Hilarity and Disparity at Portland Playhouse

Currently playing at Portland Playhouse: one of my favorite plays of all time, Telethon, by Kristin Newbom. This play focuses on three people with various forms of disability, and their two underpaid, undervalued caretakers, who are only minimally more functional, all within the context of a “treat” for the disabled charges, as all five as adjourn from an unspecified fundraising event to a Dunkin’ Donuts. Most of the play is laugh-out-loud funny, but watch out -- you're being set up.

SPOILER ALERT! If you don’t want to know what happens in the play, read no further.

All five characters are put through a process defined by American holidays that call for or allow dressing up in costume. Over the course of Halloween, Christmas and Easter, the Dunkin’ Donuts bears witness to the changes — subtle, blatant or nonexistent — in their lives.

Telethon’s climax comes, aptly enough, at Easter, a time that celebrates renewal; the two caretakers are about to undergo major reversals of fortune. They're so caught up in their own news that they hardly notice the turmoil they’re causing their charges: one of them seems stunned, another cries quietly, and the third goes to a pay phone and attempts to call 911.

The uproar ends the scene and we segue to the Fourth of July, but now the Dunkin’ Donuts is quiet. And as we take this in the empty stage, we realize those five people will never visit the place together again. The phone is still dangling off the hook and, weirdly, we hear one side of a conversation coming out of it.


Now: when we first presented this play in reading form during JAW, and again now in Portland Playhouse’s excellent production, people have been baffled by this final scene. Some have gone so far as to say the coda has no relation to the play! But you know … it’s always worth our while to assume the playwright had something in mind. Such as an imaginative leap. Or to jump a synapse from one epiphany to the next, and ask you to forge the connection yourself.

In the wake of love lost, of abandoned relationships and the sheer heedlessness of life’s relentless momentum, the emptiness of the stage in this final scene devastates me. The sense of revelation hovering on the fringes, yet always just barely beyond our grasp, reminds me of Beckett’s most moving works.

I therefore want to share the text of this final scene with you (I have Kristin’s blessing and that of the show’s director, Rose Riordan), in the hopes that when you see the play, viewing the footage of the parade described below and hearing half of a conversation that’s like a lifeline to another time, the scene will have the impact for you that it does for me.

Telethon continues through this weekend, closing where the script begins — on Halloween.

.................................................

4. FOURTH OF JULY

THE STAGE IS DARK AND EMPTY.

A FILM IS PROJECTED ON THE BLANK MENU SCREEN. SHAKY HOME
FOOTAGE OF A 4TH OF JULY PARADE IN A SMALL TOWN... PEOPLE ON
FLOATS. COSTUMES. WAVING. KIDS ON BIKES. DOGS. CLOWNS. A
MARCHING BAND. STARS AND STRIPES. THE WHOLE DEAL.

A WOMAN’S VOICE IS HEARD,
THROUGH THE DANGLING PAY PHONE RECEIVER:

Yeah, I know.
It’s strange how things happen.

Uh huh.

Remember that night out on the driveway?

No.
September.

Because the sunflowers had stopped blooming.
I picked the last three and brought them in.
They were a little mangled, but they looked okay.

Yeah.

No.
We had just come back from dinner.
You took us to that little restaurant in your old neighborhood.
What was it?

Yeah, Sam’s Wiener House.
That’s right.

Uh huh.

Nine wieners with everything on them,
six orders of fries,
four milkshakes,
a diet coke
and a sprite.
God.
The kids sat at the counter.
Spun around and around on the stools while we talked.

The first house you bought.
The dog you had before the kids were born.
That tattoo you got in the army.
Your job.
Those guys you had to fire.
Your brothers and sisters.
The town where you grew up.
The Sunday morning flea market.
Your grandmother’s farm.
The stack of Penthouses and bag of weed you had hid in her shed.
How your parents died.
Your first girlfriend.
What was her name?

Oh yeah.

You knew just when to leave.
Before the kids threw up from too much spinning.

I offered to pay.
You said it was your treat.

On the way back you showed us the best trick or treat house.
The one where the guy dressed up in stilts as Uncle Sam?
Remember?

Yeah.

When we got back we stood there in the driveway.
The kids rode their bikes around and around
And the sky turned from blue to orange.
You only had a few minutes before you had to go.

You looked so sad that night.

We want to make sense of it all.
Want to grasp onto some kind of reason for the hurt.

