A tyrant, tempest, and a train Maine Shakespeare Festival delivers uneven productions

Last week, under the threat of a rainstorm, the Maine Shakespeare Festival opened with “Richard III,” about the infamous misshapen tyrant and his march across a killing field to claim the crown. During the course of the three-hour bloodbath (most of which, thankfully, takes place offstage), the sky spit raindrops occasionally at the audience. Umbrellas went up and down as Richard murdered his relatives and associates. As the first half of the play chugged along, a train clamored into town, forcing one of the royals to shout out: “Time for a train break.”

The impromptu line had resonance beyond the several-minute hiatus that interrupted the show. Now that the Maine Shakespeare Festival has become one of the happy summer highlights along the river in Bangor, it’s time to take a deliberate break and consider the place the festival occupies in the cultural life of its host city.

Here’s what continues to work about the Maine Shakespeare Festival: It’s a fabulous community-based activity. The program lists of staff, volunteers, special participants, actors, techies and sponsors are truly impressive. Past that, the event mobilizes members of the community to come out at night, to sit together under the stars and engage in theater.

Mark Torres, artistic director at Penobscot Theatre and creator of the Shakespeare event, has the drive of a businessman and the tenacity of a visionary. Like another character who shows up in Shakespeare, he came, he saw, he conquered. The event proves that anything is possible, and it unquestionably boosts the quality of life in the Queen City.

That said, this year’s festival also confirms an increasing suspicion that the event has reached a point of stasis. While it has expanded admirably in size, it has not grown with as much rigor artistically.

This summer’s lineup – “Richard III,” “The Tempest” and “The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)” – certainly all have merits. For instance, costumes by Gabriella D’Italia and Ginger Phelps are, as usual, elegant and fitting. The raked stage not only adds perfect sightlines but it also enhances a bewitching slide of poetry and theatricality toward the audience.

Though we did not make it to “The Compleat Wrks” during opening weekend, the plays we did see had drawbacks. Ongoing problems with miking and pacing, combined with a number of community and professional actors whose voices disappear under the vast sky, held the shows back from being truly and uniformly excellent.

“Richard III,” directed by Matthew Arbour, has a strong lead in Benjamin Reigel. As with “King Lear” last year, the opening of the play was visually stunning, packed with immediate intrigue and the promise of delicious ignominy. Reigel, a hunched and powerful presence, quietly appears and then takes over the stage with Shakespeare’s suspense-filled words: “Now is the winter of our discontent.” The actor – both Reigel and Richard – draws the audience into his private, devious world. We are an “us” in that moment, servile to Richard’s masterful theatricality and vile uber-plan.

Shortly, however, many of the actors reach high emotional peaks that leave them no place to go as the script intensifies. The female characters, in particular, deliver lines in growls and shouts, as if they have no other tools with which to address the monstrous Richard. Lady Anne (Courtney Bell) rages. Queen Elizabeth (Sara Valentine) rages. Margaret (Colleen Frashure) rages – though it’s worth noting that Frashure’s training as an actress stands out. Eventually, the Duchess of York (Cushing Samp) rages, too.

It’s not that there isn’t something to be angry about. It’s that even too much fury can become flat and, moreover, doesn’t acknowledge the nuances of Shakespeare’s language nor the message carried in Arbour’s cogent decision to set the play in a post-World War I milieu.

If the women are guilty of vocal overexpression, the men are guilty of physical overexpression. Will there ever be a Maine Shakespeare Festival without hip thrusts to signify bawdy sex? Or wobbly hand gestures to indicate traveling over land?

An additional problem comes from cast members playing multiple roles. When an actor gets whacked in one scene, and then returns in several other roles without much alteration in demeanor or voice, it’s disturbing, distracting and confusing. It’s hard enough figuring out who’s who to begin with in a script that lists more than 40 characters. So casting is a problem when it comes to keeping the audience grounded.

It is a testament to the production that audience members stayed in their seats despite the rain on opening night. But it is also true that the show sometimes dragged, was hard to hear and was frustratingly cast.

“The Tempest” starts long and finishes strong. Of course, we want to root for Prospero, a masterful wizard whose brother, Antonio, usurped his title as the duke of Milan and banished him to a barren island years before the play begins. When the title storm washes Antonio and his accomplice Alonso ashore, we want Prospero to zap them with a lightning bolt. Right away. But it doesn’t happen that way.

The first half of the play leaves MSF newcomer Lynn Berg explaining too much and doing too little, which does his overall deft portrayal of Prospero a disservice. “The Tempest,” the last of Shakespeare’s plays, draws much of its intrigue from magic and the supernatural. In this production, that sense of mystery gets lost in overwrought delivery, and even the shimmery blue cape and sprightly antics of Ariel (Kae Cooney) aren’t enough to bring it back.

In the program notes, director Laura Schutzel refers to historical productions to explain her choice to mount the play on a nearly bare stage. With language this rich, a minimal set should work. In practice, the pace is a little too slow and the set a little too spare to keep the audience from the distraction of passing boats and motorcycles, along with the humming feedback from the speakers beside the stage.

The action picks up after intermission, though, with the wine-soaked scheming of the handsome drunk Stephano (Steven Cooper), the jester Trinculo, hilariously captured by Sara Valentine, and Prospero’s slave Caliban, played in all his brutish glory by Benjamin Reigel. As the tipsy trio tries to overthrow the magical Prospero, his daughter Miranda is casting her own spell on Ferdinand, son of Alonso. As the always-smiling, innocent Miranda, Hannah J. Barth shines.

But innocence isn’t all this play is about. At its best, “The Tempest” is a study of human nature, its intricacies and failings, the good and the evil that lies within each of us. Of course, good prevails and there are intimations that everyone lives happily ever after, though not without struggle.

Struggle builds character, and like the actors in “The Tempest,” the Maine Shakespeare Festival has several conflicts to resolve before it can grow. Don’t get us wrong. We do, underneath it all, cheer on the Maine Shakespeare Festival. But we also worry that the technical foibles and artistic inconsistencies may not be measuring up to the size and importance of the event. Here’s the best tip we can give: If you go, read the play. It’s the thing, after all.

The Maine Shakespeare Festival runs 8 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday in rotating repertory through Aug. 17 on the Bangor waterfront. Rain cancellations rarely occur and are called at 8:30 p.m. For tickets or information, call 942-3333.