Well, Fertile Ground happened, and while I offered a few prognostications, for the first time in many years I didn’t get out to see those shows. Can you please use the comments to tell me, and more importantly each other, what you loved? With a festival that’s so egalitarian by nature, community opinions should hold the most sway anyway.
Now then:
The word around ArtsWatch via our reviewer TJ Acena is that Magellanica, which recreates the feeling of its setting, Antarctica, with a glacially paced 5+ hour runtime, is “worth it.” I believe it. If I had to pick a group of people to get marooned in the Antarctic wilderness with, I’d actually consider Artists Rep’s company of actors. They’re versatile and compassionate, and they can make fire.
Corrib’s all-age-appropriate Lifeboat closes at Northwest Children’s Theater this weekend, making way for Chitra, The Girl Prince, NWCT’s second major collaboration with Indian dance expert Anita Menon (the first being 2015’s Jungle Book). Nice to see Ken Yoshikawa pop up in a kids’ production and what looks like a romantic lead. His earnestness will not be lost on all ages.
What else?
To continue the children’s/youth theater theme, Oregon Children’s Theatre’s Young Professionals company of high school age actors, which typically takes on more mature-themed projects than the main company, continues its run of Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s modern take on the myth of Orpheus.
More from those ancient Greeks: Veteran actor/director Tobias Andersen is directing a modern-dress adaptation of Antigone, based on Jean Anouilh’s version, for North Portland’s Twilight Theater Company. Tobias calls it “a brilliant adaptation/translation.”
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Triangle Productions is opening a double-header of provocative short plays: a revival of Lanford Wilson’s pre-Stonewall first play, 1964’s The Madness of Lady Bright, an early work in the gay-theater movement; and the premiere of Donnie’s TRANS-formation, about the pioneering transsexual George/Christine Jorgensen.
In Tigard, Broadway Rose is busily playing out the humor (and the melody) of a life of crime in the musical comedy Murder for Two. Everything’s better when you share it with a friend.
Boom Arts is partnering with PICA to host feminist performance artist Penny Arcade and her post-gentrification critique Longing Last Longer; Friderike Heuer wrote about Boom Arts’s larger mission for ArtsWatch.
Brett Campbell previews Bag&Baggage’s Solofest gathering of solo performance pieces, among them Damaris Webb’s The Box Marked Black: Tales from a Halfrican American Growing Up MulaDo.
Also reviewed recently in ArtsWatch: DeAnn Welker has a crazy good time with Pete the Cat: The Musical at Oregon Children’s Theatre (you could, too). And Marty Hughley takes the long and twisted and theatrically engaging empire-building ride with Part Two of Chris Coleman’s adaptation Astoria at The Armory.
3 Responses
“The Madness of Lady Bright” was not Lanford Wilson’s “first play.” Before it, he produced three at the Caffe Cino, “So Long at the Fair,” “No Exit,” and “Days Ahead.”
I apologize for errors in my prior e-mail comment. Lanford Wilson’s three plays produced at the Caffe Cino before”The Madness of Lady Bright”were”So Long at the Fair,” “Home Free,” and one entitled not “No Exit,” but “No Trespassing.” “Days Ahead” is now attributed to a later date. Again, my apologies.
Robert, thanks for setting the record straight. I remember reading “So Long at the Fair” and another early one, “Ludlow Fair,” years ago, and I’ve seen “Lady Bright” but a long time ago. The Caffe Cino / La Mama days must’ve been really interesting, before Wilson went on to help found Circle Rep.