It all goes by so quickly doesn’t it?

They are ripped from us.
All of them.

They come into our lives.
The people we care for
Or who take care of us.
The ones we love and look after.
The ones who love us back
Despite it all.
And then they go.
Sometimes in a flash
Without any warning.
Other times in a long and lingering dance.

Yet the wars continue.
One grows into the next.
Kings and queens are killed and born again.
Discoveries, great works of art and riches are made, displayed
and forgotten.
We learn to spell.
We memorize the vocabulary words and dutifully we take the tests.
Our tiny world builds upon itself.
Accumulates.
Like soap bubbles in the bath.
We gaze at ourselves, naked
And we wonder-
This world we are creating,
is it -

What?

Oh, that’s okay
I should go too.
Yeah.
Okay.

I will.

Take care.


DIALTONE.
THE FILM WINDS OUT.


END OF PLAY.

I could go on and on....

Why do Portlandians refer to Portland as Portlandia? Damned if I know, but I’ve always loved it that our sardonic affection for the soggy city has come up with this moniker — comparable, perhaps, to San Franciscans invariably referring to their home as The City, or even the more ubiquitous SoCal sobriquet of Ellay.

And now you know there’s this new TV series about to air, Portlandia, which may do for Stumptown what The Drew Carey Show did for Cleveland. Whatever that was. Or was it Cincinnati?

That’s another post. I’m just showing up now to note that there’s been an awesome amount of boundary-busting theatrical activity here lately, and there’s about to be a lot more. I hope you caught Chris Harder’s superb solo piece Fishing for My Father recently, where Chris portrayed a kind of po-mo scary clown (of the machismo sort, not the Krusty variety) and turned it into a meditation on what it means to be male and, ultimately, human.

Just as palpably and inexplicably touching is the current production of Will Eno’s Oh, the Humanity, which has one more weekend over at The Church. As deftly navigated by Our Shoes Are Red/The Performance Lab, this is a sweetly tart collection of short Eno pieces that proves what we already knew: he’s the bastard love child of Samuel Beckett and Jon Stewart. Definitely catch this show.

Actually, autumn’s shaping up pretty fabulously. Theatre Vertigo graces us with Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone starting October 15, plus Third Rail opens soon (well, October 8) with Chris Chibnall’s Kiss Me Like You Mean It.

And ever since I found out Portland Playhouse was going to produce Kirsten Newbom’s astonishing play Telethon -- directed by Rose Riordan, no less -- I’ve been itching for it to get here, but we have to wait till October 7 for that hilarious and disturbing sucker punch. But hey, Hand2Mouth’s Uncanny Valley is about to open at Reed, and is likely to be one of the fall’s most exuberant offerings.

That’s saying something, considering that PICA’s internationally lauded festival TBA:10 opens this Thursday. As always, it opens with a bang; Rufus Wainwright headlines an evening of crooning at the Shnitz that is rumored to includes pieces from his opera, Prima Donna. And which will feature some beloved local figures, including Carlos Kalamar, Thomas Lauderdale and Storm Large.

EFF why eye, I’m one of TBA’s blogging fools this year, so visit Urban Honking daily to see how the opening went, as well as all what’s funny, scary and other provocative for those 10 crazy days and nights.

News flash! Crazy ass theater rocks Portland

Ya, the holiday fare is upon us, including my own contribution to the crowded performance roster. But there are alternatives – antidotes, even. Portland Playhouse’s Bingo with the Indians, while not avowedly an anti-Christmas show, has a wintry feel to it, and is just about as far from 34th Street as you can get at this time of year.

Since the play is by Adam Rapp and aims to be a goddam laff riot, it’s anomalous from the start. It’s Adam at his most delirious and most reckless; the actually storyline doesn’t track, but you soon understand that it’s not a play about careful plotting anyway. One reviewer referred to the script as “grimy surrealism,” which covers it pretty well.

Many people – well, let’s face it, most people – will not appreciate the play’s giddy unwholesomeness or its potty-mouthed banter. (Don’t worry; the trademark Rapp sucker punch appears more than once.) But I was beguiled by its very premise: that what starts out as a demented-looking gang of thugs turns out to be a rag-tag team of downtown theater avant-gardists hoping to fund their next production by knocking over a bingo game.

Go if you dare. And I hope you do. Go for the obscene insults (I’ve tucked a few away for future use), stay for the stand-out performances by John San Nicolas and Lorraine Bahr.

