"The Whipping Man" @ Portland Center Stage

"The Whipping Man" is a gripping historical drama, focusing on a wounded Confederate soldier and his two former slaves. One of the most interesting aspects of the play is its exploration of Judaism during the Civil War, it is a theme that seems to be historically neglected.

Gavin Gregory gives an assured performance as strong and devout Simon, and Christopher Livingston shifts effortlessly between comically cunning and devastatingly serious.

Tony Cisek's giant set is spectacular. "The Whipping Man" is a thoroughly impressive production in every way. The run of the show seems to be just slightly shorter than standard, it ends on March 23rd, so I'd encourage everyone to hurry, but I believe it is certainly deserving of an extension , perhaps I'll get my wish.

Cast:

Simon: Gavin Gregory

Celeb: Carter Hudson

John: Christopher Livingston

"Red Herring" @ Artists Repertory Theatre

Artists Repertory Theatre seems to have read my mind when they planned this season. "Seven Guitars" is one of my top three August Wilson plays, and a prequel to one of the other plays on that short list, "The Lost Boy" tapped into my obsession with True Crime, and now "Red Herring" feeds my endless appetite for film noir.

"Red Herring" is a thoroughly twisty mix of noir detective story, paranoid spy thriller, and somewhat unexpectedly, a hilarious exploration of love and marriage. It is very refreshing to see a show with those three genres, and to have most of the comedy result from the romantic angle rather than a spoof of the other two. Michael Hollinger is a gifted writer, and I hope to see more of his work in the future.

The set is magical, I was chatting with the Marketing Director and she said that even though she has seen it from all angles, she is still mystified by it.

At the end of this roller-coaster of a show, I was reminded of that famous conversation director Howard Hawks had with novelist Raymond Chandler while adapting "The Big Sleep," Hawks asked Chandler who killed Owen Taylor, and Chandler himself didn't know...

"Red Herring" is a wonderful show, if anyone out there was late with a Valentine's Gift, this might be just what you're looking for.....

"Venus in Fur" @ Portland Center Stage

"Venus in Fur" is a stunning show. Stunning in the way it bombards the viewer with head-spinningly fast reversals of power and particularly in the way Ginny Myers Lee manages to essentially play three characters at once. When we meet her she is goofy Vanda, a seemingly air-headed actress who auditions for Thomas's (David Barlow)  adaptation of "Venus in Furs," a novel by Leopold Von Sacher Masoch, the man who lends his name to the word "masochism".  As she disappears into role of a dominatrix, we see for the first time she is not who she seems. Then she later begins to take on attributes of the character outside of scene work and becomes an entirely different person. Along the way, the play explores the attraction of power and control in relationships as well as the creative process.

It is an edgy play, but interestingly, only in what is said. There is no nudity, and yet it can almost seem pornographic at times. It is a mindbinder. It is exceptionally tense, and yet often funny. I absolutely loved it. It is without a doubt my favorite production at PCS so far this season! (I like the edgy stuff a lot....) But, I wouldn't take your grandmother....

"I Love to Eat" at Portland Center Stage

I saw "I Love to Eat" at the perfect time in my life, I have just begun to cook and I've had enough successes that I've arrived at the "this is fun!" stage. If playwright James Still's portrait of James Beard is accurate, Mr. Beard does not seem to have ever left that stage. He was a foodie, but not a food snob. My favorite parts of the play were the little pearls of wisdom he gives the audience about food, cooking, his own process, and tips and tricks.  One of these is his distaste for pretension, (he hated the word "cuisine" to describe American cookery.) There's a moment where he lavishes praise on fellow TV-chef Julia Child's garlic mashed potatoes, though he quick to wonder whether the cream sauce is necessary....

The play shares its name with Mr. Beard's cooking show, the first of its kind, and the title does seem an apt description of the man and his philosophy. He loved to eat, and viewed food as a path to happiness. Some of us got to share in his love for food right there in the moment, as the actor (Rob Nagle)  prepared onion sandwiches for the first row....

The highest compliment I can pay the show is that it has inspired me to seek out one of James Beard's cookbooks.... Throughout the show Mr. Beard insists that it was his mission to convince people that cooking is not something reserved for the elite, and I will take him at his word, his approach is very enticing to a beginner, and seems to start with a love for eating. I have that in spades, oh and I have a monogrammed apron just like his... I'm well on my way!

