A Night at the Drammys

Is it just me or was this a particular wild Drammy ceremony this year?

Once again, I’m happy to report that bloggers more quick on the draw than I am have already covered the particulars, including Alison Hallett over at BlogTown and the ineffable culturejock at Culture Shock. But neither reported on the radiant nimbus sported by Megan Ward, which was so glam as to hold its own against the evening’s other goddess, Storm Large (our tattooed answer to Grace Kelly).

So now I’m free to talk about my favorite part of the evening: myself.

Again this year, the fabulous people at the Portland Area Theatre Alliance hosted a segment of the ceremony called The Spotlight Awards. These are kind of like Portland theater’s version of the People’s Choice Awards; in truly democratic fashion, any PATA member can nominate people who aren’t usually recognized in awards ceremonies: stage managers, for instance, and crew members, and … others.


While I’m as “other” as they come, nobody told me I’d been nominated. By that point in the ceremony, my mind had wandered briefly…I was thinking about the ancient Hitchcock film, Notorious, which I had just discussed with Marissabidilla a couple of nights before, and I wondered if it could be useful to me as I continued to tinker with another Bluebeard adaptation, Gozzi’s Zenobia…

Then all of the sudden I heard my name, and Megan jumped out of her chair and there was all this racket and I thought Oh no, now I’ll have to go up there. So I did, but it was flummoxing in the extreme because I didn’t actually know what I was going there for at that moment. Jen Raynak crowned me with the lovely tiara you see at the right (hand-made by herself), and I said thank you to the microphone and I fled.

Now I regret that; probably I disappointed some people by not saying a few words. (Though no doubt others were grateful.) So I’ll say a very few words now. Now that I know what the distinction was for.

Theater folk of Portland: it means everything to me that you wanted this award to be an encouragement to me. To say you’re proud of me. Because I’m proud of you, too. In the U.S. we have several cities with theater scenes that reflect what’s unique about where they are; I wonder if you realize that Portland is that way, too. There’s nowhere like it. And over the past seven years I’ve seen it grow and knit together till it’s become the city’s last big secret, invisible to many of its citizens but beloved by those have sought it out. I know that many of you could work in bigger markets and more glittery venues. But you choose to be here, and I’m grateful for that.

Gertrude Stein once wrote that personality reflects landscape – you move to San Francisco or Los Angeles knowing that an earthquake could kill you at any second, or instead you stick with certain Midwest states where you can be sure nothing will happen to you for the rest of your life. What does it say about us that we choose to live in this green corner of the wild, wild west? In the shadows of volcanoes, in a greenbelt between an ocean and a desert? I think it’s something to do with the DIY, rough and ready ethic of the Northwest – that sense that BY GOD I have something to say and I want to say it where people just might listen.

Seriously, more days than not I think about how lucky I am to live here and to work alongside tireless and dedicated artists who are so incredibly singular. I applaud your individualism, and I’m also gladdened that you can temporarily give it up when it really counts.

It touches me that you count me among your own. Thank you.

Apollo blasts off

Heavens be praised, opening night of Apollo was the soaring experience we all hoped it would be. (The photo above, by Valerie Spencer, is from the Sputnik section in Part 1.) Yes, the show's a marathon, clocking in at this point at 3.5 hours of playing time; yes, it is sometimes frustratingly (though, we hope, purposefully) repetitious. But the consensus is that it’s a visual and aural feast, a great ride, and worth expedition when it arrives at its profoundly moving conclusion.

Not everybody agrees, of course. During the previews this past week, we invited opinions, either through the questionnaires we passed out or via emails to literary@pcs.org. In addition, as always, various members of the artistic staff have been hailed and assailed through phone calls as well as by email. Friday – the morning after the final preview – I was cc’d on an ecstatic email from a teacher who urged her colleagues all over the county to work with us to make sure their students see the production during its brief (three-week) run. That same morning, Chris Coleman got an email from a patron who accused him of mounting the whole thing just to irk her personally.

Make up your own mind. Don’t miss this singular event, the linchpin production of the Fertile Ground Festival. And bear in mind that tonight, the twittering, chittering, chatteringnattering virtual community is invited to sit in the balcony and comment on the production while it’s in progress. I’m seeing Fat Pig tonight, but as soon as I can rush back home and fire up Twitter I’ll be participating in the colloquium, too.

Hope to see you there.

