CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

A Triple Double: Three Twin Concerts

This arts week brings—not two—but THREE sets of identical twins to the stage. The Watson Twins help hip us to their monozygotic arts scene.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jan 19, 2012 at 02:10PM 0 Comments

THU, JAN 26 The Watson Twins will team up with local Portland multi-instrumentalist Aram Arslanian for an intimate set at the Doug Fir, then join headliner Jessie Baylin on backing vox. “Stories will be told, some bad jokes I’m sure and lots of harmonies,” forecasts Chandra. In light of the sudden prevalence of twin arts acts on the current calendar, these two were also kind enough to indulge Culturephile’s curiosity:

What’s it like to make art with your identical twin?
“It’s hard to describe sometimes, because obviously I don’t know anything different,” says Chandra. “It’s what we started doing as children and continues to become more and more a focus of our life. There’s a unique understanding that comes from creating with someone who shares not only your identical genes, but also many of the same interests (in our case, music, cooking, and literature). That being said, when we come together to sing, that history of our interwoven experiences can, I think, be heard. I consider myself truly fortunate that I can have this experience of completely sharing my experiences with someone.”

“We are each others biggest fan and toughest critics,” adds Leigh, taking a pragmatic tone to balance her sister’s enthusiasm. “This environment brings a safe zone for us to expand our work and creativity in a place that I feel like a lot of bands don’t get to experience. That gift has helped us both learn our sound. There is nothing like harmonizing, we have people we sing with where the music created feels…familial–but singing with your twin really is something unique.”

FRI, JAN 19 Last week at Alberta Rose, folk duo Shook Twins helped composer Ben Darwish premiere a brand-new ten-song epic that the three have collaborated on with the support of the Oregon Arts Commission. The Clear Blue Pearl, a narrative arc about a search for water after a drought, featured “tight-knit piano-driven grooves” and a fusion of influences from folk to dubstep.

FRI, JAN 19 At Reed College’s Kaul Auditorium, twin poets Matthew and Michael Dickman staged a slam of sorts, set to music by Third Angle Music collaborator and composer Nalin Silva—who also happens to be the boys’ old high school friend. When Culturephile caught up with Silva (a recording engineer at Brian Jonestown Massacre-affiliated Revolver Studios) he was veritably geeking out over plans to enhance his friends’ performance with subtle audio effects, and excited to be writing a score to complement the twin wordsmiths.

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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If Quentin Tarantino remade the classic Jacobean tragedy...

Review: (I Am Still) the Duchess of Malfi

At Artists Repertory Theatre through Feb. 12

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Jan 14, 2012 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

Artists Repertory Theatre’s contemporary re-imagining of the Jacobean revenge tragedy The Duchess of Malfi, re-titled (I Am Still) The Duchess of Malfi, begins with the portly Cardinal (Todd Van Voris) standing in a spotlight, back to the audience, bloodstains bleeding through his shirt from self-flagellation. Three men in black robes and masks dress him in red and white vestments as Carmina Burana-style choral music bombards the audience. A full-blown gothic tragedy is in order, it seems, until the Cardinal snaps his finger and demands of his manservants, “cell phone.”

So former-Portlander Joseph Fisher’s script quickly unfolds, injecting a biting modern wit into the macabre story of the Duchess. And if you’ve a stomach for violence and a taste for psychological thrillers laced with sardonic humor (i.e. you dig Quentin Tarantino), you’ll likely find it a sexy contemporary makeover of the 400-year-old revenge tragedy.

The Plot

Fisher reduces the characters from John Webster’s 1623 classic to the essentials: the Cardinal and his crazy brother, Ferdinand (Jake Street), their sister the Duchess (Sara Catherine Wheatley), her bodyguard Antonio (Vin Shambry), her handmaid Cariola (Camille Cettina), and the mercenary soldier, Daniel de Bosola (Chris Murray). The main difference is Delio, originally a shell of a character who functions as a sounding board for other characters’ exposition, is now a gay gossip of a narrator who steps in an out of the action, addressing the audience like he’s our tour guide to the juicy, twisted, royal scene of Amalfi.

