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BY STEFFEN SILVIS
JULIUS CAESAR
With Jacque Drew and Doug Miller now at the helm, Tygres Heart Shakespeare
Company begins a new chapter with Julius Caesar. The play, as
Mary McCarthy noted, is "about the tragic consequences that befall idealism
when it attempts to enter the sphere of action." One trusts this will
fail to describe Drew and Miller's idealistic and noble undertaking
on behalf of a turbulent company. Both are fine actors, perhaps the
best we have devoted to the classics, and they are deeply committed
to the work. With Caesar, Miller places the action in the U.S.
Senate, with Tom Lasswell in the role of Caesar, Eric Newsome as Brutus
and Kevin Otos as Anthony. Cassius will be played by the talented Deanna
Wells. (See music calendar for Portland Opera's production of Julius
Caesar.)
TYGRES HEART SHAKESPEARE COMPANY AT THE WINNINGSTAD THEATER, PORTLAND
CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, 1111 SW BROADWAY, 222-9220. OPENS THURSDAY,
OCT. 1. $8-$28.
UBU ROI
Starting its season in the old Asylum space, the innovative Other
Side Theater will produce the great forerunner of surrealism and absurdist
drama, Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. With a new translation by Dale
Luciniano, the head of drama at Southern Oregon University in Ashland,
Charmian Creagle directs members of the regular company, which includes
Sean Doran, Jennifer Hoyt, John McDonald, Vanessa Rios y Valles and
Ryan Schaufler. With its Rabelaisian scatology and anti-bourgeois broadsides,
Ubu Roi's première in Paris in 1896 incited the type of
riots that greeted Hugo's Hernani and Stravinsky's The Rites
of Spring. After witnessing the first night, Yeats declared Jarry
"the Savage God." An intriguing choice from a fearless company.
THE OTHER SIDE THEATER AT THE BACK DOOR THEATER (FORMERLY THE ASYLUM),
4319 SE HAWTHORNE BLVD., 938-1482. OPENS THURSDAY, NOV. 1. $8-$12.
TRAILER PARK PARADISE
For many, theater in Portland is defined by Imago, whose sheer inventiveness
and power have won it a following among those who believe theater should
be a transcendent experience. As we go to press, the official production
list for the season remains unfinished. There are rumors of a "classic"
being explored, but whether this means Greek or Tudor is unclear. There
are also rumors of a stylized production of a Tennessee Williams play,
staged with animation figures in an elaborate miniature set (Camino
Real perhaps?). But at any rate, there will be a new piece entitled
Trailer Park Paradise, devised by co-artistic director Carol
Triffle, who created the brilliant Ginger's Green last season.
Expect the profane to be wedded to the profound. Expect the inexplicable.
Expect to discover how astonishing theater can be.
IMAGO THEATER, 17 SE 8TH AVE., 231-9581. OPENS MID-NOVEMBER. TICKET
PRICES TBA.
ANNE BOGART'S BOB
Co-artistic director of the Saratoga International Theater Institute,
which she founded with Tadashi Suzuki, Anne Bogart has become one of
America's greatest stage directors. As a theorist, she has revolutionized
acting in this country by developing a new physical language for performers
based on the philosophy and practice of Asian martial arts, in particular
Tai Chi Chuan. In her latest piece, Bob, Bogart looks at one
of her few peers, director Robert Wilson (see music calendar). Although
Wilson is the leading character in this piece, Bogart does not attempt
to explicate his life or his art; as Robert Wilson, the character, says,
"You can't explain theater--you have to experience it." Bogart, too,
should be experienced firsthand.
PICA AT THE NORTHWEST NEIGHBORHOOD CULTURAL CENTER, 1819 NW EVERETT
ST., 242-1419. OPENS THURSDAY, JAN. 15. $14-$17.
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ANSE AND BHULE IN NO-MANS LAND
Sowelu, an offshoot of Stark Raving, is one of two new theaters
to watch for this season. Barry Hunt has struck out to form a company
dedicated to the serious expansion of the theater library. Aiding Hunt
is a promising company of artists. Along with such fine performers as
Chris Harder, Sean Skvarka and Nan Gatchel, Sowelu boasts Lorraine Bahr
and Jordy Oakland, two of the best actors in Portland. The season begins
with John Patrick Shanley's Savage in Limbo and ends with Dario
Fo's Abducting Diana. But the most audacious project will be
The Further Adventures of Anse and Bhule in No-Mans Land, subtitled
"a post-apocalyptic buddy tale of love, death and transfiguration,"
by Tania Myren. Myren has created (like William Gibson and Anthony Burgess)
an original language for her piece, which is to be performed in a style
rooted in past rituals. It will be directed by the gifted actor Gretchen
Corbett, whose occasional forays into populist drivel must be forgiven.
SOWELU THEATER AT THE BACK DOOR THEATER (FORMERLY THE ASYLUM), 4319
SE HAWTHORNE BLVD., 230-2090. OPENS THURSDAY, JAN. 15. $6-$15.
