Fast fade

We've all thought about it. How easy it would be. To just step away. To go out to fetch some Chunky Monkey and just never go home again. Or to head off for work on a Monday morning like any other, but never actually arrive at the office. Or to go out with friends for a Friday night drink, and at some point go to the restroom, never to be seen again.

Naturally everyone's first thought will be that you've come to foul play. But more often than not, says playwright and Londoner Fin Kennedy, a lot of careful planning goes into a disappearing act. If you'd like to know you might go about it yourself -- hypothetically, of course -- of course! -- there's a dramatized primer available to you right now at PCS.

You've got a couple more weeks to see one of my favorite plays produced at PCS during my brief tenure there (i.e., since 9/02): How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, by the ultracool Mr. K, directed by the equally cool Rose Riordan, where you'll learn the fast fade is both harder and easier than you'd suspect.

To further whet your appetite, Patrick Weishampel has just aired an interview with Fin in which the playwright talks about the unsettling experience of researching the modi operandi of the ultimate self-effacers.


Interview with Fin Kennedy from Portland Center Stage on Vimeo.

Whatever happened to Mr Mead, you ax?

PCS is keeping me so frantic these days that there hasn’t been time to blog, so … while you’re waiting for my next Epic of Massive Impact, check out these two amusingly droll promos for our two shows that just opened in rep: Amy Freed’s sweetly salacious The Beard of Avon and the Bard of Avon’s immortal Twelfth Night, both created by Patrick “Fun” Weishampel.

Seasoned Greetings

Great night out at the theater with my sainted mother, who’s here in Portland, with her equally sainted sister, to see “my” “adaptation” of A Christmas Carol at PCS. Actually that blessed event slouches toward the Armory this Friday; tonight we went to see the incomparable Susannah Mars in her holiday show at A.R.T., Mars on Life. As always Susannah charmed us all the way into the holidays. It’s great to be able to say of a performing artist that the warmth and genuineness so evident onstage is simply who she really is. Both mother and son were totally beguiled by Ms. Mars.

As for Christmas Carol, here’s another fun video for it, created by PCS’s fab resident Multimedia Designer Patrick Weishampel, profiling the show’s cast and creative team. Near as I can make out, I am the only member of that team Patrick did not interview. But how can I carp about it when Ted deChatelet singles me out for praise along the way? Love that Ted. Patrick, too. Love Susannah, plus sainted mother and equally sainted aunt/godmother.

Dang. Did I think I just lost my street cred re: Eschewing Syrupy Sentimentality?