The Brain That Wouldn't Die

There is one company in Portland that is producing truly innovative, avant-garde theater this summer. Its members are young and enthusiastic, and its productions are unlike anything else you've ever seen. And no, I'm not talking about Defunkt or Theatre Vertigo.

LastRites Productions, helmed by total madman Ryan Cloutier, had a surprising amount of success with its first production, January's "Manos": The Hands of Fate. Much of that attention came from reviewers who were shocked that a stage adaptation of what is generally considered the worst movie ever made could be watchable, let alone entertaining.

Now LastRites has returned with another adaptation, this time of Joseph Green's abominably bad The Brain that Wouldn't Die, a film infamous for laughably bad acting and transitions so jarring they leave you with whiplash.

Todd Austin Sabel stars as Dr. Bill Cortner, a renegade surgeon with a jutting chin and a tight polyester suit. After he accidentally decapitates his fiancée, Jan (Sabra Choi), he keeps her head alive in a pan in his laboratory while he goes out looking for a replacement. He is helped along the way by his jumpy assistant, Kurt, played by the inherently funny Brian Adrian Koch. Koch, Cortner and Choi all successfully mimic the weird intensity of acting commonly found in bad monster flicks. On screen, it's boring; in person, it's a little disconcerting.

Cloutier and crew have appropriated all of the tropes of B (OK, D)-movies—hokey music, unintentionally hilarious dialogue, rough editing and Swiss-cheese plots—and molded them into a new kind of comedy. The result is surprisingly pleasing.

The Brain that Wouldn't Die has less in common with spoofs like Mel Brooks' stunning Young Frankenstein than it does with Takashi Miike's insane zombie musical The Happiness of the Katakuris and Warhol-collaborator Paul Morrissey's Blood for Dracula. Like Miike and Morrissey, the LastRites kids have created halfway-respectful homages to the genre while performing their own, lunatic experiments.

Bottom line: Even if you don't find The Brain that Wouldn't Die amusing, you will certainly leave the theater knowing you have witnessed something new.

LastRites Productions at Miracle Theatre, 525 SE Stark St. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays. Closes July 29. $12, $10 students. Thursdays are "pay what you can."

WWeek 2015