IMPROBABLE THEATER'S 70 HILL LANE
70 Hill Lane is the first major undertaking of this London-based
ensemble, which consists of writer-actor-director Phelim McDermott,
designer-animator-puppeteer Julian Crouch and actor-director Lee Simpson.
Founded on McDermott's encounter with a ghost as a teenager, 70 Hill
Lane has garnered praise from both sides of the Atlantic. "This
show suggests, in an eloquent, original and purely theatrical language,
that the rawest materials of life are themselves so pregnant with mystery
and the capacity for change that disguising them is beside the point...,"
wrote Ben Brantley of The New York Times. "[Improbable Theater]
achieves what sleight-of-hand magicians cannot: a sense that the natural
and supernatural are really the same thing." Raw-edged puppetry meshed
with innovative stagecraft, Improbable Theater promises to summon up
a world of infinite possibilities.
PICA AT THE HOLLYWOOD THEATER, 4122 NE SANDY BLVD., 242-1419. OPENS
FRIDAY, JAN. 29. $10-$16.
JULIE TAYMOR
One of the most provocative and imaginative directors/ designers
working at present, Julie Taymor has only now gained the attention she
deserves with the stage version of Disney's The Lion King. Taymor
has amassed a body of work that is astonishing in its catholicity. She
is a master puppeteer, a major director of Shakespearean texts, a filmmaker
and an important theorist of theater. That Disney recognized her immense
talent and allowed her free reign over its Broadway product indicates
that there may well be hope for American culture. With her film of Titus
Andronicus nearing release and other theater ventures in development,
The Lion King will probably be the focus of her lecture. Taymor's
inclusion in the Portland Arts and Lectures Series is inspired.
PORTLAND ARTS AND LECTURE SERIES AT THE SCHNITZER CONCERT HALL, 1111
SW BROADWAY, TUESDAY, FEB. 2. TICKET PRICES TBA.
SEASON OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
As we go to press, the Profile Theater Company is searching for
a space. Founded earlier this year by Lisa deGrace and Jane Ungar, Profile
quickly made its mark on Portland Theater with its short season of plays
by Arthur Kopit. The first full season was to have been devoted to the
work of Tennessee Williams, but the company's landlord, the Portland
Art Museum, saw fit to deny Profile a new lease, instead letting a Seattle
company commandeer the Main Street Theater to launch the latest wad
of Catholic kitsch, Late Nite (sic) Catechism. The vulgarity
of the Museum's decision will come as no shock to local artists and
connoisseurs of prints, but one would've thought that the hideously
successful Tony-n-Tina extravaganza would be enough light-minded
camp for one building. Because of this, The Notebook of Trigorin
has been tragically scrapped while Profile hunts up a home. Look
for The Night of the Iguana sometime in February.
CRIMINAL GENIUS
In last year's stage essay, this writer issued a modest wish-list
for the coming season. Poet Jeff Meyers had been creating some interesting
work with Cygnet, and this scribe voiced hope that Meyers would do for
Portland theater what he had done for local poetry. With the founding
of Theater Vertigo, Meyers, together with Paul Floding and Nanette Pettit,
could very well shake things up; along with Sowelu, this is the theater
to watch for. Starting a season of late-nights, the company will present
three plays by Canadian playwrights. The Two-Headed Room-Mate, by
Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCulloch, will receive its American
première, as will Daniel MacIvor's dark attack on corporate life,
Never Swim Alone. But the one not to miss is George F. Walker's
Criminal Genius, if for no better reason than that this excellent
playwright is still relatively unknown. One of the plays in his Suburban
Motels series, Criminal Genius is a hilarious black comedy.
THEATER VERTIGO AT THE BACK DOOR THEATER (FORMERLY THE ASYLUM), 4319
SE HAWTHORNE BLVD., 241-4505. OPENS, THURSDAY, MARCH 11. $7-$10.
LIBERATION
Stark Raving Theater has begun its season again with its New Rave
Festival, a public workshopping of new pieces. The festival has always
been an artistic success, and many new plays tried out at the festival
have gone on to full production. One playwright whose work has benefitted
from this approach is Steve Patterson; Stark Raving produced his once-workshopped
Sean Flynn play last season and will this year produce his Liberation.
There are already good comments circulating about this play, and a chance
to see a part of it will be provided at the festival. The rest of the
season at Stark sounds just as promising. There will be plays by Raymond
J. Barry and Judy Sheehan, as well as a New Wave in Rep., which will
include Angela Meyer's play on André Breton, Trust, and
Connor Kerns' new play on Gerard Manley Hopkins, Where No Storms
Come--but mark the date for Patterson.
STARK RAVING THEATER AT THEATER! THEATER!, 3430 SE BELMONT ST., 232-7072.
OPENS THURSDAY, MARCH 11. TICKET PRICES TBA.
originally published
September 9, 1998
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