Room & Bard

Behold the town a dead bard’s plots sustain,

Where stage and stores his words doth decorate,

Where green hills rise and sweet creek swiftly runs,

And far-flung strangers do yearly subscribe,

To gaze on spawn of two clans strangely wed,

And wonder: How hath Hamlet fathered hamlet?

The town is Ashland, perched on the edge of the Rogue River Valley opposite a gorgeous verdant hillside, roughly midway between San Francisco and Portland. On lazy afternoons, stray deer wander down its residential streets while on the main drag, out-of-towners congregate in wistful pairs to peer at the window offerings of real estate offices.

The bard is William Shakespeare, probable author of at least 36 plays, 154 sonnets and four long poems. (Most of those works were written in iambic pentameter, a poetic form that relies on 10-syllable lines like those above, but better.) He was born in 1564, died in 1616, and in neither word nor deed did he ever have anything to do with Ashland or Oregon. But he is the reason that all the best bargains are long gone from Realtors’ windows.

The strange marriage that unites the Elizabethan dramatist with this handsome patch of semi-rural Northwest is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a true marvel of cultural tourism.

It began in 1935, when a local college theater teacher named Angus Bowmer proposed that some of his students mount Fourth of July performances of “Twelfth Night” and “The Merchant of Venice.” To get the job done, Bowmer produced, directed and played the merchant. Year by year, it grew like a weed.

Maybe it was the professor’s perseverance that made the difference, or Ashland’s history as a Chautaqua town, hosting lectures by touring national notables at the turn of the century. At any rate, by the time I arrived last month, the festival had grown into an annual juggernaut that stretches more than eight months (this year, Feb. 21 to Nov. 2), occupies three theaters (one with the late Bowmer’s name on it), employs 400 theatrical professionals, mounts more than 750 performances and sells more than 350,000 seats yearly, nearly half of them to Californians. Bardway, the locals call it, and its alumni actors include William Hurt, Stacy Keach, Kyle MacLachlan and George Peppard.

As the institution has grown, Ashland, not even a county seat, has evolved into a town of 17,000 that supports more than 50 bed-and-breakfast operations, two dozen restaurants (many with decidedly sophisticated menus and big-city prices), a dozen bookstores and an ever-expanding number of boutiques, galleries and other offshoots. And any spring, summer or fall night at 8 p.m. (if it’s not a Monday, when the theaters are dark), the crosswalks fill with visitors strolling to the theater.

It’s a town with citified habits. One of the trendiest restaurants, New Sammy’s Cowboy Bistro, is a model of shabby-chic marketing: Unadvertised and signless, it opens just four nights a week in a ramshackle, nearly windowless old building by a fortuneteller’s shop, serving fresh-baked bread, homemade sausage, organic produce and entrees that run $18 to $24. Having heard raves from three people who had eaten there, I called chef Charlene Rollins to try for a reservation on three hours’ notice, and then I even showed up at opening time (the interior is homey and elegant), but she wouldn’t feed me a bite, even when I told her what I was doing in town. The restaurant has only six tables, opens only from 5 to 9 p.m. and is usually booked up weeks in advance. Very sophisticated. Very mysterious.

Ashland regulars know that the best way to arrange a trip here is to book theater tickets first--and then book lodgings. (How high is ticket demand? This year, through performances of June 29, 95% of all seats were sold.)

Still, if you show up in town without theater reservations, there is hope. Your best bet is the largest (and most narrowly Shakespearean) venue, the 1,200-seat Elizabethan Stage, which stages outdoor productions June through October. The toughest ticket is almost always the Black Swan, a 140-seat “black box” venue in a space formerly occupied by a Chevrolet dealership. If the festival box office doesn’t have what you’re looking for, ask your innkeeper if he or she has connections (many do), or check the theater courtyard area around dinner time, where you can usually find a few theater fans holding discrete cardboard signs and looking to make a last-minute sale or purchase.

Stepping into the Tudor Guild gift shop, principal merchandise outlet for the festival, is an even further step into “bardocentrism.” There are mugs and T-shirts and refrigerator magnets, of course, and there are books (“Shakespeare on Management”) and also Shakespearean mouse pads to give your word-processing a proper Elizabethan feel. And, of course, you know what quotation is printed on the erasers. (That is correct: “Out, Damned Spot!”)

Remember the old theory that, given enough time, a chimpanzee at a typewriter would eventually hammer out all of Shakespeare’s plays? The Ashland yellow pages could pass for one of that chimp’s early efforts: Romeo Inn. Marc Antony Hotel. Shrew’s House (L. Shrewsbury, proprietor). Shakespeare & Co. (books). Arden Forest Inn. Ann Hathaway’s Cottage. The Best Western Heritage Inn (“Do Your Midsummer Night’s Dreaming With Us!”). The Ann Bole Inn. (Say it fast.)

