Your recent review of Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s “Revenge Song” has prompted much discussion, both in your Letters to the Editor and online.
First, regardless of how one feels about the play, I think you should be commended for daring to criticize OSF. For years, this seems to have been something the media rarely did, even for unpopular plays.
Your review is your reviewer’s opinion. Some share it. Some do not. To disagree does not make it a “bad review.”
It seems to me that theater is art. And, as this old Latin saying goes, above (translated from “de gustibus non est disputandum”), there’s no dispute. It’s art, opinion and personal preference.
If OSF wants to transition to a younger, more diverse, edgier crowd away from their demographic of decades, that’s their right.
Some who used to go to all the OSF plays will choose not to. We decide on what we want — not on what someone else says we “should” do. OSF can choose what it wants to do; their revenue will speak to how well they’ve shifted their demographics.
It’s art. Like it. Don’t like it. The only “should” is that we should make our own decisions as to what we want to see.
Rick Sparks
Ashland
