Mix up

[March 28th, 2007] In a tiny little house, Ariel (Meiko Mitchell) tries to pack up the belongings of her senile grandpa, Bill (Kyle Delamarter), while coping with her lunatic grandmother's death and her own uncontrollable methadone addiction. Her burnt-out fiancÉ, Lee (Gerard Williams), downs Mad Dog and tries to coax Ariel out of the tiny bathroom. Bill just shuffles around and mumbles to his cat.

Sure, it sounds like a typical mid-'90s sob fest, but there's something wrong here: The house really is tiny, like an urban child's sketch of a country bungalow. Lee's head is lost in the rafters, and the claustrophobia is palpable. To make matters stranger, there are bizarre bugs all over the set, falling off the walls and leaping out of pockets. Ground-level microphones amplify Imago's notoriously squeaky stage, and Grandma's ghost keeps popping up—as a couple of adorable little girls in matching dresses.

Oh, and everyone's talking in funny voices and moving like clowns.

The overall effect is that the whole performance takes place in a hallucinogenic fog. The acting tends toward overt, absurdist theatricality, and the script is fractured and confusing.

As a critic, I should hate this. But I don't.

Something about Carol Triffle's new show is strangely likable. Maybe it's the little girls; maybe it's the comedic sensibility of clowning applied to tragedy, executed with remarkable finesse by the cast of Imago regulars; or maybe it's just that the show is only an hour long. Whatever the case, I found myself enjoying this weird performance despite myself.

Mix Up comes at an a point of transition for Imago. Frogz, easily the longest-running show in Portland history, will go on indefinite hiatus after this April's run to tour the U.S. and the world, leaving the theater's spring slot wide open. What will fill the space? So far, Imago's creative forces have yet to say. But I'm betting it won't be like this.