Fear and Loathing in Santaland
David Sedaris is a masterfully droll storyteller, and his one-man play The Santaland Diaries, playing now at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, is the perfect pairing for … Continue reading
Theater: Page 27
Hungry for Generations
The Big Meal at Oregon Contemporary Theatre is full of dynamic performances
Dan LeFranc’s quickly dives into a chaotic script with his play, The Big Meal, which features an otherwise mellow plot. Two young lovebirds meet and … Continue reading
The Irish Problem
Very Little Theatre comes up historically short with ambitious production of Juno and the Paycock
Although I’m aware that conflicts of one kind or another have rocked Ireland for centuries, my knowledge of early 20th-century Irish history is admittedly, and … Continue reading
The Music and the Mirror
Cottage Theatre delivers a triple threat with strong production of A Chorus Line
If you could peer into this critic’s embryonic soul, I suspect you’d find A Chorus Line lyrics. I wore grooves into my album of the … Continue reading
Liberté, Égalité, Sororité
French history is chillingly familiar in OCT’s The Revolutionists
Paris, September 1793: The Bastille has fallen, feudalism’s dead and the Rights of Man have been declared. (That all sounds pretty good, right?) But wait, there’s more: Enter brilliant playwright Lauren Gunderson, who illuminates a murky, muddling moment in history with her bold new play, directed with strength and humor for Oregon Contemporary Theatre by Elizabeth Helman. Continue reading
Fun Reigns
ACE’s production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert isn’t a theatrical, it’s a spectacular
It makes me all fizzy and giddy to see men dress up like women. There’s something so joyously liberating about it all. And I don’t think I’m the only one who finds female impersonators a total hoot and super sexy. Gay, straight, bi, femme, butch, blah blah blah: Just about everyone I know gets chirpy at the sight of an aging queen squeezed into a sleek satin dress and bellowing “I Will Survive” like a diva in heat. Continue reading
Live Long and Prosper
Celebrating 50 Years of Star Trek with Eugene’s Trek Theatre
Half a century ago this world, as well as worlds beyond our solar system, fell in love with the ’60s television series-turned-movie franchise known as Star Trek. Christina Allaback, creative director of Eugene’s Trek Theatre, says that along with the relationships among central characters like Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the show’s underlying message of hope helps Star Trek endure. “There are dystopic science fiction stories,” Allaback explains. “With Star Trek you have the opposite of that — the possibilities of where the human race can go.” Continue reading
Works in Progress
Oregon Performance Lab returns with teens, motorcycles and beer
Oregon Performance Lab is back for its second summer of theater workshops, bringing rising playwrights of America to Eugene. Described as a “three-week pop-up laboratory,” OPL connects artists with venues, actors and an audience for theatrical experimentation. The wife-and-husband team of Willow Norton (artistic director) and Corey Pearlstein (creative director) are based in New York but have roots in Eugene. On the heels of last year’s successful inaugural season, now they are fueling even more ambitious plans. Continue reading
Bard on the Butte
Magic things happen when a Texan hikes Skinner’s Butte
It’s such a good idea. Why didn’t someone think of it sooner? “I was out one day moseying around on Skinner’s Butte,” Robert Newcomer says. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is fairyland up here.’” Newcomer, a native Texan and theater arts educator who relocated to Eugene four years ago, is directing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the inaugural production of Bard on the Butte. Continue reading
All Hail the Melancholy Dane
Timothy McIntosh takes the lead in Cottage Theatre’s excellent production of Hamlet
As an accidental theater critic for the past 15 years or so, first in Seattle and now in Eugene, I’ve had the great good fortune to see Shakespeare performed in a variety of ways and in a variety of settings, professional and otherwise. Often upon the stage it’s just a poor player strutting and fretting, signifying very little, yet other times the work is divine beyond all reason. Continue reading