The first act proceeds with a clip, establishing Amalfi as a modern-day, church-run, European city-state, if it were filtered through the celebrity gossip site TMZ. The Duchess, played with a red carpet strut by Wheatley, is just finishing the mourning period for her deceased husband, the Duke. Her brothers, who need her beloved Princess Di-like status to distract the common folk from their cruel rule, demand that she remain a chaste widow for the rest of her life and assign Antonio to watch her day and night. The Duchess sweetly obliges, but as soon as they depart, she tells Antonio she has seen him watching her and insists that they marry in secret, pulling dress and suit from her Gucci shopping bags. Suspecting she might have something up her sleeveless gown, her brothers command Bosola, played by Murray with a manic cockiness reminiscent of a young Christian Slater, to pose as her stable boy in order to spy on her. The act climaxes in a somewhat over the top, yet well choreographed, fistfight between Bosola and Antonio at an Amalfi disco set to Britney Spear’s “Til the World Ends.”

I left for intermission feeling that most of the characters were rather one-dimensional and predictable: the cold, arrogant Cardinal, the spoiled Duchess, the stalwart bodyguard. And although Fisher’s script is funny and the physical humor well directed by Jon Kretzu, comedy so saturated this adaptation that I wondered how or even if we were going to descend into the dark, violent tragedy of the original, where Bosola ultimately strangles the Duchess and her children, and then in an act of unexplained and somewhat unbelievable remorse, goes on to kill the Cardinal, an equally unbelievably remorseful Ferdinand, and, accidentally, Antonio. Press materials for Artists Rep’s world premiere had said the new Duchess “defies her brother’s chess game of power, manipulation and morality.” Perhaps, I thought, this version wouldn’t end in tragedy then, but with the Duchess prevailing.

Suffice it to say my hesitation was premature. The first half was but the Entertainment Tonight pre-show.

The second half opens with the Duchess restrained in a hospital bed, a prisoner of Bosola. Having discovered her relationship with Antonio, the Cardinal instructs Bosola to torture her until she renounces her title, so that the people will hate her and he can appoint a new duchess. But whereas Britney might have been all too quick to shave her head and abdicate her celebrity throne, the Duchess refuses. As Bosola and the Duchess pitch into a battle of wits, will, charm, and insults, the play evolves from Real Housewives of Amalfi into an intense psychological thriller.

A Re-Imagining

The influential English critic Kennath Tynan echoed several centuries of forebears by condemning Webster’s original for “the irredeemable mediocrity of its dramatic evolution of human passion,” which is the stuffy way of saying that the characters go to childishly absurd levels of violence and experience ludicrous changes of heart. But in Fisher’s snappy yet drawn out dialogue in the torture scenes, first of the Duchess and later of Antonio by Ferdinand, he instills motivation into the characters’ stories, giving weight and depth to figures that seemed rather flat in the first act (and certainly in the original tragedy). Wheatley’s increasingly gripping performance as the Duchess in particular goes from a sweeter play on Paris Hilton to the prideful gravitas of a noblewoman, as she recounts her marriage at age 13 to the Duke as being “handed over like a kitchen appliance and used as one.” It was her endurance of his groping and abusive hands that earned her title, and we believe her when she refuses to relinquish it, insisting, “I am still the Duchess of Malfi.” Murray’s unhinged yet charming Bosola also reveals secrets, pulled out by the steel-willed Duchess (“You’re an appliance like me, just a different brand”), that justify his ultimate change of heart.

As the action grows violent, and it gets very very violent, the script’s humor comes to serve a new Brechtian purpose, allowing us to watch the horror unfold without being consumed. It’s one thing to see someone tortured on TV; it’s another to watch it live 10 feet in front of you. But the show draws on modern references, from Shepard Fairey to Occupy Amalfi, as well as fine comic timing on the part of the actors, to incite laughter that manages simultaneously to round off the edges of the violence while also polishing the play’s meditation of power, status, and our need for idols—in today’s case a celebrity kind that has replaced the religious and royal ones of yore.

That said, not all the modern injections stitch up so nicely. Delio as swishy gay narrator, played with finger wiggles and ‘darlings’ by Nicholas Hongola, seems written for an audience that still finds The Birdcage edgy. His constant interruptions in the first act, while garnering many a laugh, weaken the play’s flow. In part, it’s his appearance mainly as a character and not as interrupting narrator in the second half—where he too is fleshed out with newfound ambiguity—that allows the psychological tension to simmer and boil. But he returns at the end for a final address to the audience, and while some closing words might be necessary, his nice moral conclusion and stage equivalent of walking off into the sunset wraps up this meat grinder of a tragedy in too clean of a bow.

We might be overly nice in Portland, but that needn’t mean we can’t handle some good new-fashioned tragedy every now and then.

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Tags: Theater, Review, fertile ground

casanovas, divas, and dragons, oh my!

