This will be a short post, because I am so full of an OSF/OLLI experience that I feel impelled to share it, particularly with friends who live in the Rogue Valley. So much has happened in my wonderfully exciting life, it would take a novelette to tell it all. But this is very special. I am new at OLLI, having arrived here 18 years ago, but I finally took a course in local wildflowers last spring by a friend and am now hooked, and attending a discussion group that is covering the 11 plays of the 2017 season at OSF.
This season was stellar, and the 6 plays I have seen were all super-good. But one stands alone and that is UniSon. It is a blending of the unpublished poetry of August Wilson and that of Universes, a NY theater company. The two sources are so harmoniously woven together it is not possible to tell which is speaking. The play has not been published, and may never be, depending on the desires of Wilson’s heirs. So it is left to the viewer to interpret its rich language and content. The only hint as to who-wrote-what is a band of lights at the front of the stage that goes on when the actors are speaking Wilson’s lines. And this hint is not published anywhere but has gotten around by word of mouth! I saw it twice, finding it so intriguing the first time I read everything I could find, hoping to have a better understanding the second time. It helped, but not a whole lot. There is a poet and his apprentice, and 7 terrors (which may or may not be autobiographical). They are a Seamstress, Butcher, Boxer, Black Smith, Hunter, Momma and Soldier. Some wonderfully wild dancing and poignant songs. It is truly an original.
This morning a OLLI we had a 1 and 1/2 hour non-stop discussion, so stimulating I had to come home and write this note. Almost everyone has seen it twice and some many more than that! There was unanimous agreement that it was a unique and magical experience (altho often incomprehensible). It runs for another two weeks and there are tickets available. It was the play this season that didn’t do too well at the box office – suggesting that word got around!