Love’s Labours Not Lost on Southern Oregon : Friendly Ashland, best known for its Shakespeare Festival, is a center for activities in surrounding Siskiyou Mountains.

If signs like Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe and other Elizabethan mannerisms give you an acute case of the fantods, then this fetching little town and its world-renowned Shakespeare Festival are much more suited to your temperament than the Bard’s English birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, where homage to the playwright and his era can often border on cloying.

Ashland’s first collision with culture, at least of the programmed kind, came with the 19th-Century’s Chautauqua movement, when luminaries of the music, theater, political and religious worlds performed in theaters, warehouses, tents and anywhere else suitable for an audience, bringing entertainment and culture to even the smallest communities and rural areas.

Ashland’s Chautauqua Theater was built in 1893, and the likes of John Philip Sousa, William Jennings Bryan and beloved diva Ernestine Schumann-Heink performed there. In 1935, an Eliza- bethan stage was built within the shell of the old Chautauqua Theater, and with a budget “not to exceed $400,” the theater company began performing Shakespeare’s plays.

It was a success from the outset and is now one of the oldest and largest professional regional theater companies in the country, with plays of the Bard and contemporary playwrights staged each year from February to October in the festival’s three theaters. Numerous other “off Bardway” theaters around town offer truly diverse programs during the season.

With such heady cultural credentials, it almost seems unfair that this little town of 17,000 souls and its setting should also be so beautiful. Nestled in a bowl formed by foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains, Ashland has been called more than once “The Pretty Girl of Oregon.” The mountains seem close enough to reach out and touch, and the hypnotic scent of pear blossoms and lilac wafts here and there around town.

Prior to the evening curtain call, many visitors to Ashland spend their days rafting or fishing on the nearby Rogue River. Others try mountain biking, rock climbing, canoeing, kayaking, horseback riding or a dozen or so other diversions at hand, including panning for gold (with a modicum of success) in nearby streams.

Ashland is one of the friendliest towns we’ve ever visited. It seems that everyone walking up or down Main Street knows his or her fellow citizens. And every local knows Odus Magoo, the town cat, who spends his days lazing about in a shoe store window, the post office, bookstore or in the lobby of a Main Street hotel, cadging food and affection at every stop on his route.

Getting settled in: The Winchester Inn, just two blocks from the three Shakespeare Festival theaters, was built in vaguely Victorian style around 1886, complete with an English garden and handsome gazebo. The main house’s seven rooms will be joined in June by the new Larkspur Cottage, with two suites.

Bedrooms in the inn are all different, and the decor definitely has a Laura Ashley feel, with flowery comforters, pastels, polished wood and well-chosen antiques. B&B; isn’t really the term for the Winchester, since it also serves marvelous dinners that have drawn accolades far and wide.

Friendly and superb service are the ruling canons of Windmill’s Ashland Hills Inn, a lovely complex spread out in the Siskiyou foothills about three miles from town. An hourly shuttle van runs to and from town, another picks up and drops off at the Medford airport (17 miles) and yet another waiting for playgoers at final curtain, all complimentary.

Bedrooms are very spacious, furnished traditionally, and there are two tennis courts, a swimming pool and free bicycles. Tea or coffee are delivered with a copy of the Portland Oregonian every morning.

The Mt. Ashland Inn is a little farther afield, in the mountains 15 miles southwest. It’s a hand-crafted, cedar-log structure built by owner Jerry Shanafelt, who also did much of the furniture and stained-glass windows. The inn is two miles from the 7,500-foot summit of Mt. Ashland; it has marvelous cross-country skiing from its front door in winter, great hiking trails in summer.

Five bedrooms and suites are of moderate size yet very cozy, all with private baths, one with a Jacuzzi for two. Breakfast, the only meal served, could include a spinach-crab souffle or other hot entree, Elaine Shanafelt’s award-winning blueberry gingerbread or her much-touted granola. The Shanafelts’ New England heritage is reflected in the Currier & Ives prints about the inn.

Regional food and drink: Fresh seafood is available in abundance just about anywhere in Oregon, with the accent here on Pacific salmon and trout from mountain streams. But the Ashland-Medford area is the pear capital of the world, thanks in part to the Harry & David firm that sells them mail-order throughout the country. Wild morel mushrooms and marionberries (akin to blackberries) grow in the woods and meadows hereabouts and show up on many menus.

Weisinger’s Vineyard and Winery is owned and run by John Weisinger, a charming and knowledgeable gentleman who began life as a cowboy wanna-be in Texas, became a Congregational minister, then lived in France’s Bordeaux region to learn all he could about wines. He learned a lot, and his wines capture the magic of Bordeaux. His vineyard, and nearby Ashland Vineyards, both specialize in Bordeaux varietals and have free tastings.

