NWCT's Honk! The Ugly Duckling Musical Image: Annaliese Moyer

STAGE

8 Views Towards Center

A new play about the meaning of womanhood, by Portlander Francesca Sanders. Integrity Productions at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 286-3456. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 4 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 4. $15.

Chocolate Confessions

Right from the get-go with the Ethel Mermanesque opening number, "Everything's Coming Up Chocolate!," Joan Freed's one-woman musical is trouble. A veritable gorgefest of saccharine sweetness and ooey, gooey cocoa-cuteness, Freed's Chocolate Confessions delivers the type of vaudevillian corniness and banana-peel humor aimed to please the palates of those who delight in groan-inducing puns and jazz hands. The mostly middle-aged (and older) audience loved it, gobbling up Freed's painful gags and antics like, well, you know. After numbers like "The Biggie Wiggie Chocolate Boys," "It's Still Rocky Road to Me" and "Craving 9 to 5" (not Dolly! Is nothing sacred?), Freed launches into "The Candy Bar Wrap Rap," complete with backward baseball cap, wiggidy-wack dance moves and the lyrics, "Yo, fool!/ Whatcha gonna do/ when ya wanna try and score some chocolate?" You have to admit that Freed is skilled at what she does—she sings! She dances! She writes original tunes as tributes to Betty Crocker, and she transforms classic songs like "Mrs. Robinson" into ditties about a 31-flavor ice-cream empire!—but this much sugar is bad for you. ANNIE BETHANCOURT. World Trade Center Theater, 25 SW Salmon St., 784-6220. 7:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 18. $29-$31.

Cabaret

Let's get this out of the way right now: This is the finest, most enjoyable production of a musical we've seen from PCS, and director Chris Coleman, to date. Storm Large is electric as Sally Bowles, monopolizing the audience's attention no matter how hard Wade McCollum, the ominous and menacing Emcee, tries to steal focus. Acting is good all around with the exception of NYC import Romain Frugé, who makes a dull straight man (sort of) in the character of Cliff Bradshaw. There's a lot of sex and a lot of pain in this show, but it's (rightly) more grotesque than sensual, and the heat only really rises during Storm's solos. You can't tamp that fire. That said, Cabaret has a problem: The set makes ingenious use of a revolving stage, but it doesn't work well; at least, it didn't on opening night. During a climactic scene in Act I, the stage manager stopped the show, pulling the cast and audience out of the moment to fix a problem with its revolve. PCS needs to get their tech issues worked out fast (word is they'll be fixed this week) if it wants to keep up the good word-of-mouth the show deserves. Fun aside, this story is now more timely than ever—the last scene of Coleman's production, in which the Kit Kat Club performers huddle together as Hitler screams over the radio, is a warning: Don't let this happen again. Portland Center Stage at the Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 pm Sundays, 2 pm Oct. 20, noon Oct. 11 and 18. Closes Nov. 11. $18.50-$63.50.

Defending the Caveman

[OPENS FRIDAY] Portlander Isaac Lamb brings Rob Becker's celebration of early '90s machismo back to town. Theater Mogul at the Winningstad Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 224-4400. 8 pm Fridays, 5 and 8 pm Saturdays. Opens Oct. 12. $43+ (Ticketmaster).

Double Feature

Two original one-acts, written and directed by Imago's Jerry Mouawad: "The Father-thing," inspired by a Philip K. Dick story about a body-snatching alien, and "Serial Killer Parents," about, well, the parents of a serial killer. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 231-9581. 7:30 pm Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays. Closes Oct. 27. $15-$22.