This makes Ashland sound like a sort of theme park, which it is. But of a different stripe.

“I look at it as Disneyland for people with master’s degrees,” festival regular Paul L. Knight of Fremont, Calif., told me one afternoon.

Like most territories of the real world, this kingdom is not entirely magical. As Knight spoke, we stood in the threadbare hall of the Marc Antony Hotel, a nine-story 1925 building that is the town’s largest landmark and, given the vitality of all that surrounds it, a remarkable failure. The hotel is open and rents rooms for as little as $55 a night in peak season (hence our mutual interest in checking it out), but most of Ashland’s devotees would clearly rather spend a little more for something less dismal. The Marc Antony (whose name was suggested by an Ashland citizen in a renaming promotion in the 1960s) declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April. Locals have been hopefully circulating rumors that its Reno-based owner may sell to a sympathetic local businessman with money to improve the place.

But until then, visitors may find themselves quoting you-know-who’s Sonnet 55--”unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time”--and turning to the town’s many other lodging options, where $80 to $100 buys a night in a pleasant room, whether in a hotel or a B&B.; I stayed happily at the Coolidge House, a well-appointed Victorian home that stands 10 minutes’ walk from the theaters.

It’s hard to argue with Knight about Ashland’s visitors. Breakfasting at the Coolidge House, I met a college chemistry instructor from eastern Oregon who was in his second decade of Ashland visits. Dining at the pricey Firefly restaurant--where the presentation was so artsy, my dinner resembled a Dr. Seuss character lying in state--I eavesdropped as the neighboring group spoke knowledgeably about the geography of the Faroe Islands and the doings of U.S. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). Later I learned that a 1994 survey found 48% of the Ashland playgoers questioned had taken graduate courses. (The median age was 49, the median household income $75,022.) The average visitor stayed for three shows in 3.5 days. In other words, these are people serious about their theater.

I’m not usually that serious about my theater, and I’ve never set foot in graduate school. But I had ordered tickets for three shows on consecutive nights in the same 630-seat theater, and to see the workings of a repertory theater company this way was an exhilarating experience.

That doesn’t mean I loved every show. I thought “Pentecost,” a new drama about art history, language and ethnic nationalism, was ingenious, challenging and smart, even if the story seemed to be overwhelmed by its own ambitions in its second half. I thought “King Lear” was strikingly staged and forcefully acted, but I started nodding off around Act 4, the way I always seem to whenever anybody does “King Lear.” On the other hand, I thought Tom Stoppard’s “Rough Crossing” was the most uproarious comedy I’d seen since “Noises Off” about a decade ago.

But what I liked most was the way the casts overlapped. Stage crews swap sets only once or twice daily (thus making shrewd minimalism vital, and reducing dependence on special effects), and each actor typically takes on two or more roles and serves as an understudy for at least one more.

It’s like discovering that the world is actually populated by about 65 people in ever-changing guises.

And so the spotlighted world of Bardway is. In the current season, fewer than 70 actors (most of them members of Actors Equity) handle more than 210 speaking parts. Then, on light days, the players take turns leading visitors on the festival’s 50-minute behind-the-scenes tour of its three performance venues. It may seem a bit steep to pay $9.50 for this, having already laid out about $35 per adult for each show ticket, but the tour does serve as an excellent introduction for first-timers.

Even the Ashland festival’s biggest boosters, and there are about 13,000 dues-paying members, do not live and die by the bard alone. In addition to staging four or five Shakespearean works yearly (frequently in adapted settings, but always with faithful dialogue), the festival’s repertory company now serves up six or seven works of other playwrights, productions that range from the tried-and-true to experimental contemporary. Depending on the season, many visitors end up bypassing the festival’s namesake entirely, instead taking in some Arthur Miller, Stoppard or Henrik Ibsen, maybe heading outdoors to remind themselves that this is, after all, Oregon.

For a pre-hike briefing on flora and fauna, there is the Pacific Northwest Museum of Natural History ($6.50 for adults) on the east end of town near Southern Oregon University. Then there’s hiking on Mt. Ashland, which includes a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail. There are even more trails in Crater Lake National Park, 90 miles north.

And about half an hour from Ashland, there’s the Rogue River, where a handful of outfitters offer rafting trips from three hours to three days in length.

One day, I took my pre-show dinner at Callahan’s, a longtime local landmark near the top of Mt. Ashland. Notwithstanding its name, its frontier-barn looks and the fact that its new owners’ name is Bergquist, Callahan’s specializes in hearty Italian fare.