Portland Opera Unveils Its 2012/2013 Season

Posted by: Aaron Scott on Jan 13, 2012 at 05:00PM 2 Comments

Last night, opera lovers turned out in dresses and suits—showing that there are still some people in Portland who appreciate dressing up—to the Art Museum’s Fields Ballroom for the unveiling of Portland Opera’s 2012/2013 season. Director Christopher Mattaliano, introduced by a board member as a legend, took the stage with the self-deprecating good humor that would last through the night: “a legend in my own mind, maybe.” He said he likes to organize each season around a theme (imagine Ira Glass doing This American Opera). Last year it was ‘Fantasy or Reality.’ The current season is ‘When Our World Changes.’ And next year, he announced, will be ‘Larger Than Life.’

“Opera? Larger than life?” you might ask. Not much of a stretch, perhaps, but the season certainly offers some of the greatest characters to have ever sung out their joys and woes on stage.

The 2012/2013 season will open in November with one of the world’s most famous operas about one of the world’s most famous lovers: Mozart’s take on Don Juan, Don Giovanni. After attempting to seduce Donna Anna, our lady’s man kills her father in a duel and then ultimately gets dragged to hell in a show that doesn’t scrimp on the drama nor the comedy. Stefania Dovhan, a soprano with lots of buzz, will play the role of Donna Anna.

Our second larger-than-life character is the diva Tosca, in Puccini’s opera of the same name to run in February. Called a “shabby little shocker” by musicologist Joseph Kerman, the thriller’s three acts involve two murders, two suicides, one attempted rape, and a torture scene. Never say opera is boring.

Next up in March is Handel’s Rinaldo, the story of a knight who must overcome dragons, spirits, and mermaids to rescue his beloved from a sorceress queen. The performance will be Portland Opera’s second collaboration with the Portland Baroque Orchestra and will feature singers from the opera’s Studio Artists program.

Finally, the season closes with Verdi’s Falstaff in May. One of the greatest operatic comedies ever penned, it tells the story of an aging, gluttonous lord who tries to seduce two married women, only to have them teach him a lesson instead. Based loosely on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, the show closes with: “All the world’s a joke, man is born a joker, and he who laughs last, laughs best.” After journeying through hell, torture, and dragons, it’s always nice to put it in a little perspective.

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oh, snap.

Fertile Ground One-Liners

Next week, Fertile Ground Festival will present more than 60 performance works. We asked playwrights, “What’s your favorite line?” and they hit us with their zestiest zingers.

For individual performance dates and times, visit the Fertile Ground Calendar .

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jan 12, 2012 at 07:00AM 2 Comments

In New York you can’t make a living with misery. You have to resort to obscenity instead.
A Live Dress by Martha Jane Kaufman

You come here every night, sing your heart out, get ‘em all worked up so they get drunk on cheap booze, smash each other with chairs and bottles, until they collapse in each other’s arms, all in a glorious belch of genuine intimacy. Sounds very fulfilling.
Manful! by John Servilio

Knock it off, Man! We sit around day after day in this stinking heat, swattin’ flies and talking sh—, then something finally happens, and you get bent outta shape.
Triptych Americana by Karen Alexander-Brow

Being a bit hard on The Mum today, are we?
Kookaburra by AJ Doherty

Young lady, even if I wanted to be bad, it wouldn’t do me any good. Not without twenty-four hours notice and a doctor’s appointment.
Dad, I Hardly Know You by Gary Corbin

I’m sorry, I, it was tougher than I thought it— Okay. Okay. I, I still need to pull his teeth though…
Red Hands by Matt Haynes

Once upon a time, giants ruled the world.
Splasher by Ellen Margolis

Their kidneys weren’t filtering blood; their lungs were shrinking; their brains degenerating— even their taste buds had atrophied, so naturally they volunteered. Nearly eight hundred people volunteered.
Gift of a Thousand Tongues by Fengar Gael

Do you know what it’s like to ache all over and not be able to keep food down for a week at a time, and to have your aunt compliment you on the weight you’ve lost? Do you know what it’s like to be seventeen years old and go through menopause?
A Pretty Girl with Cancerby Dave Chapman

Grief is a cruel master.
Scrooge and Marley Have Dinner in Hell by Dave Chapman

Our backs were straight and instead of lowering our heads, we closed our eyes to the scene of our humiliation.
Cafe Baghdad by Sacha Reich

I laid my head down on my desk and prayed to God that I would not be a broken man
Redneck Mormon Thespian by Cory Huff

We like it, you see? The terrifying beauty of this world. The Dictators, the burning churches, beautiful monarchs with missing fingers. We crave it. We’re insatiable.
(I Am Still) The Duchess of Malfi by Joseph Fisher

