roles (the cast is large), and Troy Evans does as well as can be expected with the dubious role of Sitting Bull.

Richard C. Wall directs the small but spirited orchestra. John Dexter’s set, Lewis D. Rampino’s costumes and Robert Jared’s lights work brightly together. The choreography is uncredited.

In PCPA’s “Funny Girl,” Katherine Lench skillfully plays up the comic gawkiness of Fanny Brice and shows us the change from Brice as class clown of the world to a woman grown comfortable with show-biz success. But that doesn’t cause anyone to forget that “Funny Girl” is (a) Barbra Streisand’s star vehicle and (b) it’s not a very good musical.

Aside from Adrienne Andersen’s sympathetic performance as Fanny’s mother, Lench’s is the only performance worth noting (her singing is a much more influenced by Streisand than her playing). Once again, the design is on the genteel shabby side.

From the above sampling, this is an off year so far for PCPA, but still not a bad year. It remains very much the cultural prize of the Santa Maria-Solvang axis, and the people here are very conscious of it and of how much it has grown out of the locale’s own soil (unlike the Visalia Shakespeare Festival, which marched into town like a brass band and blew itself out). People will ask an outsider’s assessment as if they were asking about an infirm relative and wanted an unbiased opinion. They want the relative to get better. They don’t want it to die. For as long as they feel that way, it won’t.