Across town, the best anti-holiday show of the reason is playing at Third Rail: The Lying Kind, by Anthony Neilson, which is set on Christmas Eve. Don’t miss this. How often do you get to see a balls-out farce? I mean: slamming doors, pratfalls and gobsmacking plot reversals, all stemming from a misunderstanding that could have been avoided in the story’s opening seconds. Now that’s entertainment!

But this ain’t Benny Hill. Expect Neilson and Third Rail to find the razor-sharp edge of human nature to hone the humor into something that can cut you. Not since Joe Orton have I seen farce that’s this heedless of its characters’ well-being. But make no mistake, you’ll laugh like a maniac, and even develop affection for the two hapless constables at the heart of the story. As one character puts it, there’s always “a little sweet corn in the turd.”

This Sunday, by the way, December 6, immediately after the matinee performance (i.e., around 4pm), Third Rail’s hosting a panel discussion to explore how Anthony Neilson achieves his hilariously misanthropic magic. Philip Cuomo moderates, and those impaneled include Scott Yarbrough, Victoria Parker-Pohl, and ME. So come on down to the World Trade Center and use the occasion to see a play you will never forget.

PDX jiffy pops

In keeping with my latest dubious honorific as “the Tim Gunn of Portland theater,” here’s a few cultural kernels that are about to pop.

Tomorrow evening (Friday), Fool for Love opens at the CoHo, directed by the always fashion forward Megan Ward, and way to go, guys, for getting the splashy article in The Oregonian today.


Plus, the [First Annual?] Steven Dietz Festival rages on here. Recently Becky’s New Car opened to critical acclaim over at Artists Repertory Theatre, just barely in advance of Portland Playhouse’s popular production of Fiction.

The latter has the edge, however, with the playwright himself appearing after this Saturday evening’s performance for a post-play confabulation with none other than moi-même. But wait, there’s more! Earlier that same day at 2pm, ART hosts a staged reading coproduction of Yankee Tavern, Mr. Dietz's latest play. Portland hearts Steven.


Bonus gratuitous non sequitur

On the national front: apparently Balloon Boy’s not the one getting a spanking now. Bad dad!

Hot time in the old town tonight

Okay, I’m back. After an 11-day hiatus. After seeing this blog's site meter dwindle from nearly 300 at the previous entry to 31 yesterday. Ouch.

Sorry! I wasn’t being a slugabed – quite the contrary. To my ongoing surprise and delight, SuperScript continues to attract clients – who knew it would take off so fast? But now I’m semi-back in the saddle – or back in the Aeron chair, anyway. And I was saying around the corner in The Editing Room, it’s easier just now to repeat other people’s news, so here goes.

Tonight only, head over to Portland Playhouse for a reading an hilarious Adam Rapp play that is scabrous even by his standards: Bingo with the Indians, all about a down-in-the-mouth theater troupe that decides to finance its next production by knocking over a bingo parlor. The dialogue is gut-bustingly snarky, but look out – this is the same Mr. Rapp who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, a few years ago, for the bleak and devastating Red Light Winter. In other words . . . expect reversals of fortune.

Did I mention that Adam’s brother, Anthony, he of Rent fame, he of the above photo, headlines a superb cast? And that the cast of the touring production of Rent is rumored to heading up a celebrity audience? Don’t miss it:

When: Fri., June 26, 11 pm; Phone: 503.488.5822; Price: $10
602 NE Prescott St. :: 503.488.5822 :: portlandplayhouse.org

Doors open at NINE with a live band and other hijinks. Go tonight and someday you’ll be to able to tell your grandkids about it.

But wait, there’s more. Sojourn Theatre, one of the nation’s most innovative companies, is having an event on July 1 that will benefit their next piece, On the Table, which they’re calling their most ambitious endeavor yet. Here’s how artistic director Michael Rohd describes the work in progress:

As this really ambitious project, On The Table, picks up pace (the show will happen Summer 2010 simultaneously in PDX and a small town 50 miles from PDX, and explores the urban/rural conversation in OR, culminating with a bus trip for both audiences and a final Act at an in-between site), we're taking a moment to connect specifically around the support we need to continue making ambitious, local work.

That support is the event pictured below – come if you can, and if you can’t come, consider sending Sojourn a donation. We are so lucky to have this national treasure working right here in Portland OR; I’d love to keep it that way. Details here.