"The Lost Boy" @ Artists Rep

"The Lost Boy"  recounts the 1874 kidnapping of Charley Ross in Philadelphia, America's first kidnapping for ransom. Charley is the son of a once wealthy man, but the stock market has crashed and they are living on credit, making the $10,000 ransom a nearly impossible demand. The kidnapping inspired many of our modern day anxieties and fearful admonitions, such as "don't take candy from strangers." (Charley and his brother Walter are lured away from their front yard with the promise of candy and fireworks.)

The case captures the attention of the burgeoning mass-media, and the bizarre and almost sickening imagination of showman P.T. Barnum, who makes frequent appearances in the play and finds some truly odd ways to incorporate the tragedy into his travelling circus acts, culminating in a stomach-turning offer to Charley's father in the play's final moments.....

My favorite scenes-the ones that stayed with me the longest, and were so unnerving that I was surprised they didn't creep into my dreams-were those in which one of the kidnappers, Bill Mosher, (Duffy Epstein) hisses menacingly at the anguished father pulled in so many directions by the police and the media, reminding him that he has his child...  Eventually the play becomes about Charley's father and how he is slowly ensnared in the media's voyeuristic trap, it's very hard to watch......

"A Tuna Christmas" @ The Winningstad Theatre

"A Tuna Christmas" is nearly unbelievable, I knew going in that two actors played a multitude of characters, but I was unsure whether they played them all.... I found myself glancing at the playbill to see who played a particular character, and confirmed that it was indeed one of the two actors.....

Almost as stunning as the number of characters played by two people is the sheer speed at which they transform. For a show whose main source of humor comes from poking fun at the slow pace of life in Texas's tiniest town, things on stage sure move at a breakneck pace. (The biggest laugh I had of the night was over something very simple, one character is on the phone with another, waiting for her to pick-up: all of a sudden the other character rockets on to the scene in a huge easy chair, perfectly encapsulating the split-second timing that is key to the show.)

The scene-stealer of the night for me was Didi Snavely, the owner of the used weapons store, whose slogan is: If we can't kill it, it's immortal. ("Her" sing-song delivery is hilarious!)

Another stand-out is Charlene Bumiller, a depressed teenager.

"A Tuna Christmas" is quite a show, a seemingly impossible undertaking by only two actors, it will put you in the mood for the season, and it will certainly put your idea of hustling  into perspective.....

Cast:

Jeffrey Jason Gilpin

&

Alan H. King 

"A Tuna Christmas" runs now through Dec. 23rd. at The Winningstad Theatre located inside the Portland Center for the Performing Arts 

The Dinner Detective

I arrived in the reception area for "The Dinner Detective" at the Courtyard Marriott City Center and was asked to pick a name that would be my alias for the evening, I chose "Stephen Hawking" which would get a big laugh....

I took my seat and the show began. "The Dinner Detective" is slightly different from other Interactive Mysteries in that the characters in the show are not obvious at the outset, and you are expected to mingle and "interrogate", rather than have the characters make their way over to you, hence the aliases. While this does serve to enhance the mystery a little bit, I wasn't really in a position to move freely. In fact, I had chosen my seat poorly in relation to where the "stage" ended up being, fortunately a woman (who also turned-out to be one of the actresses) offered to switch seats,  I believe that there was at least one character at each table, and if so, that does help negate the need to move.

All of the actors have fun with their roles and most of the information is revealed in scenes and hand-outs. The solution to the mystery was fittingly obscure, only two people guessed the culprit, and the only one who answered it fully was also the man who the detectives picked on for most of the night, dubbing him "The Rookie"

I had a lot of fun, the three-course meal was very tasty, and missing-out on the mingling portion did not seem to detract too much, although it might be something they should consider changing..... 

"The Dinner Detective" at the Courtyard Marriott City Center, 550 SW Oak St.

Dinner & Show $59.95 (two-for-one deals are sometimes offered on Groupon and LivingSocial....)

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" @ Portland Center Stage

Portland Center Stage's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a marvel. With a gorgeous, appropriately dreamlike sets, extraordinary actors, and a huge dose of  laughter, this is a show everyone will enjoy. There are some modern touches, most memorably a bluesy Puck, and they all work.