In conclusion, don’t forget to go to ‘changeboliviatobandivia.com’ and register your vote to give Antonio Banderas his own country—his birthday’s coming up and it would mean so much to him.
One Day, a musical by Kevin Muir

We wouldn’t plan immediately. Just hang out and let an opportunity slip into our lives.
Best Son by Paul Handley

The sex you had last night. The eggs you had this morning. The sound of my voice right now. At the moment of creation, all of those things existed as unrealized potential, lying in wait.
Dear Galileo by Claire Willett

Double, double, Willamette and bubble —
How to Talk to Little Girls by Tina Connolly

Just between you and me, I think you’d look quite dashing if you let me plant bananas and maybe some radishes on your neck.
Skin Garden by Jeremy Benjamin

I know that this might sound strange, but I always loved olives and he, never. No, did not, would not touch them, did not like them, would not eat them. And that’s how I knew, and that is how I knew.
Something’s Got a Hold of my Heart by Hand2Mouth

This might seem like a funny question to ask somebody in southern Missouri, but do you, by any chance, have access to firearms?
The North Plan by Jason Wells

I can yield to anything but temptation.
-Oscar Wilde, from Famished by Eugenia Woods

Goldilocks: Bitch is a noun and a verb and I got both covered with a rap sheet to prove it.
Alpha Bitch by Eugenia Woods

If we take him down to the jail and turn him in, what you think they’re gonna do? Just open the doors and let him go back to his cell? And if they do, how is hegonna get out? They killed his last hope. We don’t have money for the lawyer to try to find some loophole.
Asylum No More by Sandra de Helen

Perdóname, cabrón, pero no soy una criminal. (“Forgive me, a—hole, but I’m not a criminal.”)
B’aktun 13 by Dañel Malán

What happened to the Woobbie? Soupy? Toodles, Harry, Teddy, Sue, Snuggles? We lose the ball, we drop the ball for something bigger, better, manly, the video game, baseball bat, the gun, trying to be the man. The Wild Man.
Kingdowm by Nick Zagone

I’m no genius, but my short educational tenure has taught me that maybe there should be a long term commitment to ending poverty before you destroy the public education system.
A Noble Failure by Susan Mach

The force of this feeling is not static. No. It is a moving energy. A fluid force. A flow. It is like the blood coursing through your veins, the blood coursing through mine. Can you feel it?
Spellbinders by Brad Bolchunos

Folger snatches me up in his mighty jowls and suddenly I’m as weightless as an astronaut eating sponge cake on the moon.
Last American Gladiator Part 3 by Slash Coleman

How does an 11-year old ‘nurd’, living in the middle of nowhere, act out his 007 fantasy? I find the key to my neighbor’s house…sneak in while she’s at work, and eat a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream.
Teenage Commando by auGi

I like chocolate turtles with pecans. I don’t like babies much—they’re too small and you can’t eat them. Well, I guess some people might eat them… But that’s just plain sick.
Ruby Rocket, Private Detective, animated film short by Sam Niemann and Stacey Hallal

The penguin is the saddest of all God’s creatures: he cannot masturbate because his arms are too short.
David Saffert’s Birthday Bashstravaganza 2! Older & Wisier by David Saffert

Hundreds of miles of terrain, scrapes with death, mosquitos, eye gnats, thorns, near drownings, icy winter weather, starvation, endless rain, boiled elk fondue, difficult negotiations in which the peace of the nation hangs in the balance…how can you endure such things and still find yourself terrified by some lousy big footprints?
Sacagasasquatch by Brad Bolchunos

Oh heavens to Betsy! He don’t love you. He just wants to drive your truck!
Oil Change the Musical Comedy by Klay Rogers

In Portland, there are more sex clubs per capita than practically everywhere else in the nation and every year during the Rose Festival thousands of sailors get serviced here–the City looks the other way.
Stories: From Survivors of the Sex Trade by Ann Singer

Yeah, there’s no ‘purity of urine’ competition in the Miss America Pageant.
Graceland, Paraguay by Jason Rosenblatt

I always thought traveling by airplane was like padlocking a canary in a cage, throwing it out the window, and telling it to fly! Fly for your life!
Waxwing by Emily Gregory

Are you confusing sodomy with lobotomy? Again?
Satanic Organics by Jason Rosenblatt

If I was reading a novel, I’d have seen the foreshadowing; but this was my life, so I missed it.
City of Roses/City of Thorns by Eileen DuClos

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Tags: Theater, author, fertile ground

spy ops

Sallie Ford Debuts New Songs

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jan 10, 2012 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

At The Woods’ closing weekend festivities, Portland’s rockabilly sweetheart premiered several new tunes, announcing “We’re about to go into the studio soon, guys.”
While we resisted the urge to bootleg any of the tracks, here’s the next-best thing—a first look at her new hooks:

“Yeah, I like bad boys, but I’m like a bad boy too.”