Another day, I headed about 15 miles northwest and found still more erstwhile Ashland people browsing the turn-of-the-century storefronts of Jacksonville, a dolled-up Victorian-era Gold Rush town. Jacksonville hosts its own performing-arts tradition: the 35-year-old Britt Festival, which this year features more than 40 open-air shows by pop and classical performers ranging from Doc Watson to the Pointer Sisters to Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

But the easiest thing to do as a playgoer at leisure is wander downtown Ashland. The three theaters are within 100 yards of each other, as is the courtyard (“the bricks” in local parlance) where a jaunty, free Elizabethan variety show is staged every night at 7 except Monday.

From the theater area, a stairway leads to the 99 placid acres of Lithia Park, which a New York-based preservation group recently named one of the 100 most successful public places in the U.S. The park’s centerpiece is Lithia Creek, so named for the lithium deposits found in the water and promoted as a curative in the city’s early days.

Just off the park you find Ashland’s Main Street, a classic small-town commercial district complete with a bright orange Rexall pharmacy sign. For a noncommercial stroll, merely step off Main Street into one of the town’s leafy residential side streets, which are studded with Victorians and well-kept bungalows. Down by the train tracks, still a short walk from the theaters, stands the town’s half-revived Railroad District.

Of course, if you’re truly determined to banish thoughts of theme-parkism and defy conventional wisdom about the tastes of the theatrical tourist, never mind the B&Bs; and the homey restaurants. Find your way to the Black Cat Tattoo Parlor on Will Dodge Way, an alley just off Main Street. Open since November, the Black Cat is the only tattoo shop in town, and Grego Bailey, its well-illustrated 27-year-old proprietor, reports that “it took a lot of favors to get in at all; they’re so concerned about tourists.” Yet most of his business, he says, is tourists.

I was hoping that Bailey would have tales to spin about inscribing a sonnet on someone’s belly, or a portrait on a pectoral. Surely, I thought, by now some bard-loving biker has asked to be etched with that quote from “Henry VI, Part 2” about how we should kill all the lawyers. But the answer was no, no Shakespearean tattoos at all so far.

O useless point that etches not such words.

And futile folk, who Bardway’s stages scorn.

So mark this then, who might those precincts walk.

In Ashland fair, all men may pleasure chase,

But shun good Will, and find a pointless place.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

The Hamlet of Ashland

Getting there: United flies, with one stop but no change of planes, from LAX to Medford, Ore.; Alaska Airlines has connecting service, with one change of planes. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $190. Ashland is 15 miles south of Medford.

Where to stay: All lodgings listed here are within walking distance of Oregon Shakespeare Festival theaters.

Winchester Inn, 35 S. 2nd St., Ashland OR 97520; telephone (541) 488-1115. Eighteen rooms in three buildings, and a restaurant serving breakfast, dinner and Sunday brunch. Rates: $95 per night for a double (for a weekday in winter) to $180 for a suite (on a summer weekend).

Coolidge House Bed & Breakfast, 137 N. Main St., Ashland; tel. (541) 482-4721. An 1875 Victorian with three rooms in the main house, two in roomy additions behind. Double rooms: $75 to $160.

Information on about two dozen other Ashland B&Bs;, priced from $45 to $175 per night, is available through Ashland’s Bed & Breakfast Network; tel. (800) 944-0329.

School groups, young people and frugal travelers often choose the Ashland Hostel, 150 N. Main St., Ashland; tel. (541) 482-9217. Fifty-five beds, dormitory style. Rates: usually $14 per person.

Where to eat: Unless otherwise noted, all these restaurants are within walking distance of Shakespeare Festival theaters.

Chateaulin Restaurant, 50 E. Main St.; tel. (541) 482-2264. French cuisine and after-theater desserts. Dinner entrees $17 to $28.

Firefly, 15 N. First St.; tel. (541) 488-3212. International cuisine in an intimate setting. Dinner entrees $18 to $25.

Gepetto’s, 345 E. Main St.; tel. (541) 482-1138. A smallish, dressed-down, affordable spot, open for all three meals, popular with locals and visitors alike. Lunches under $8.50, dinner entrees $13 to $18.

For theater information: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Box 158, Ashland, OR 97520; tel. (541) 482-4331. A few blocks from the festival, dinner revues and comedies are staged by the Oregon Cabaret Theater; tel. (541) 488-2902.

For more information: Ashland Chamber of Commerce, 110 E. Main St., Ashland, OR 97520; tel. (541) 482-3486.

--C.R.