Good local dining: The Plaza Cafe (47 N. Main St.) has its own farm garden that furnishes vegetables and fruit for its own kitchen and those of other restaurants in town. The cafe is a fairly new place, with weathered-brick walls inside, light-wood furnishings in contemporary style, a dramatic weaving on the wall along with other works of art that change frequently.

Plaza’s menu gives one a sensible selection of full meals or lighter fare of salads and sandwiches. Entrees, with a house salad or cup of soup, include lamb loin chops with a rosemary-mushroom sauce at $13, fresh seafood (ahi tuna, halibut, salmon, sea bass) for $14. The salmon club ($7) joins spicy Italian sausage ($5) and “totally awesome” burgers ($5) on the sandwich list. The wine list offers about 25 each of reds and whites, some sold by the glass.

Dining rooms at the Winchester Inn (35 S. Second St.) carry out the same Victorian decor as the rest of the inn. Appetizers, priced at $7, range from small medallions of a Cantonese-style roasted-pork tenderloin--marinated and oven-glazed, then served with both a hot mustard and plum sauce--to baked Brie with apple-pear chutney.

A cioppino of fresh seafood, served with soup or salad, is $14; the Courvoisier chicken breast in a cognac-mushroom-and-cream sauce is $16. There is also a four-course, prix-fixe dinner nightly for $22.50, and we add our accolades to those the Winchester has already collected for its dining.

Many of the actors appearing in festival plays hang out after final curtain in the Chateaulin (50 E. Main St.), an intimate, classic French restaurant a few steps from the theaters. The focal point of an otherwise understated room is a stained-glass window of vibrant colors at one end.

For appetizers, we had the pate maison of veal, pork, pistachio nuts and cognac, and Burgundian snails with Pernod added to the usual butter, garlic and parsley in the shells. These and half a dozen others were all around $7. A main course of sausages Dijonnaise with a blended sauce of Dijon mustard, cornichons and shallots was $14.50. Roast duckling with a sauce of duck stock, white wine, cognac and seasonal fruit costs $19.95. Our meal at Chateaulin was extraordinary, the service superb.

On your own: Between now and Oct. 31, Shakespeare Festival theaters will be showing an even dozen plays by the Bard and other eminent playwrights, with “Richard III” and Georges Feydeau’s French farce “A Flea in Her Ear” running throughout the season. The Backstage Tour goes on through October. For a 24-page 1993 Festival program, call (503) 482-4331 (except Mon days), or write Shakespeare Festival, P.O. Box 158, Ashland, Ore. 97520.

Ashland has almost two dozen art galleries and museums, and we heartily recommend a stop at the American Indian Art Gallery (27 N. Main St.) for superb handicrafts; The Clay Angel (111 E. Main St.) for exquisite imported ceramics, and Hanson Howard Gallery (82 N. Main St.) for glassware, paintings, hooked rugs, jewelry and posters.

Now in its 30th year, the Britt Festivals in the Old West town of Jacksonville (20 miles from Ashland) is this year presenting the likes of Manhattan Transfer, Joan Baez, Woody Harrelson, of “Cheers” fameand his band, Pete Fountain and a host of other top folk, jazz, country and pop artists, plus distinguished classical musicians and dance groups, in performances from June 19 through Sept. 6. Lie on the grass with your picnic beneath the ponderosa pines and enjoy Manly Moondog (that’s Harrelson’s band) or the Mozart Marathon. Call (800) 882-7488 for a program and prices.

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Much Ado About Ashland Getting there: Ashland is 15 miles north of the California line, 690 miles from Los Angeles. Fly United or Alaska Airlines to Medford, Ore. An advance-purchase, round-trip airline ticket from LAX to Medford costs $295. It’s 17 miles from there to Ashland; the shuttle bus costs about $8.

Where to stay: Winchester Inn (35 S. Second St., 800-972-4991; $95-$115 double B&B; until May 31, then $125); Windmill’s Ashland Hills Inn (2525 Ashland St., just off Interstate 5, 800-547-4747; $61- $79 double until May 31, then $84-$94); Mt. Ashland Inn (550 Mt. Ashland Road, 503-482-8707; $85 B&B; double, $99-$125 suites).

For more information: Call the Ashland Chamber of Commerce at (503) 482-3486, or write (P.O. Box 1360, Ashland, Ore. 97520) for a brochure on the town and area, another on upcoming events and one on lodging-dining.