Almost Famous, Chapter 2

Dear Reader,

Yet again I ax you to forgive me for my neglect. It’s been blustery and flustery at stately Wayne Manor recently, with How To Disappear and Never Be Found rehearsing (and thus Rose is MIA), Apollo in previews and Fertile Ground already on the simmer. Yikes! By the way, for a handy blog item that manages to encompass all the above, check out The Mighty Cannon’s recent musings at Culture Shock. The mystery man is really on a roll, a tear, a wild, wild ride........

In the midst of all that the excitement (and let’s face it, stress = stress, even if you are having fun whilst undergoing it), an ongoing oasis for me is always PlayGroup, PCS's writers' unit. Yeah, that’s the gang at right. Our bimonthly meetings are elemental for me – touchstones where I’m reminded that it’s great playwriting that makes all the rest of the madness worthwhile.

As you know, because you never miss a post here, a week ago Monday we hosted a public reading of Patrick Wohlmut’s new play Continuum, the group’s Sloan commission. The omnipresent Barry Johnson, of Oregonian and Art Scatter fame, spoke to Patrick and I in advance of the reading – a conversation I wish could have gone on for much longer. But now Barry’s recorded his impressions of that conversation as one of the inaugural entries on his new column, Portland Arts Watch. You now have to scroll down to January 11, that’s how remiss I’ve been as of late, but if you do you will be rewarded with finding out all about us.

And now for a preview of coming PlayGroup exploits, plucked from the official Fertile Ground calendar:

The Orchard by Althea Hukari
Directed by Olga Sanchez

A Portland Center Stage Playgroup event

Festival Date: Jan. 26 at 7:30pm

Chekhov comes to Hood River in this large-cast, ensemble comedy-drama, with echoes of The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters, about a Finnish-American family in transition. Ms. Hukari is a founding member of PlayGroup, Portland Center Stage's celebrated playwriting unit.

Venue: Main Stage, Gerding Theater at the Armory (128 NW 11th Ave)

Open City
by Althea Hukari, Shelly Lipkin, Ellen Margolis, Steve Patterson, Andrea Stolowitz, Patrick Wohlmut, Nick Zagone, and Matthew B. Zrebski

A Portland Center Stage Playgroup event

Festival Dates: Feb 2 at 7:30 pm

For this group show created by PlayGroup (whose previous escapades include The Clearing, Frenching the Bones and Ten Tiny Playlets) and directed by Matt Zrebski, each playwright pulled a Portland location and a cast size out of hat, then went to work on a short play inspired by those circumstances. The result, presented in rehearsed concert form, is a kaleidoscopic vision of the Rose City that adds up to a town we all recognize.

Venue: Main Stage, Gerding Theater at the Armory (128 NW 11th Ave)

PLUS
A Fully Staged World Premiere

Vitriol and Violets
Music and lyrics by Dave Frishberg, book by Shelly Lipkin, Louanne Moldovan and Sherry Lamoreaux

[ Not a PlayGroup event, but Shelly is a beloved PlayGroup member]

Festival Dates: Jan 23 at 8:00 pm, Jan. 24 at 2:00 and 8:00 pm, Jan 25 at 2:00 pm, Jan 30 at 8:00 pm, Jan. 31 at 2:00 and 8:00 pm, Feb 1 at 2:00 pm.

Full extended run: Jan 16 to Feb 1, 2009

New York, 1920. The Great War is over, and people are hungry to live and laugh again. Nobody laughed more than the "Algonquin Round Table", a group of writers and their friends who gathered at the Algonquin Hotel. During the course of their "ten-year lunch," Table associates Alexander Wolcott, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber, Heywood Broun, Harold Ross, Harpo Marx and Jane Grant gained fame and fortune as much for their widely quoted bon mots as for their significant achievements. This stage play, which premiered at Lakewood Theater Company and won an Oregon Book Award, has been completely rewritten as a musical in collaboration with Dave Frishberg, one of the nation's foremost Jazz composers (and a Portland Native).

Venue: The Blue Room at the Scottish Rite Center (709 SW 15th)

The Novel That Predicted Portland

Thank you, Ms. Cynthia, you of Culture Shock fame, for bringing a fun Scott Timberg article to my attention that recently ran in The New York Times. Essentially the piece is a thoughtful review of the ‘70s classic cult favorite Ecotopia, a speculative work of fiction written by Ernest Callenbach. Some credit the author with kick-starting a barrow full of ideas that we are increasingly adopting.

Like what? At one point in his article, Mr. Timberg asks:

"So what has 'Ecotopia' given us?

