"The Quality of Life" @ Artists Rep

It is my practice to avoid reading synopses of the plays I haven't already heard about. "The Quality of Life" was one of those plays. Which means I was unprepared, to put it mildly.

The play is about death and dying, but it is also about grief, and our unavoidably clumsy way of dealing with it. There is never any grace in grief. 

Susannah Mars once again plays a mother who has lost a child, a role she has played twice before in Artists Rep productions, "Rabbit Hole" and "Next to Normal," and it is a role she crushes every time, in such a way as to make it look effortless. Michael Mendelson plays a terminally ill man, and while the role does have room in it for him to be a bit of a goofball free-spirit, his raging speech at the end is a departure for the character, and if memory serves, for Mendelson himself.

Michael Fisher-Welsh has the thankless job of playing the stiff and boring grieving father, a man who has had every ounce of joy sucked from him. I say "thankless" because we spend much of the play not liking him, so the challenge is to imbue him with a dwindling spark of humanity, doused almost completely by sadness. Fisher-Welsh succeeds, and the audience owes him thanks.

I've been trying not to use "gut-wrenching" because it is a cliche, but perhaps I'll be granted a pass if I admit that the aforementioned last scene with Mendelson made me nauseated. You have been warned.  

"Othello" @PCS

Portland Center Stage's "Othello" is magnificent in every way. The entire cast is fantastic, but special praise is owed to Gavin Hoffman as Iago. His performance is so palpably villainous that one expects to see a forked tongue eventually. And he's local, which of course scores him even more points!

The set is mammoth, so much so that adjectives like that don't quite do it justice, which compels me to quote the specifications from the Press Notes: "The set structure is 30 feet wide and estimated to weigh 2,000 pounds. It rotates 360-degrees on 104 castors, powered by a 5 horsepower engine." Try to imagine what that looks like. I wager the actual set is grander than what your mind's eye conjures. It must be seen to be believed.

"Othello" is my favorite of Shakespeare's plays. I enjoy its dark themes, and the language seems easier to interpret than some others. I would recommend "Othello" to reluctant Shakespeare beginners. But really, I'd recommend it to everyone. It is such a feast for the senses, it almost defies description.

Murder Served Hot: Mystery Dinner Theatre

"Murder Served Hot" is an Interactive Murder Mystery. The current show is set in 1950 and the investigation centers around the murder of  local slime-ball Nippy. Suspects include a recently acquitted accused murderess, a prostitute, and the mayor. "Murder Served Hot" is performed in the traditional format, in which the characters are easily identifiable and converse with the audience. I enjoy this format much more than the anonymous approach employed by "The Dinner Detective" (http://www.crippledcritic.com/2012/12/the-dinner-detective.html)

All of the cast seemed to relish their roles, (none more so than Nippy.)  The investigative portion involves looking through the jackets and purses of the characters, and my father nearly forgot to put a seemly insignificant prop back where it came from. Sure enough, this item proved crucial to the solution of the mystery, we had a good laugh.

The dinner is fantastic, we chose the beef option, but there is also a mushroom risotto. Both come with a salad and an absolutely decadent Kailua Fudge Brownie.

It took me a while to see "Murder Served Hot" because they moved venues frequently, and the previous two were pretty far away. Now they've settled into Macadam's Bar and Grill. The scripts change about every four months, and I have been invited back. I couldn't be happier, I love these things.

"Murder Served Hot"

Box Office Phone Number for Public Shows, or to schedule a private event:

503-477-4984

Website: murderservedhot.com

Public Show Venue:

Macadam's Bar & Grill

5833 SW Macadam Ave

Neighborhood 3:Requisition of Doom @ Clackamas Community College

The set for "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom" by Chris Whitten is striking, a brilliant merging of old-school and new-school gaming. It's part Q-bert blocks, part giant video screen. The cast does a wonderful job of filling the large space, shepherded by director James Eikrem.  The play is much edgier than I was expecting, and as regular readers know, this is always a good thing in my opinion. The original musical score by Chris Wilcox is professional-caliber, not to mention creepy as hell.

Unfortunately, I saw a rather late show, and closing night is tomorrow. If you can make it, I highly recommend it.  In fact, I hope they extend it. It is brave, provocative, and has technical artistry that rivals productions with presumably much higher budgets. In short, it deserves to be seen by as many as possible, and I am happy to do my part.

"A Small Fire" @ Portland Center Stage

"A Small Fire" is a departure for director Rose Riordan, and possibly for playwright Adam Bock, though I have less exposure to his work. (I saw "The Receptionist" in its first incarnation at CoHo, but I'm apparently the only theatre-goer in Portland who missed "The Thugs".) Most of Ms. Riordan's work is on the darker side,"The Pillowman", "The North Plan" Bock's "Receptionist," to name a few. So, it is quite surprising that while "A Small Fire"certainly deals with heavy subjects, there is also a lot of tenderness in it.

It's a play of small moments. We watch as Emily Bridges, a somewhat gruff woman, loses her sense of smell, quickly followed by her sight and hearing.  It's difficult to watch, especially given Emily's fierce independence. One of my favorite small moments is when Emily's co-worker and closest friend, the affable Billy, (Isaac Lamb)  has her grasp his hardhat by way of identification.

Emily is played by Peggy J. Scott, and her vulnerable, unexpected, and brave final moment in the play has stuck with me for days.

Once again, my transportation was extremely late, as it was for "Bonita", but this time, because it was opening night, I got to meet quite a few members of the cast, as well as the playwright. That was fun.

In my review of PCS' last production "Bonita," I relished the opportunity to warn of disturbing subject-matter, "A Small Fire" could be considered disturbing in certain respects, but I think the word is "disquieting," it shakes you up not because it's dark, but because you're surprised by how much you care.  

"The Motherfucker with the Hat" @ ArtistsRep

"The Motherfucker with the Hat" is unsurprisingly profane, so profane that its title is essentially all I'm comfortable reprinting. But, even posting the title in full puts me ahead of some outlets. When "Motherfucker" premiered on Broadway, one of the theories behind its underperformance at the box-office was that star Chris Rock couldn't say the title on talk-shows. The title has also been a marketing problem locally. Even if I were comfortable quoting from the show, it would be difficult to do. All the characters speak in what I can only call "verbal sprints." This style is especially suited to Victor Mack as Ralph D. Victor Mack always has this wonderfully distinctive cadence in his voice. (I've always wanted to see if it's natural or if he chooses characters who are the town criers. )

"The Motherfucker with the Hat" is a play about love and addiction, and the owner of the mysterious hat. I am intentionally keeping the summary brief because I want everyone to see this show. Why? Because it's "Grab-You-By-the Throat" theatre. It is here where I'd start machine-gunning superlatives on the show, but reading them would cost you precious dialing-time. This show will sell-out quickly, the best service I can do you is to tell you to pick up your phone right now!  

Bo-Nita @ PCS

I didn't read anything about "Bo-Nita" prior to seeing it on Friday. The logo of the production is an innocuous cereal bowl, which gives no hint at all to the edginess of the show. It is no wonder that I was caught off guard. Bo-Nita speaks with such nonchalance about the horrific things visited upon her in her short thirteen years that it takes some precious time to process what she has said.  More than once I was knocked mentally off-balance, and briefly lost track of the narrative. It gives me great pleasure to warn of disturbing subject matter, because it is to my taste in drama. But, I must reiterate again that this is a sucker-punch of a show. Somehow it manages to mix streaks of dark humor in, and sometimes it works, other times it just increases the feeling of dread. The show is a lean 85 minutes, and if you think that you can take it, you will be glad you saw it. I almost said, "I think you will enjoy it", but I don't think "enjoy" is the word to use here.

I must also take a moment to thank PCS staff for letting me stay warm during transportation difficulties. It was much appreciated.  

"The Monster-Builder" @ Artist's Rep.

Adjectives like "reptilian" and "serpentine" are over-used to describe slimy and unpleasant characters. Watch Michael Eilich's otherworldly performance as architect Gregor Zebrowski  in Amy Freed's "The Monster-Builder" and I dare you to tell me any other description would do the character justice. Especially in the scene where he interacts with the eel he's about to dine upon. Elich's all-in performance is worth the price of admission by itself.

There are even more pleasures to be had: the askew set by Tom Buderwitz, the dark and sly humor of the script. I must note that the script sometimes talks past its audience, the rapid-fire name-dropping can pull you out of the action for a bit. (The playbill does contain a glossary, but it's buried on the last page before the Cast List, which undercuts its usefulness.)

I can't shake the feeling that I am short-changing Mr. Erlich's performance, here's one more attempt to capture its brilliance: He is as imposing as the structures he creates.

  

Jonny Lang @ The Roseland

Last night Jonny Lang reminded me why I love live music. The thing I love beyond all else- beyond lyricism, beyond rhythm, beyond synchronicity, is watching a musician,-a band- put every ounce of themselves into a performance. If you're lucky, you may be able to hear that on a record, but it really must be seen. Part of what I'm trying to describe involves sweat and energy, but sometimes it also involves something else, something deeper.  A person like Jonny Lang puts his soul on stage. "Red Light" was already my favorite track on "Long Time Coming," but when Mr. Lang sang it last night with all the desperation of someone searching for more, it's an entirely different song. Some may want to dismiss Lang's recent religiously influenced work as only for those who share his faith, but I think that is a mistake. Many of those songs are among his best work, due in large part to what they obviously mean to him personally. I am not a Christian, in fact the closest thing I have to a religion is the experience we shared last night. The electricity that exists between artist and audience is very spiritual indeed.

I've been laughing lately about how the word "epic" is overused, and used as a synonym for "excellent" or "cool," instead of lengthy or wide in scope. But, there is no other word but 'epic' to describe the extended versions of songs Jonny Lang played last night. They were truly astonishing.

If I were to meet Mr. Lang someday, the first question I would ask him is: "where do you go?" I believe he would know exactly what I was asking. What does it feel like in that place of obvious transcendence? Where are you when you seem to leave the rest of us?

Maybe someday I'll know.

"Chinglish" @ PCS

"Chinglish" is a play which finds humor and meaning in the mundane.  Our protagonist is David Cavanaugh, an executive at a sign company looking to land a lucrative contract to produce signs and provide English translations for a museum in China. The play's opening scene provides hilarious examples of signs with translations gone awry, and the many moments of humor in the play revolve around not only the mind boggling complexity of Mandarin, where a incorrect tonal inflection can mean completely different words, but also the difficulty of interpreting and translating idioms. The latter humor was probably my favorite, communication between people is a messy business under the best of circumstances-- everyone wants to say the right thing--add in the oddities that native speakers never notice about their own language and the comedy is as surprising as it is funny.

Most of the rest of the plot concerns salesmanship and politics, and because these subjects lead to the play's twists, I will not elaborate on them.

I'd be remiss not to tell you that the play has quite a bit of Mandarin in it, rendered in subtitles projected on a  screen above the stage. (The Press-Notes put the amount at about half the dialogue.)  Once you get used to reading the subtitles it becomes easier to follow both action and words at the same time, (the synching felt perfect.)  Still, I would say that it did feel much more difficult to do than watching a subtitled film. Especially when actors would stand in front of the screen, luckily this was rare. If you decide you're up to the challenge, I'd recommend opting for a few rows back, perhaps that will allow you to see better at those moments. I believe that "Chinglish" will reward your effort, but I also now understand why Milagro Theatre touts their "Gringo Discounts" for their bilingual productions. One last suggestion that might make things easier: theatres have copies of their scripts on hand to assist patrons who are hearing-impaired, it might behove you to take advantage of this service as well.