The King Goes
to Tenebrae
Theatre
Vertigo at the Russell Street Theatre, 116 NE Russell St.,
306-0870.
8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays.Closes April 1. $10.
The Devils
opens Sept. 26, 2000.
Portland Center Stage at the Portland Center for the Performing
Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 274-6588. Call for further details
on the 2000-01 season.
Measure
for Measure opens in September at Tygres Heart Shakespeare
Company at the Performing Arts Center, 1111 SW Broadway,
288-8400. Call for further details.
Veteran local actress Gaynor Sterchi once remarked that
Portland's theater is cyclical--periods of high quality
are followed by depths of mediocrity.
Three years ago, someone scanning the listings in these
pages could've been forgiven for believing that the city
offered little aside from grange halls filled with bus-and-truck
sex farces and sing-alongs. For a serious theatergoer, there
was the Lear-like desire "that things might change or cease."
But having reached Hell's floor, things have been looking
up lately. Certainly the most exciting news is that both
Portland Center Stage and Tygres Heart, two prominent companies
that have offered a long run of disappointing fare, have
named new artistic directors, both of whom seem intelligent
and adventurous.
A few weeks back, Portland Center Stage's artistic director,
Chris Coleman, announced his 2000-01 season to the packed
floor of the Newmark. Coleman's presentation amounted to
more than just baiting subscribers with "hits" (of which
there are few). It was a manifesto for change and risk-taking.
Though some members of the old guard were visibly shaking
in their seats, the majority of the audience welcomed Coleman's
audacity with a standing ovation.
In many ways, Coleman's choice for the season opener sets
his tone. Elizabeth Egloff's The Devils is an inspired
adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel and will be directed by
Coleman himself. Following this will be Martin McDonagh's
The Cripple of Inishmaan, directed by Neil Keller
of the La Jolla Playhouse. McDonagh has been one of the
leading lights of the modern Irish theater, though none
of his work has made it to Portland.
The holidays will usher in a new A Christmas Carol
(one without a sponsor's brand on the set), which will then
lead to Patrick Marber's much-discussed Closer. In
the spring, visual artist Nancy Keystone will premiere her
version of Antigone, and the season finishes with
the first musical at PCS, William "Falsettos" Finn's A
New Brain. One additional show, The Gimmick,
will be staged off-site toward the end of the season. Dael
Orlandersmith's play, a parable of salvation through art,
will be a fitting conclusion to the season, as the piece
is also imbued with the spirit of Dostoevsky. Coleman, who
directed the off-Broadway production, returns to the director's
chair.
Next door at the Winningstad Theater, Tygres Heart's new
artistic director, Nancy Doherty, will also strike out boldly.
Her season opens with Measure for Measure, and it's
scheduled to be directed by Charles Marowitz, one of the
most brilliant interpreters of Shakespeare. Marowitz is
known for his associations with the Royal Shakespeare Company
and with director Peter Brook, as well as for being a respected
critic and theorist. After this promising new beginning,
Doherty has scheduled Twelfth Night and King Lear,
which she herself will direct.
Along with Coleman and Doherty, a number of new artists
have recently relocated to Portland to join the battle for
better theater.
Nenad Indic is a Croatian actor-director who was forced
to flee due to war in the Balkans. After five years of involvement
in Berlin's theater, he has come here to create new work,
as has Gwynne Warner, an artist who's worked with the RSC
and with the famous Double Edge group in Boston. Jonathan
Walters and Kari Webber have set up their new company, Hand
2 Mouth, after studying in Poland, while Ian Greenfield,
the artistic director of the new Catamount Theater, has
also come here from Poland after studying with Wlodzimerz
Staniewski.
Both Indic and Warner have studied in Poland as well, which
makes this new infusion of blood quite intriguing. "Poland
is the mother of modern theater," says Indics--an opinion
shared among slavophiles.
Many factors contribute to this new enthusiasm for theater
in Portland. Perhaps the most important is the handful of
recently established companies that have been setting new
standards, such as Liminal, Sowelu and Theatre Vertigo.
The latter company is currently staging George Herman's
chamber-epic of 16th-century French politics, The King
Has Gone to Tenebrae. Herman's play is a witty examination
of an extremely fraught and confusing history, and he molds
his material into a startling and perceptive drama.
Sitting in a nursery, Henry Navarre, King of France, recounts
events that led him to the throne to a wad of shit-stained
diapers that he has comically crowned with his circlet.
The nursery itself is circled by ghosts who join the king
in his play-acting, including Henry III, would-be king Henry
Guise, Marguerite Valois (Dumas' Queen Margot), Catherine
de Médicis and Diane de Poitiers, among others.
The king's tour of memory is packed with the stuff of human
failure: avarice, gluttony and cowardice, with all its revisions
of certainties. But as with the title's mass, Herman's Henry
passes through a black night in the nursery to a life-affirming,
sustaining epiphany (if more carnal than spiritual).
Herman introduces a few characters he fails to use; Elizabeth
of England and Mary Stuart pop in, but to little purpose.
Overall, though, he marshals this troupe of historic personages
with great authority. Jeff Meyers' production is also marked
by a similar command, and although there are some pacing
problems, particularly in Act I, there's a marvelous fluidity
to the piece, which really demands a larger space.
As the three Henrys, Chris Herman gives a dynamic performance
that could use some harnessing. Vocally, Herman too often
shouts, a sign that a line's meaning has yet to be grasped.
His Valois and Guise are clearly delineated, but his Navarre
remains under construction. Still, Herman carries the show
well. Of the other actors, Laura Smith's Marguerite firmly
proves Smith's talent, and Kathrynn Campbell's Louise is
an excellent comic turn. But Debera-Ann Lund's cold and
calculating Catherine is, perhaps, the best character study
of the evening. Lund's dourness drops the room's temperature.
The King Has Gone to Tenebrae is an example of Portland's
return to adventurous and mature theater--hopefully, a sign
of the times.
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 8,
2000
|