Ghosts of Celilo

[CLOSES SUNDAY] Centered on the drowning of Celilo Falls in 1957, Marv Ross' long-anticipated musical is the story of Chokey Jim, a 15-year-old Native boy who's kidnapped into the well-intentioned Christian brainwashing of an Indian school and has to escape to catch a fish and become a man before Celilo disappears forever. The centerpiece of Ghosts is Ross' lovely and effective score, which borrows from Broadway, pop and Native folk songs. Acting tends toward hysteric hyperventilation—Corey Brunish, playing a gung-ho army engineer, seems like Nathan Lane next to the breathless panic of the rest of the cast—but the cast sings beautifully. Production values are high: This nicely lit set also makes use of a revolve, and a functional one at that. The loss of Celilo to harness the Dalles Dam's hydroelectric power is a terrible and oft-overlooked chapter in Oregon history, and Ross and Artists Rep should be commended for bringing it to the stage. Cultural importance and artistic achievement aren't necessarily the same thing, though, and while the show succeeds as a history lesson and a memorial, it fails as dramatic literature—the dialogue alternates between blunt exposition and overt melodrama. Were the story fictional, the show would fall flat, but Ghosts is empowered by history, and that alone may be enough to give it life beyond the run of this production. Artists Repertory Theatre at the Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday. Closes Oct. 14. $40.50-$50.

Grace

Third Rail's hyperbolic success may owe less to the ensemble's many talents than it does to their infatuation with witty big-ideas playwright Craig Wright. This nuanced theological argument disguised as a domestic tragicomedy reverently dissects faith, loyalty and the problem of evil through the terrible confluence of a freeway accident, a financial disaster and a war crime—and it's the best show I've seen on any Portland stage since The Pavilion, Third Rail's last Wright production. Grace is at turns desolate and hilarious, specific and universal. Everything about the production is extraordinary: Damon Kupper, Stephanie Gaslin, Leif Norby and Doug Mace give superb performances; Tim Stapleton's set and Michael Mazzola's lighting are stark and frightening; Jen Raynak's ambient sound is a broadcast from a mechanical inferno. You get the idea? Drop whatever you're doing and order your tickets now. You don't want to miss this one. Third Rail Repertory at Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N Interstate Ave., 235-1101. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Oct. 27. $16-$25.

Honk! The Ugly Duckling Musical

[NEW REVIEW] Surely there is a great musical comedy that some Portland company can mount to showcase the shining vocal and comic talents of our very own James Wesley Peppers. Honk!, which he handily walks away with at Northwest Children's Theater, is not that show. Winningly committed to every winking line of dialogue and each sappy song in the duo role of Duckling daddy Drake and chief goose Greylag, Peppers adds needed heat to an otherwise lukewarm new English musical adaptation by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe—stretched here to two and a half kiddie attention-span-testing hours—of the Hans Christian Andersen fable (Stephen Alexander, stage and music director). Promising work from young Connor Weil as Ugly, stage vet Kristi L. Foster as a warm-voiced Ida, and pint-sized Lea Zawada in several small roles. STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN. Northwest Children's Theater and School, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480. 7 pm Fridays, 2 and 7 pm Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Oct. 28. $16-$20.

House & Garden

[CLOSES SUNDAY] Although these interlocking comedies by Alan Ayckbourn—performed simultaneously on Artists Rep's two stages by the same cast—can be enjoyed individually; it's as impossible to perform one without the other as it would be to stage them. Both involve one day in the lives of several couples at an English estate. House, a well-constructed "traditional" drama, is set in the sitting room; Garden, a more wild and sporadic show, obviously takes place in the garden. House, full of politicking and negotiation, finds people up to the usual upper-class marital shenanigans, while Garden lets loose the random absurdity of the natural world, with confused people dashing in and out of bushes, dancing in the rain and generally behaving foolishly. The thematic split between the civilized (if vicious) house and the Arcadian garden strongly echoes Shakespeare's As You Like It, even though the experience feels more like Altman's Gosford Park. Very much like Altman's, the action flows by in crashes and spurts—appropriate for a show with a central metaphor involving a clogged fountain and broken china. Both plays are well directed by Jon Kretzu and Allen Nause and joyfully performed by an enormous ensemble of many of the city's finest actors, and both will make for a satisfying evening. If you see just one, though, see House, which makes more sense on its own. Overall, it's an ambitious project, and one that could have gone terribly wrong. It hasn't, and Artists Rep can add another feather to its cap. BEN WATERHOUSE. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1516 SW Alder St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 pm Sundays, 11 am Oct. 3. Closes Oct. 14. $25-$47, $20 students.

