Snow in Midsummer

Snow in Midsummer contains violence and brutality including an attempted rape and an execution. There is also sexual innuendo, bawdiness and profanity. High school students who are prepared to handle these elements will be captivated by this mix of ghost story and environmental morality tale.

The Angus Bowmer Theatre is outfitted with an elevator that takes patrons to either Row E or Row K.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. OSF offers a variety of accommodations, outlined here.

Esta actualización emocionante transforma a una clásica tragedia china en historia de fantasmas. La obra explora el legado del trauma, lo más central de la injusticia y los extremos que alcanzamos en nombre del amor. Una joven (Jessica Ko, la cambiaformas  de Hannah y el Espantoso Quiosco), está condenada a muerte por asesinato. Antes de su ejecución, ella jura vengarse y así desde el otro lado de la tumba condena a su ciudad a una sequía catastrófica. Tres años después, una rica mujer de negocios visita a la ciudad que está seca y atormentada por algarrobas, con intención de hacerse cargo de una fábrica en mal estado. Cuando una misteriosa aparición atormenta a su joven hija, la gente del pueblo tiene que enfrentarse con un pasado que nadie quiere acordar.  Justin Audibert, director del exitoso estreno de la obra en 2017 por la Royal Shakespeare Company, es el director de esta inquietante obra escrita por Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig.

Nieve en pleno verano contiene violencia y brutalidad, incluso el intento de violación y una ejecución. Contiene también insinuación sexual, indecencia y profanidad. Estudiantes de preparatoria preparados a manejar estos elementos serán cautivados por esta mezcla de historia de fantasmas y cuento de moralidad ambiental.

El Teatro Angus Bowmer cuenta con elevador que lleva a los patrones de teatro a la Fila E o la Fila K.

El Oregon Shakespeare Festival se compromete a la accesibilidad. Reconocemos a las necesidades de los patrones con discapacidades y nos esforzamos a asegurar que nuestras instalaciones y producciones les sean accesibles a todos. OSF ofrece una variedad de acomodaciones, aquí descritas here.

Before its stateside debut at OSF, Snow in Midsummer premiered in February 2017 at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, Shakespeare’s birthplace. Commissioned and produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Cowhig’s adaptation is the first production in the RSC’s Chinese Translations Project, a cultural-exchange program that seeks to bring Chinese classics to a new audience.

By focusing on classical Chinese works from in and around the 16th and 17th centuries, the Chinese Translations Project draws a lineage between Shakespeare and works written in China that were available, performed or adapted within Shakespeare’s lifetime (1564–1616) in the Yuan, Song, Tang and Ming dynasties—exceptionally rich periods in Chinese artistic and cultural history. With research on more than 45 classical Chinese titles nominated by scholars, academics, theatre-makers, playwrights and translators from across the world, the RSC has matched translators and academics with playwrights. For Snow in Midsummer, Cowhig worked with translator Gigi Chang, creating her adaptation from Chang’s literal translation of Guan Hanqing’s play.

In imagining a collaborative model for global theatre that helps its audience connect Shakespeare to his Chinese contemporaries, this project also activates collaboration and creativity at a more local level, by bringing to the RSC new and diverse artists and audiences. The project is committed to commissioning playwrights of Chinese descent from the UK and around the world, like Cowhig, and forging connections between the RSC and UK-based theatre-makers of East Asian heritage. Besides the proposed four productions produced by the RSC and 10 newly commissioned translations, the initiative will also create a digital archive, with a goal towards publication, making the translations available to a wider public readership and accessible for development by other theatre companies.

The Chinese Translations Project is just one part of a larger initiative promoting international cultural, artistic and educational cross-exchange with China. A parallel enterprise is the Shakespeare Folio Project, a decade-long translation project dedicated to producing new Chinese translations of Shakespeare’s plays for performance. Both ventures, the Chinese Translations Project and the Shakespeare Folio Project, will culminate in 2023, the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio. 

—Christine Mok 

Reprinted from OSF’s 2018 Illuminations, a 64-page guide to the season’s plays. Members at the Donor level and above and teachers who bring school groups to OSF receive a free copy of Illuminations.