“You say I’m just a girl, it’s true; but I’ve met a few girls who’d prefer me to you!”

“He’s the kind of guy who would f—- her with his socks on.”

and…in stark thematic contrast to the other independent rants, “I’m addicted to you.”

Despite a couple of missed notes and the onstage troubleshooting one expects from a premiere live performance, the brand-new songs roared with feminist zeal. Still, there was (as always) a sense that Sallie speaks only for herself, and that she leaves the hard-partying man-eater in the context of the songs. Between numbers, she instantly reverted from balls-to-wall belter, into her signature aw-shucks shrugs and hearty guffaws.

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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ashes to ashes

Eulogy for The Woods

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jan 05, 2012 at 04:00PM 1 Comments

This Friday is your last official chance to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of former Sellwood funeral home The Woods, a venue that’s spent the last 3 years putting Portland club-goers on their best behavior. Opened by Loch Lomond’s folk troubadour Ritchie Young and friends, a space that had previously hosted myriad memorial services gradually transformed into an old-money parlor atmosphere fitted with claw-footed antique furnishings, twinkling candlelight and sensitive staff. Unique as a classy mid-sized club that was neither Danish modern sleek (Doug Fir) nor swing-dance centric (Secret Society), The Woods created a niche for post-hipster, grown-up, even dressed-up* events like the kitsch Bingo & Bourbon, the lively retro Soul Night, the uncannily star-studded Baby Ketten Karaoke, and recently, the avant garde All Night Dance Party.

Cult celebrity visits are also legendary: Robyn Hitchcock favoring a capacity crowd with some of his songs while sipping a cup of tea at the piano, Fred Armisen lobbing his quirky jokes through the high-ceilinged room, and Sean Lennon reportedly raving about the ambiance while playing the space with his band Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger. But apparently an era is ending, ground to a sudden halt by reported rent disputes and managerial schism.

“The Woods is my favorite venue in town,” lamented The Mercury’s Ned Lannamann last month—a sentiment echoed by his colleague Alison Hallett as well as this reviewer.

Bingo & Bourbon host Brian Perez was reportedly reduced to tears at his final Woods event this Monday. Upon early whispers of possible closure, he’d expressed a fleeting wish that antique architecture conquistadors McMenamin’s would buy the business out and keep its doors open—but such salvation wasn’t in the cards. “I owe it all to the Woods,” said another regular event host Scott Magee, aka DJ Cooky Parker, who started his popular soul nights at the space and will close the club spinning his record collection. “Please join me tomorrow night, where we can dance all night and say goodbye together.”

The Woods is survived by three co-managers, Vivien Lion, Yoni Shpak, and Ritchie Young, as well as a cadre of displaced revelers in search of a new local haunt that will half as readily inspire them to shine their shoes.

*Dressed-up by Portland standards, meaning button-ups, skirts and/or dress shoes.

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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First Thursday Sampler

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jan 05, 2012 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Glasswork

Facture: Artists at the Forefront of Painterly Glass at Bullseye Gallery

A group exhibition surveys a relatively rare “painterly” approach the medium, in which drips, daubs and melded flat layers create unique landscapes.

Form + Function

Ethan Rose’s Reflection at PDX Contemporary
The mad-scientist musician has set up a selection of bells that produce reversed tones in real time followed by delayed natural tones, for a heady, disorienting environmental effect.

Abstraction

Marlene Bauer’s Sequence and Gina Wilsons Clay Works at Laura Russo Gallery

Bauer’s paintings (pictured) juxtapose ordered simplicity with the chaos of memory, and Wilson’s free-form sculptures are etched with abstract 2-D figures.