The Illustrated Man

[CLOSES SUNDAY] Tobias Andersen, a longtime friend of Ray Bradbury, premieres his solo adaptation of the sci-fi master's revered 1951 story collection. The Osterman Theatre, Clackamas Community College, 19600 Molalla Ave., Oregon City, 657-6958. 7 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2:30 pm Sunday. Closes Oct. 14. $10-$20.

The Lesser Magoo

[CLOSES SATURDAY] After four seasons, defunkt theatre has finally made it to the last installment of the Crowtet (Mac Wellman's loosely connected quartet chronicling the bizarre adventures of Susannah Curran), a feat only one other company in the country has ever pulled off. This time we see Curran (fresh from a journey to bury the moon with the prophetical Mr. William Hard in last year's Second-Hand Smoke) conducting a brutal job interview in a mysterious office and attending a dinner party that devolves into magical shenanigans in the woods. As usual, defunkt has furnished this difficult beast of a play with excellent set, sound and costume design, continuing to play with the ribbon theme established in Second-Hand Smoke. James Moore, Frances Binder, Danika Stochosky and company handle the absurd language gamely, and belt out the musical interludes with abandon. It takes an almost lunatic courage to pull off a project as obscure and financially untenable as the Crowtet, but there are few companies more courageous than defunkt. Bless 'em, by Great Toothy. BEN WATERHOUSE. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 481-2960. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday. Closes Oct. 13. $10-$15, Thursday is "pay what you will."

Mariela in the Desert

[CLOSES SATURDAY] Alternately set in the 1930s and the 1950s, this play by Karen Zacharias tells the story of two artists who move to the desert outside Mexico City with the dream of creating a gathering place for artists such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. But as the years pass, their own work becomes stunted by isolation, the pressure to match the fame of their contemporaries and the struggle for autonomy between husband and wife. The first in Miracle Theater's 2007-08 series of Risk and Rebellion, Mariela in the Desert is a dense, dark play, layered with complexity and brushed with surrealist machinations. Though at times the drama is laid on a little thick, Miracle's actors are unflinching, resulting in a performance that seems part telenovela, part surrealism. STACY RIGER. Miracle Mainstage at the Milagro Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 236-7253. 7:30 pm Thursday, 8 pm Friday-Saturday. Closes Oct. 13. $18-$20.

The Nerd

[CLOSES SATURDAY] You've heard of that book The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life It's probably inspired by this play, about a houseguest who ruins his host's career in one hilariously tragic dinner party, inspiring his friend to take revenge. BEN WATERHOUSE. Public Playhouse at the CoHo Theatre, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 922-0532. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday. Closes Oct. 13. $14-$16.

Riddance

[SHORT RUN] Wendy Wilcox directs a Scots tale of secrets, betrayal and a vacuum cleaner. Readers Theater Repertory at Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 295-4997. 8 pm Friday-Saturay, Oct. 12-13. $8.

Seascape

[CLOSES SATURDAY] Edward Albee's 1975 beachfront drama about love, evolution and giant sea lizards. Yeah, I said lizards. Arts Equity at the Main Street Theater, 606 Main St., Vancouver, 360-695-3770. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday. Closes Oct. 13. $10-$24.

Six Degrees of Separation

[OPENS SATURDAY] Profile kicks off its season of plays by John Guare with his 1990 play about rich white people and a borderline nutjob, claiming to be the son of Sidney Poitier, who disrupts their lives. Profile Theatre at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 242-0080. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Opens Oct. 13. $12-$28.

Sometimes Toilet Water

[OPENS SATURDAY] A new show for children "written mostly by kids and performed mostly by adults." The CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 380-3516. 2 pm Saturdays. Opens Oct. 13. $10, $5 children.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Is this new old musical a pastoral girl-gets-boy love story, or is it a period pastiche? Are its characters cartoon vibrant or human flesh and blood? In Lakewood Theatre Company's ramshackle production, directed and choreographed by Milli Hoelscher, this is never clear. Young Millie Dillmount's coming-of-age story in modern Manhattan may be tricked out with all the necessary musical-comedy baubles—bob cuts and flapper dresses, happy tappers and Jeanine Tesori's pleasant jazz-tinged score—but the characters in Rich Morris and Dick Scanlan's wisp of a book, which is both less entertaining and burdened with more race-baiting than the 1967 movie on which the musical is based, rarely register as more than smiley cardboard cutouts. In the title role, Kelly Stewart hits her marks and taps with enthusiasm; she gets competent assistance from Sarah Dresser (as Mrs. Meers), Amanda Valley (Muzzy Van Hossmere) and Sammuel Hawkins (Trevor Graydon). STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN. Lakewood Theatre Company at Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 7 pm Sundays, 2 pm Oct. 14 and 21. Closes Oct. 21. $26-$28.

