Elizabethan Ojai : Shakespearean Festival Gives Libbey Park 16th-Century Flavor

Mary Wolk was fretting aloud about the small crowd at the Ojai Shakespeare Festival when her daughter interrupted with yet another problem.

“Methinks thou shouldst talk to Sir Andrew and tell him it’s not in period to carry a Wendy’s cup,” Rivkeh Wolk said.

“That’s an anachronism,” her mother agreed, scanning the Elizabethan era costumes for a glimpse of the offending fast-food cup. “I must go talk to that young man.”

“I thank thee,” Rivkeh replied before resuming a round of fa-la-las with a band of madrigal singers.

Cultural whiplash was commonplace Saturday as the festival marks its 10th anniversary with a small-scale Renaissance fair in Libbey Park before afternoon performances of a Shakespearean comedy.

As visitors in shorts snapped photographs, men in tights did battle with clanging swords. Picnickers dished lunch from Tupperware containers while maids in long dresses sipped from pewter mugs. A man in a tank top lost a tug of war to a dead ringer for Henry VIII.

In or out of costume, participants seemed to love it.

“It’s wonderful,” said Sally Lovato of Oxnard. “Everybody’s so friendly.”

Wearing a long-sleeved blouse and a dress that reached to her ankles, Lovato acknowledged the drawbacks of 16th- Century attire.

“I’m very hot,” she said. “I don’t know how they did it back then.”

Lovato was helping a newfound friend, Clare Lang of Denver, get into the spirit by braiding her hair in Elizabethan fashion.

“It’s only my second time,” Lovato confided as she weaved Lang’s dark brown tresses. “I’m doing a better job this time,” she added, dispelling the look of panic that had flickered across Lang’s face.

Lovato’s sword-bearing boyfriend, Scott Rae, arrived just in time to offer a contrary view of the braids. “Methinks they be exceedingly small,” said Rae, an actor in one of the festival’s two plays.

Undaunted, Lovato turned to her third subject, Elizabeth Kleiner of Camarillo. Like many visitors, Kleiner enjoyed the pre-performance play-acting but had come for the play.

“I think Shakespeare’s one of the greatest people who ever existed,” Kleiner said, ticking off the plays she had read or seen performed: “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Macbeth,” “King Lear,” “As You Like It,” and “Henry IV” (both parts).

And she thought she had once seen “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” a lesser-known comedy being performed on Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the festival. (“Henry IV, Part 1,” is being staged on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings through Aug. 23.)

Kleiner lamented the fact that many people get their first and last taste of Shakespeare in a high school classroom.

“I think you don’t appreciate his plays in high school,” she said. “You haven’t had enough life experience to realize how very true what he says is.”

Another festival visitor, Kristin Hoffman of Thousand Oaks, said it’s also unfortunate that people read Shakespeare’s work without ever seeing it performed.

“He didn’t write books, he wrote plays,” said Hoffman, an English literature major at an Iowa college. “The point of the play is the action, although the words are really beautiful.”

The problem is, Shakespeare scares people, Hoffman said.

“It’s supposed to be this huge intellectual deal,” she said. “People don’t realize he’s got dirty jokes too.”

Director Paul Backer said he tried to make “Two Gentlemen” more audience-friendly by mixing up the costuming. One of the leads, for example, wore a business suit--a way of illustrating the shallowness of his character.

Mary Wolk said she hopes the expanded festival, which continues the next two weekends, will help more people get to know Shakespeare. In past years, the festival has staged only one play, and only in the evenings.

Although she was disappointed that only 50 or so people attended the festival preceding Saturday afternoon’s play, Wolk said she expects bigger crowds as people learn about the event.

“The actors don’t care if there are only 10 people,” Wolk said.