"A great deal, thinks Professor Slovic of the University of Nevada, including the bioregionalism movement, which considers each part of the country as having a distinct ecological character to be cultivated. The green movement’s focus on local foods and products, and its emphasis on energy reduction also have roots in “Ecotopia,” he said. In fact, much of Portland, Ore., with its public transport, slow-growth planning and eat-local restaurants, can seem like Ecotopia made reality."

Apparently the novel’s influence has been so osmotic that I was unaware that the term “Ecotopia” originated with it. Today it’s used to refer to the Pacific Northwest in general, and occasionally it’s also bandied about as the region’s future name, reserved for when it finally gets fed up with the U.S. and secedes from the Union.

The other name you hear in this regard from time to time is “Pacifica.” Did you know that Oregon has legislation on the books that allows for an initiative process that could authorize secession? So do Washington and California. Hmmmm…….

Where was I.

O yes. I was talking about myself.

Forgive me for my neglect, dear fellow traveler. I know you’ve been waiting for me to finish this post for a week. In the interim, much has happened, including the opening of our retooled, freshly re-tinseled A Christmas Carol.

Excuses aside (I mean, being busy never seems to slow down the good peeps of Culture Shock), last week, as you’ll recall, I was tracing the genealogy of my own aesthetic origins, and came to realize I owe it all (such as it is) to . . . Walt Disney. Or rather, Disneyland. That’s right. For all my high-mindedness, my earliest notions about what theater should be were shaped by a corporate entity that built its fortune through pillaging Western civilization’s folk myths and figures. Well, figurines: Snow White, Cinderella -- Paul Bunyan, for mercy’s sake. Abraham Lincoln, even.


Case in point: as a little boy, I remember being captivated by a new attraction in “the park” called The Enchanted Tiki Room. This was and is an event of vaguely Polynesian inspiration in which animatronic birds of festive plumage preen, sing and burble away. Even as a kid I knew the content was corny, but the experience was….complete.

First we were admitted to an enclosed holding area outside the “hut” where the experience was to take place. As I recall, every feature of this pen was part of the experience, even the trash bins. There was a water feature made from bamboo pipes that emptied noisily into a pool; if you peered into the water, you saw that the pool’s bottom was littered with the partly submerged skeletons of lizards or anyway something of reptilian persuasion.

In due course we got to shuffle into the hut itself, and we (la familia) seated ourselves on one of four sides of a small square. Looking around, I saw gruff-looking tikis surrounded the playing area like they were guarding it. Above, thatched roof; behind, walls and windows shuttered with reeds. The hut seated maybe 80 spectators.

Then the show started with the famous nonsense of robot parrots waking up and cajoling the audiences with canned dialogue and mortifyingly twee treacle (“let’s all sing like the birdies sing / tweet tweet tweet tweettweet”). But the good part was the conclusion. On some cue I no longer recall, the parrots’ were yanked up and out of sight, and the tikis – which we all assumed to be mere set dressing – woke up. Bug-eyes gaping madly, wooden mouths moving up and down, these fearsome gods intoned some guttural, driving incantation (probably my first inkling there was more to music than Herman’s Hermits, Petula Clark and Papa Haydn). The tikis worked themselves up to a frantic crescendo, and at the very climax the lights went out (someone always shrieked at this), and the hut was lit only by flashes of faux lightning, which enabled you to see rain running down the windows.

As the thunder died out and we filed out of the place, I had no trouble belaying my critique of the material in favor of the experience I just had. And in years to come, through my early years at Storefront and on to my subsequent career as a groovy performance artist, it was some time before I realized my debt to the Tiki Room. The salient qualities were:


1. The performance surrounded its audience.
2. There was surprise (presumed inanimate objects lurching into performance).
3. Several senses were assailed at once.
4. The performance began upon admittance to the area, started long before the “actors” and persisting after they had exited.

Years later now, I’m more often in the position of enabling others to create their performative work than I am in doing it myself. But these things still inform my understanding of what makes an affective and memorable experience for audiences – which is, in sum, to transform them from passive spectators to participants.

Portland is rich in artists who espouse these same views, whether avowedly or not. But that’s a different post altogether……

More of yore

Not to be a total necrophiliac about Storefront, but I'm indebted to the mysterious MightyToyCannon of Culture Shock (see the comments in the previous post) for leading us to the small cache of YouTube footage of some of these ancient performances. The "divine decadence" of Ric Young's productions was not all that went on back then, but if you want to see what the fuss was about (in his regard at least), feast your eyes: