Eugene Weekly

The guitar wails above the heart-deep drumbeat. Dirty hands clank against a chain-link cage and the old story rushes at us, hammering home the memory of ego and betrayal that killed a man preaching kindness. Continue reading →

The enthusiastic reaction of the Friday, Sept. 25, audience to Mary Poppins, currently playing at the Shedd, indicated the musical was “practically perfect” in every way. Children and adults — mesmerized by the spectacle of flight, animated props, song-and-dance numbers as well as period-invoking sets and costumes — seemed to thoroughly  enjoy themselves. Continue reading →

Joe, the blue-collar mechanic at the center of VLT’s Mercy Killers, considers himself the ultimate all-American — a red-state, Rush Limbaugh-listening son of the American dream. All that changes when Joe’s wife is diagnosed with cancer and he falls through the rabbit hole into a world of exorbitant medical costs and unyielding insurance networks. Out-of-pocket costs are demanded from “pockets that just aren’t that deep.” A man who has staked his life in the value of hard work now stands to lose everything to a heath care system that seems not to care at all. Continue reading →

We’ve all played this game: If you could share a drink with one person from history, living or dead, who would you choose? For music fans in general and jazz fans in particular, the answer is often Billie Holiday.  Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, running now at Actors Cabaret of Eugene, gives audiences that chance. The play debuted in Atlanta in the mid-1980s, with a recent off-Broadway run starring Audra McDonald in the titular role.  Continue reading →

In theater, the imaginary barrier separating an audience from the action on stage is called the fourth wall — a sort of make-believe TV screen that, by mutual agreement, keeps art on one side and spectators on the other. Artists have been fucking with the fourth wall for decades now, inviting the audience to a naughty peek behind the Oz-like curtain where the dirty secrets of creativity hide. In the wrong hands, the device is cloying and cheap and self-satisfied, like listening to a bong circle of conspiracy theorists. Continue reading →

Award-winning playwright Aaron Posner grew up in Eugene. And since Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s season opens with Posner’s Stupid F@#*ing Bird, it seemed a great excuse to ask this renowned artist about his old paper route.   Chekhov’s The Seagull inspires Stupid F@#*ing Bird. How did you plumb Chekhov’s “Theatre of Mood” for the funny?  Continue reading →

A curious girl can raise only so much hell for a totalitarian regime: When Ximena makes too much noise, the state takes away her voice. Literally. Set in a faceless authoritarian state, Degenerate Arts Ensemble’s Predator Songstress — produced in conjunction with the new Oregon Performance Lab — sets out to examine repression, surveillance, interrogation and the power of noise. The play runs Friday and Saturday, Aug. 28 and 29, at Lane Community College’s Ragozzino Hall. Continue reading →

From the moment you take your seat at Cottage Theatre, waiting for the lights to dim, Quilters transports you into a quaint, home-lovin’ kind of feeling. Opening with old-time music with a heck of a lotta twang, the women of the musical burst in running and laughing — yee-haws and all — giving you a slight pause to ask: “What have I gotten myself into?”  Continue reading →

Set in 1928 Arizona, The Shedd’s revival of Whoopee! is populated by rootin’ tootin’ cowboys, rich tourists and the occasional hypochondriac. Based on the 1923 play The Nervous Wreck, this goofball musical comedy by Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson was made famous by both the Ziegfield Broadway production of 1928 and the 1930 Eddie Cantor film.  In the vaudeville era, shows like Whoopee! cobbled together already popular tunes with a loose plot, peppering zany narratives with plenty of jazz standards and daffy jokes. And it’s still a winning combination.  Continue reading →