The First Thursday art walk is a monthly event held by an assortment of galleries in Portland’s Pearl District. For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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play it cool

Review: West Side Story

Posted by: Anne Adams on Jan 05, 2012 at 02:00PM 2 Comments

We all know the story: Maria and Tony love each other, the Sharks and the Jets hate each other, and it all culminates (like the Shakespearean tragedy it reprises) in a handful of regrettable deaths. Yet remarkably, this Romeo & Juliet redux has maintained its popularity for half a century, thanks in large part to its glorious Bernstein/Sondheim songbook that people literally still sing all the time. Girls named Maria are frequently regaled with their namesake song “Maria,” “There’s a Place for Us” remains a standing anthem for a legion of misfits, and “One Hand, One Heart” is practically as common as Canon in D at weddings. (And let’s not overlook the occasional embarrassment of hearing a primping woman burst into “I Feel Pretty.”) On merit of the material’s popularity alone, this year’s Broadway production of West Side is sure to hammer the heartstrings.

That said, there’s room for improvement, thanks in large part to a recent production of Billy Elliot upsetting the Broadway bell-curve. Where Elliot tore into the politcally-relevant topics of gay pride and labor dispute with razor-sharp political teeth, West Side doesn’t hook into its parallel opportunity to address the immigration debate with quite the same veracity. The choice to go with the bilingual 90’s rewrite of the original script is a step in the right direction, legitimizing the Puerto Rican characters as realistic Spanish-speakers, but under-enunciation in both languages ultimately compromises Sondheim’s witty political commentary, especially during critical number “America,” while arcane 50’s gee-whiz vernacular is delivered sans modern spit, keeping the narrative firmly rooted in a bygone time and place. Maria’s “I can kill now because I hate now” is the sole line that pierces through the quaintness of the past with heart-stopping significance.

Realistic casting has always been a stumbling block for Story; famously saddled with the challenge of presenting “gangsters” who also gracefully jazz-dance, the play delivers more of the latter than the former. Lead Jets Riff (Drew Foster) and Tony (Ross Lekites) could borrow a little more attack from the world-class 10-year-olds who did Elliot ‘s “angry dance,” or from their pugnacious costar Action (Jon Drake). Lead Shark Bernardo (German Santiago), however, brings plenty of fuego to his gang, and ensemble Jets numbers (especially the sans-Riff “Officer Krupke”) are refreshingly ragtag. Anyway, the implausibility of dancing gangsters is arguably part of West Side’s kitschy fun, even lampooned in the late 90s by a few winking GAP ads.

While the cast’s synchronized snapping mostly remains tongue-in-cheek, scenic designer James Youman’s sets are seriously stunning and realistic. Drenched in sunset mauves, crisscrossed with chainlink, bars and bridges, they pop with a presence that feels as much Eastside industrial Portland, as West Side New York. It becomes relatively easy to imagine the Jets and Sharks rumbling right under the Morrison Bridge, somewhere in the concrete badlands around the Montage—with varying gangster intensity, but a unified devotion to these timeless, treasured songs.

For more about Portland arts, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Tags: Theater, Review, musical, broadway

Salud!

In Praise of Auld Lang Syne

Culturephile doles out a few well-earned compliments to some standout arts entities from 2011 that we had yet to mention.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Dec 31, 2011 at 12:00AM 0 Comments

Culturephile spent 2011 publishing a slew of reviews , a handful of interviews , and a cluster of overviews. In the arts we covered, we tried to be unbiased and observant, to bring added insight to those who had caught the same shows we had, and to offer a little vicarious thrill to those who had missed out. Mind you—those were the arts we covered. Of course, there were many more that we missed, and perhaps most tragically, a few artists that we caught, loved—and still never covered. Maybe the moment passed while we were distracted with other editorial priorities, or there wasn’t enough material to spin into a whole article so it got scrapped…these things happen. Nevertheless, before welcoming in 2012, we’re compelled to acknowledge these bygone standouts, to clear the air and give credit where due. As the culture calendar resets, we raise a champagne toast to the following:

PLAZM Magazine made great strides this year, turning 20 and releasing issue #30, featuring a David Lynch coversation, an edgy photo spread called Death By Cat (images of artistically eviscerated small animals that had fallen prey to an actual housecat), and an impassioned essay in defense of print media. Later, the mag announced a new partnership with venerated online trendspotters Urban Honking.

In a related note, Collateral Damage tasked PLAZM’s Joshua Berger with publicly pencil-marking endless rows of tiny “x’s,” each of which was meant to represent one of the 655,000 civilian casualties of the Iraq war. While the artist explained his work as an attempt at commemoration, the faint and quickly-rendered marks told another story, effectively reducing each individual death to a cursory drop in a bottomless bucket.

At the slightly offbeat Gallery Homeland, Laura Hughes ’s midsummer installations of irridescent tape literally shone, casting refractions of rainbow on the white walls of the third-storey space with varying intensity, especially during “the magic hour” of twilight.

