 photo by Linda Kliewer |
INTERVIEW Radio Riot A piece of Portland theater history returns to town. BY STEFFEN SILVIS 243-2122 EXT. 343 |
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Talk Radio Painted Maniac at the Sanctuary, Theater! Theatre! 3430 SE Belmont St., 232-7072 8 pm Thursdays-Sundays Closes Feb. 13 $10-$12.50 The journey to Painted Maniac's revival of Talk Radio began in Portland almost 20 years ago. In 1980, Portland artist and writer Tad Savinar met the up-and-coming performance artist Eric Bogosian at the long-lost Portland Center for the Visual Arts (a precursor to PICA that once inhabited a loft space on Northwest 5th Avenue). The two men became friends and made future plans for projects. By the time Bogosian returned to Portland in 1982, he had established himself on the New York scene with work at the Kitchen and the Performing Garage, culminating with a solo piece entitled Men Inside for the New York Shakespeare Festival. "I'd been listening to talk radio for a long time," Savinar says, "and I thought it was great subject matter for a piece. So I asked Eric if he ever listened to talk radio and found out that he didn't. I told him he should." In the early '80s, talk radio was still a fairly localized occurrence. While he painted in his studio, Savinar listened to the talk that spilled out of KKEY-FM and began to see it as a form of community. Bogosian, who followed Savinar's suggestion and began exploring the airwaves, agreed. In the preface that appeared in the published script for Talk Radio, Bogosian wrote, "In Portland, where my collaborator, Tad Savinar, lives, talk radio is reminiscent of the old telephone party lines where everyone else and the subject at hand has a local twang." But there was a shift taking place that both Savinar and Bogosian recognized: Talk radio was leaving its low-watt marginality and exploding into a national phenomenon. Talk Radio premiered at the Portland Center for the Visual Arts in 1985, with Bogosian playing controversial radio host Barry Champlain in front of Savinar's back-projected images. Aided by the acting talents of Michelle Mariana, R. Dee and Bob McGranahan, the piece ran for one weekend only but made a lasting impression. Three years later, Talk Radio was produced by Joseph Papp for the New York Shakespeare Company and then made into a feature film by Oliver Stone. "Each phase of Talk Radio has been true to the rules of the particular medium," Savinar says. "At PCVA it was a rough performance piece, while the New York production and Stone's film were very polished. But it did lose an important element. In Portland, it had the rawness of 2 am--that moment when you wake and you know exactly who you are. We made conscious decisions on the later changes, but the piece became more play than rant." If there is one weakness to this powerful work, it's that talk radio
has saturated American culture to such an extent that some of the original
shock effects of the play are lessened. "To a certain extent it is a
period piece," says Savinar, "but it's still valid. If you want to know
what's really happening in this country you need to listen to country
music, watch soap operas and tune in to talk radio." - - - - - - - - - - - -
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