My favorite moments came from the Acting Troupe. Particularly James Newcomb as "Nick Bottom", the actor who thinks he can play every character in the production, as well as "Snug", played by the frequently goofy Tim True. This was my first time seeing "Midsummer" performed, so I can't state for certain, but I wager PCS's slant is much funnier than most  Everyone seems to really relish getting a laugh, and many get their turn--starting from curtain-up.....

I would especially recommend this  production for those who have limited exposure to Shakespeare and might be "afraid" of the complexity of the language, I cannot overstate the hilarity of the show.

The costumes also deserve special praise. The fairies have golden halo-like antennae, and the Donkey-Head that results from a curse placed on poor Nick Bottom is just priceless....

This is a play that brightens your mood, I would not delay in seeing it.....

"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Tears of Joy Theatre

Tears of Joy Theater is best known for their family-friendly puppet shows, but they have also not been afraid to delve into more disturbing subjects from time to time. The first of these darker shows that I saw was "The Long Christmas Ride Home" at Theatre Vertigo a few years ago--that show explored many disquieting subjects, but there was also something deeply un-nerving about an actor manipulating a puppet made to look like himself......  "The Long Christmas Ride Home" taught me that puppets need not be confined to children's entertainment, they can be truly frightening.... It was with this in mind that I jumped at the chance to see Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" get the Tears of Joy treatment, and I wasn't disappointed, to say the least.

This was a fantastic show, and the puppetry was phenomenal. The bulk of the play features only two characters, Adam (David Clemmer), the human student of Herr Gossvetter, a renowned philosopher, cantankerous old man, and puppet, though it doesn't take long for the audience to forget the latter fact. The puppeteers, (Jon Plueard, Bill Holznagel, Jason Miranda) are shrouded in black from head to toe, making them look a bit like apparitions, this is especially effective in a nightmare sequence.

Unfortunately, I became aware of the production rather late, and it closes tonight, but if you can make it, it will certainly put you in the mood for Halloween, and it appears that the show might be an annual event, though I may have misheard an answer during the Q&A regarding sadness as the show nears closing, but I think they intimated that they took solace in knowing it would be back in a year.... Oh, and the Q&A was with the puppet, and the improvisational skills of the puppeteers were remarkable. They gave a brief explanation of the workings of the puppet, and then opened it up for questions, most of which were light-hearted... One person asked if the old man could head-bang, and the otherwise stodgy Herr Gossvetter obliged. So, I thought I'd ask who Herr Gossevetter wanted to win in the upcoming election, and very quickly he answered "Taft", and even made an excuse for any discrepancy in the timeline by noting that he was a philosopher, not a historian... To summarize, you get an inspired retelling of a classic dark tale, a splash of improv comedy, and a scene of puppet dismemberment, all in one show. I suspect you wont find that anywhere else.....  

(Showing tonight at Lincoln Hall Studio Theatre, beware at least one ticketing site erroneously says The Winningstad....)

"The Body of an American" by Dan O'Brien at Portland Center Stage

"The Body of an American" is a play of intersections-the intersection of art and journalism by way of photography, and how they each again intersect with theatre. The play tells the story of playwright Dan O'Brien and war-photographer Tom Watson. Mr.Watson's photograph of a soldier dragged through the streets of Mogadishu forms the heart of the play.

As William Salyers re-enacts the taking of the photograph, he says the voice of the dead soldier warned him, "if you do this, I will own you forever", and much of the play deals with the truth of that statement. Mr. Watson desperately wishes to exorcise this spirit from his thoughts and dreams, and in the days following the performance I shared the feeling. This is an intense show. All of the elements come together with a common purpose--to burrow deeply into your brain and unnerve you. The starkness of the studio is a well-suited space, and the projections are used effectively, but it was the sound design that made me realize just how far I'd been pulled in.... There's a moment in which Paul describes stepping back to properly compose a photograph, and in the process he steps on the bones of an old woman, upon hearing the crunch I involuntarily let out a truly disgusted groan.....

Paul tells the story of The Pentagon being able to deny an atrocity because he was not able to obtain photographic evidence--proof of the truth--and that is what the play is about most of all. If you are prepared for truth, I recommend that you see "The Body of an American"....