60-Second Interview: Hunt Holman

As JAW: Made in Oregon crescendos on Thursday, July 10, you’ll be treated to the work of one of the wittiest, most well-observed social satirists I know: Hunt Holman.
That evening we’ll be hearing Willow Jade, which centers around a rooming house whose most mysterious tenants may or may not be on the lam and have a tantalizing bounty on their heads. The prospect has a galvanizing effect on a group of friends going nowhere fast, all of whom sniff a chance for fast money.

Hunt’s penchant for getting comedy out of people under pressure leads me to today’s 60-Second Interview:

Q: You are one of the most easy-going guys I know. Do you have a Mr. Hyde who takes you over so you can write plays with such sharp satire in them?

A: I remember being backstage at Seattle Rep when Bill Irwin was there playing Scapin. I remember seeing him, surely one of the most civilized gentlemen in show business, do a monkey walk in imitation of the person in front of him, who had no idea. What can I say? There is something inherently vicious in comedy.

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WILLOW JADE

by Hunt Holman

directed by Andrew Golla

July 10 at 7:30 pm in the Ellyn Bye Studio

Nowheresville, Washington state. Meet four aging chums with a bad idea: stave off middle age with a game of D & D … in costume. It only gets worse when a scandalous crime explodes next door, and orcs come down out of the mountains.

NB: Admission is freefreefree, but seating is limited and will be offered on a first come, first served basis. See you there.

How to eat your cake and have it too

********************************************************************************************************* At right is the famous cake created for JAW’s 10th anniversary poster by The Great Society. Check out the video below to see how it was photographed by the brilliant David Emmite at his studio, and subsequently destroyed by voracious PCS staffers. Can you believe I passed up the chance to be a hand model for this shoot?

60-Second Interview: Matt Zrebski

Rehearsals are already underway for JAW 2008, and audiences will get their first look at our works in progress next week when the Made in Oregon series commences. The three plays of this series are all by fiercely talented Pacific Northwest writers, each with a radically different perspective about life, love, and yes, landscape.

First up is Matthew B. Zrebski, whose play The Cloud-Bangers gets its concert reading on Tuesday, July 8 (details below).

Q: Matt, in this new play of yours, we’re treated to some rather droll sexual peccadilloes. I love it that your humor in this regard is so affectionate. You don’t seem to be lampooning people’s personal kinks; it feels more like you’re celebrating the romantic diversity of our species. What accounts for this beguiling new light touch in your work?

A: As it has for so many artists, the elusive nature of sexuality has always intrigued me. In much of my work, I have explored it through an angry lens -- mostly my anger at the moralists. But in the past few years I have had the pleasure to work extensively in the public high schools, and I have observed a radical shift from a dichotomic and constrictive sexual paradigm to one where a wide range of exploration is celebrated. This new generation has a different take -- one that I admit strikes a big chord of envy within my heart. And I began to think, if you strip guilt and sin out of sexuality, what you have left is nothing more than innocent curiosity. It has a sort of purity about it...it touches on a kind of utopian model...and it’s really quite beautiful. In The Cloud-Bangers I wanted to investigate the romantic issues through this less angry, more innocent lens. And in many ways, I think this shift has allowed me to find a tone that is, perhaps, quite new in my work. We shall see...

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THE CLOUD-BANGERS
written and directed by Matthew B. Zrebski

Tuesday, July 8, 7:30 pm
The Ellen Bye Studio Theater @ Portland Center Stage
128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)

Admission is FREE, but seating is limited and is provided on a first come, first served basis. See you there.

An Epic of Massive Impact! JAW TURNS TEN

YAH! This July is JAW's 10th birthday. We’ll have a full schedule for JAW 2008 soon, but meanwhile I’ve just got to announce the five workshop pieces. Yep, we’re growing from four workshops to five this year, since we're putting a music theater piece into the mix for the first time.

And by the way: we are doing the Studio series of Oregon writers again this year, which I’ll announce here as soon as all three writers confirm. So stay tuned. Meanwhile, here are the “upstairs” readings:

Paradise Street
by Constance Congdon

That’s Connie gracing this post, along with her granddaughter, Cora. Connie’s a real luminary in the playwriting universe, shedding light into corners I didn’t even know were dark. I’m really excited she’ll be here with us at JAW, especially with this hilarious and troubling and totally Congdonesque script. It concerns Jane, a rising star in the fractious world of academic feminism, who arrives at a new teaching post with her semi-senile mother in tow. But an unforeseen event has a ripple effect that forces everyone to improvise -- her mother must come out of her fog as an uneducated drifter starts impersonating Jane on the lecture circuit. We disagree here about whether the ending is ultimately bleak or hopeful, so come down and see the reading and let us know what you think.

A Brief Narrative of an Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits
by Colin Denby Swanson
No two plays of Colin’s are alike. A few years ago I was fortunate to see her eerie, otherworldly Death of a Cat when it premiered at Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, and I was bowled over by the play’s effect on the audience. Well, this new play could not be more different in tone and style. For now I’ll just tell you that a cynically humorous stork narrates this story about a woman who can’t seem to stop giving birth—to bunnies.

Pony
by Sally Oswald
When we present this reading at JAW, some people are going to be baffled by the play’s characters. Others in the audience will know exactly who the characters are. Pony uses the classic play Woyzeck as a point of departure, effectively beginning where Buchner’s story ends. Along the way, gender lines merge, twist and double back in this tale of six souls in search of identify. It’s extraordinary writing by a powerful new voice in American theater.


Enchantment
by Carson Kreitzer
Carson’s scripts often start with “found” texts that she weaves verbatim into original dramatic narratives. No mere documentaries, she places disparate dialogues cheek by jowl so that the sum is impactful beyond any one of the original sources. In Enchantment, Carson brings us the words of Temple Grandin, a highly functional autistic writer and thinker, and the writings of Bruno Bettelheim, most well-known for The Uses of Enchantment, famous for its analyses of fairy tales.

Crazy Enough
by Storm Large
Drawn from Storm’s life and music, this one-woman show will get its world premiere next season at PCS, and JAW’s audiences will play a major part in shaping what it will become. Storm is currently working on the text, and what I’ve read so far is bracingly frank and revealing in a way that only a natural born storyteller can put across.

I’m really proud to have all five of these women gracing JAW this year. It’s promising to be a superlative 10th anniversary outing for us. So BE THERE.