Absurd comedy/sketch duo People Person brought a snarky hilarity to Risk/Reward, impersonating a rapper, a talk show host, a valley girl, a stalker, and an automated GPS in a series of sketches replete with punchlines, callbacks, and unexpected lexical twists.

Jessica Jobaris and General Magic, also at Risk/Reward, achieved an oft-attempted but rarely actualized goal: a cohesive and engaging dance performance that was about everything. A trash-strewn dance floor played host to a tug-of-war between an ancient tribesman and a modern businessman, a woman’s victimization and rescue, a man’s masochism, and the collective frustration of a populus forced to keep up with a harried pace of life in various states of sanity and nudity. Remarkably, it all worked. (You had to be there.)

Another Seattle dancer, butoh artist Sheri Brown, stunned the small crowd convened at The Headwaters theater for the 1 Festival. Doused in the Japanese dance discipline’s signature white powder, she gradually moved from deep introversion into sprightly crowd engagement, walking straight into the stadium seating and seeming to float like a cumulus cloud form, her toes perched on the backs of empty chairs. She beckoned the whole crowd to follow her outside to the railyard, where she continued her hypnotic exploration of her surroundings, testing the dirt between her fingers, tasting the industrially-tinged fresh air—every moment a discovery, every element a curiosity.

Though Raja Feather Kelly ‘s three-part Warhol-wig-sporting spectacle Fanmail in TBA:11 Ten Tiny Dances left some wondering if this act was…ahem…all there, Kelly and his dance partner later proved that they could sweat the technique, with a lithe and balletic “warmup” routine during a break in Mike Daisey’s 24 hour monologue. Turns out, they have turnout. Who knew?

From her church-wife-themed series The Fall of Spring Hill (at Charles Hartman in April) to one-offs like the striking snapshot that advertised Defunkt Theatre’s Glengarry, Glen Ross, Holly Andres ‘s images made an indelible impression on 2011. She’s especially adept at capturing female subjects, and finely attuned to the low hum of domestic drama.

Actor John San Nicolas was ubiquitous last year, with roles in Jack Goes Boating, Reasons to be Pretty, and The Pain and The Itch. Pulling off a New York accent and an Egyptian one with equal canny, playing straight-man or ham with incredible ease, this guy nailed every moment we saw him in the spotlight. His name on a playbill safely signifies a sure thing.

Comedian Ian Karmel put several notches on his broad belt, starting with his silent performance as Carrie’s electrocuted lover in Portlandia and burgeoning as word-of-mouth spread about various shows where he “killed.” This self-described “fat Italian Jew” is obviously grooming himself for the big time.

Actress Christi Miles ‘s sparkle singlehandedly saved Artists Rep’s relatively rote summer production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. It was a lighthearted role compared to the one she held in 2010’s Dying City, but a refreshing reminder that she can carry a whole show.

Here’s hoping that 2012 holds rich rewards for all these arts entities, and many more greats that we’ve unintentionally overlooked. Feel free to share your own favorite arts moments in our comments section below.

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SLIDE SHOW

PAM’s Japanese Prints:
A Fleeting Glimpse

Catch these intriguing impressions while you still can.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Dec 29, 2011 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

They’ve been on view for a while now, but suddenly you’ve got less than a month left to see these rare and incredibly interesting Japanese prints at Portland Art Museum.

<<Click the image to the left to check out a few selections, and plan your visit before it’s too late! Also, be sure to read the titles, as they lend an extra layer of insight into the images they accompany. Otherwise, how would you guess that one of the roosters pictured was meant to be real, while the other was “a painting [within a painting] on a screen,” or that the differing scale of human subjects was meant to signify puppets? These prints’ seemingly simple woodblock form gives way to some pretty sophisticated perception-bending.

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young at art

6 Magical Children’s Plays

Posted by: Anne Adams on Dec 22, 2011 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

Mess around as we may with charity galas and Secret Santas, the holiday season tends to be a time for family and a chance to bring some magic into children’s lives. But what do you do with loved ones who are too young for eggnog?

Portland’s thriving theater community is literally leaping to help, staging six great memory-making productions this weekend to thrill and delight all good little girls and boys.

A Christmas Story
Even kids with a bit of an attitude can appreciate the classic lampoon of young Ralphie, who wishes for a BB gun, and his bumbling parents who refuse him on the grounds that he’ll “shoot his eye out.” The true-to-the-movie staging delivers all the laughable moments you already love.

The Wizard of Oz
With reportedly dazzling live special effects, this story is a veritable twister, sweeping kids off their feet and into a technicolor dreamworld full of munchkins, fairies, and flying monkeys. An adaptation of The Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1939 material should pass muster with picky grown-up patrons, too.

ZooZoo
Children can’t help but marvel at Imago’s realistic animal costumes and burst into giggles at the creatures’ funny antics. Meanwhile, adults will wryly smile at the deft way that this peerless Theater plays with social dynamics, silence and suspense. These guys are true masters of mime, physicality, and “working a room.”

Willy Wonka
This live redux of the movie musical, helmed by the mercurial chocolatier and steered by the bizarre and whimsical oompa loompas, delivers a candy-coated moral message, hilariously punishing greedy children while rewarding generosity, patience, and manners.

The Nutcracker
A ballet still counts as a play, right? Either way, kids adore watching Marie coast through a dream-world on a sled bed, gazing in wonder at dancing candy and recoiling in fear from swashbuckling mice.

Ahhh Ha
This gravity-defying, physically prolific troupe unleashes all its energy (and an oversized dog) on delighted crowds, presenting a variety show that—while not specifically Christmasy—is certainly a celebration.

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Tags: Theater, overview

deep freeze

Review: Angels in America

Portland Playhouse’s long winter epic proves bone-chillingly, exquisitely beautiful.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Dec 21, 2011 at 05:00AM 3 Comments

One wants to move through life with elegance and grace, blossoming infrequently but with exquisite taste, and perfect timing, like a rare bloom, a zebra orchid…

Twirling hypnotically in a black and saffron kimono, Prior Walter muses about himself, but seems to be tacitly revealing playwright Tony Kushner’s vision, a long lucid dream that speaks in transcendental tongues and slides through seamless transitions. Leveling an unflinching gaze at Reagan-era AIDS, Angels in America is surprisingly not a tear-jerker, but rather a bracing spine-tingler. It’s less a heartwarmer than an envigorating, icy epic that finds beauty by tracing a swirling pattern across the frosts of unrelenting fate.

The Story
Prior Walter (Wade McCollum) is dying of AIDS. We know this early on, and during most of the play, we watch him progress bitterly and bravely toward his inevitable death. But it’s not that simple. Angels ’ split narrative maintains constant motion and shines a light on several key characters, flashing the many facets of illness, politics, religion, romance, sex, and solitude. A Mormon housewife (Nikki Weaver) retreats into a dizzy Valium high to escape her secretly-gay Republican husband. Fast-talking Dick-Nixon-style politician Roy Cohn (Ebbe Roe Smith) passes off his HIV diagnosis as liver cancer, and his homosexuality as good-ol’-boy glad-handing. Prior’s longtime boyfriend Louis (Noah Jordan) recoils from Prior’s illness and comforts himself with street hustler sex and Woody-Allen-esque analytical rants. Meanwhile, two cute old Mormon ladies ruefully share a cigarette on a hill overlooking Salt Lake.

The Strengths
Content notwithstanding, this production is technically perfect. Acting is ace; stagecraft, superb. Actors, not stage-hands, change the scenes, sweeping the moving parts of the set along with their actions, so that tangible elements drift in and out as if by the winds of imagination. In the whole 3 1/2 hours (which feel like 2) this reviewer finds nary a hole big enough to shine a pen-light through.* The tech in particular shows a marked improvement from Portland Playhouse’s recent World Trade Center debut Gem of the Ocean, which, though well acted, was beset with distractions, most notably a stagnant set painted in screaming teal. This time, Playhouse doesn’t merely meet the challenge of working in their new space, they’ve set a new high standard against which all future WTC productions may be judged.

Who We Love
Believe it or not, we love every actor in this play. No one is mis-cast, and no one ever misses the mark. The most heavily burdened role, obviously, rests on the toned shoulders of Wade McCollum, who alternately embodies illness, cynicism, vanity, vulnerability, madness, love and lust with the aforementioned superhuman, gorgeous grace. But we’d also like to give a special shoutout to Gretchen Corbett and Lorraine Bahr, who split all the bit roles from Rabbi, to crazy bum, to heavenly angel—and pull each one off with amazing alacrity. And Playhouse newcomer Berwick Haynes carries a lot of the comic relief with a nuanced flair.

In Summary
Even if you don’t plan to see another play this season, even if you are jaded about the subject matter, even if you’d rather indulge your cozy Christmas spirit than be given shivers— Angels in America is a non-negotiable must-see.

*"Oh, Culturephile, you say that to all the plays." Not so. Visit our theater archive if you want to cross-check.

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Tags: Theater, Review