Turning the Beam

[ONE NIGHT ONLY] A reading Joshua Rollins' story about an alcoholic doctor whose malpractice may have killed a prisoner under his care. Cheery! Portland Theatre Works at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St. 7 pm Monday, Oct. 15. Free.

Who Stole My Dead Husband?

[EXTENDED RUN] Lou Pallotta's Italo-sploitation family dinner theater, starring Jim Caputo, continues through December. Madison's East Wing, 1125 SE Madison St., 800-966-8865. 7:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays. Closes Dec. 22. $60-$69, dinner included.

COMEDY

Brody Theater, Theatresports improv

Nine months after losing their basement home to gentrification, the Brodys are back in the Northwest with a six-week run of their signature participatory improv at the CoHo Theater. 2257 NW Raleigh St., 224-0688. 10:30 pm Saturdays. Closes Oct. 20. $6-$8.

Mike Daisey, All Stories are Fiction

Daisy's "21 Dog Years: Doing Time at Amazon.com" was a big hit at Portland Center Stage in 2005. Now, fresh from a highly publicized confrontation with some uptight religious types, the hilariously angry fat man is back for one night with his new show. Fir Acres Theatre, Lewis & Clark College, 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Oct. 16. $15.

CLASSICAL

Beautifully Bold

What to do on a season-opening symphony program? Everything, of course! Portland Columbia Symphony Music Director Huw Edwards stirs up a mixed pot of big-britches orchestral works, including Rossini's William Tell Overture, the Grieg Piano Concerto with 15-year-old local keyboard whiz Eloise Kim, and a jumble of works by Handel, Liszt and Mussorgsky. First United Methodist Church, 1838 SW Jefferson St., 234-4077. 8 pm Friday, Oct. 12. $5-$25.

Endre Hegedüs in Recital

"Something about her repels me!" Frédéric Chopin is rumored to have said about the Baroness Dudevant (née George Sand), but that didn't stop him from bagging her. That's harsh but true, although Sand got in her share of sassy snaps by writing Lucrezia Floriani, in which the stand-in character for Chopin (Prince Karol) is described in tones that might politely be described as unflattering. Let's choose to remember instead the thoughtful, delicate Chopin, he of the gentle ballades and nocturnes, and Hungarian pianist Endre Hegedüs throws pianistic light on that profile of the composer in this, his second Portland appearance. He also ramps up the flair factor with dazzling waltzes and Wagner transcriptions from Franz Liszt, a composer Hegedüs has snatched up a few awards for championing. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 800-838-3006. 7:30 pm Friday, Oct. 12. $10-$25.

Spanish Splendor

Singer Cathy Berberian was the most commanding late 20th-century classical singer you probably haven't heard of. In a repertoire ranging from John Cage to the Beatles—you simply haven't heard "Ticket to Ride" until you've heard Berberian elocute the lyrics so...perfectly—Berberian stripped away the artifice of great art song-singing and laid her voice bare before us. Her sometime-husband, the composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003), composed a perfect set of 11 songs for Berberian, the Folk Songs, in at least eight languages and as many styles. Rising mezzo Patricia Risley sings them here with the Oregon Symphony, and Carlos Kalmar conducts that and another Spanish-flavored work, Manuel de Falla's vibrant Three-Cornered Hat. And there's a Haydn Symphony (No. 93 in D Major) thrown on the docket, too. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 228-1353. 7:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, 8 pm Monday, Oct. 13-15. $28-$93.

Beethoven Sonata Cycle, Part 2

Eldred Marshall's Beethoven marathon lunacy continues apace. Saturday night is the Moonlight Sonata (Charlie Brown plays it before being hounded, per usual, by his nemesis slash lover Lucy); Sunday features the strange and heartbreaking Les Adieux. Onward! Community Music Center, 3350 SE Francis St., 823-3177. 8 pm Saturday, 4 pm Sunday, Oct. 13-14. Free.

MetOpera Oregon District Auditions

A WW "Best of Portland" '07 pick, and here's why: 20+ young opera singers. More than six hours of full-throated Bellini highs and even better operatic nosedives. A parade of spangly, swanky diva couture. And it costs all of 10 bucks. Some of the region's best (and occasionally most misguided) young opera talent duke it out on the PSU Lincoln Hall stage in the MetOpera national talent search; the Oregon winners move on to Seattle in the winter, with the chance to sing it up on the hallowed Met stage next spring. One stunning singer, steely Angela Meade, emerged at the top of the Oregon district last year: She went on to capture a top spot in the national competition. Who knows what Flemings and Battles await this year's audience? PSU's Lincoln Performance Hall, 620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 1 pm Sunday, Oct. 14. $10.?

Russian Choral Music

Oregon Repertory Singers open their 34th season with Rachmaninoff's exquisite Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. ORS's resident director Gil Seeley takes the podium for selections from Alfred Schnittke's haunting Concerto for Choir and other Russian choral works. First United Methodist Church, 1838 SW Jefferson St., 230-0652. 3:30 pm Sunday, 7:30 pm Monday, Oct. 14-15. $15.

DANCE

Agnieszka Laska Dancers

The contorted body language of the war (think Abu Ghraib) has burned itself into our retinas. Now Laska, aided by Luis Arreguin, has translated that language to movement and moving pictures in The Fall '01. A 45-minute video, shot last September in Mexico, captures Laska's multimedia treatment of torture and violence and will screen at libraries around town this month before the piece makes its local debut in November. Central Library, 801 SW 10th Ave., 233-0512. 2 pm Thursday, Oct. 11. Free.

BalletLab

Just as origami gives its raw material new dimension, Australia's BalletLab reshapes the essential elements of classical dance. Choreographer Phillip Adams, who performed the mind-bending work of Bebe Miller and recent Portland visitor Donna Uchizono back in the day, uses Japanese pop culture (manga, Godzilla) as an entry point to explore a headier subject—how shifting shapes alter their surrounding spaces—in Origami, which makes its West Coast debut here. Buro Architects and 3 Deep Design contribute the origamilike set. Adams also offers local intermediate- and advanced-level dancers a master class on partnering, improv and choreographic development. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 11-13. $16-$26. Class at Conduit Dance, 918 SW Yamhill St., Suite 401, 221-5857. 11 am Friday, Oct. 12. $15 (reservations suggested).

Luciana Proaño

Ray Bradbury, the author who unnerved a generation with The Martian Chronicles, is less known for his 1955 children's picture book Switch on the Night, about a little boy who's scared of the dark. But Switch was a bedtime staple in Proaño's family for many years, and now she's sharing it with a wider audience in a family-friendly bilingual production with Peruvian flavor. Will Hornyak is the storyteller in this show, which blends dance with stilt walking, masks, video games and live music by JB Butler and Martín Zarzar of Pink Martini. Da Vinci Arts Auditorium, 2508 NE Everett St., 977-0620. 7 pm Friday-Saturday, 6 pm Sunday, Oct. 12-14. $5-$10.

Oregon Ballet Theatre

If ever a piece deserved its name, it's William Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, a bracing exercise in torque and timing that, when done well, is enough to leave you dizzy. Forsythe's work makes its Oregon Ballet Theatre debut at the '07-'08 season opener, The Germanic Lands, themed as follows: Forsythe, an American who once helmed Frankfurt Ballet, set Thrill to Schubert; James Kudelka's Mostly Mozart (a celebration of the composer) is also on the bill, along with OBT Artistic Director Christopher Stowell's revamped A Midsummer Night's Dream, set to Mendelssohn and apparently inspired by Oregon's old-growth forests, which is where the theme pretty much ends. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 222-5538. 7:30 pm Saturday Oct. 13; 2 pm Sunday, Oct. 14. $16-$105.