"Lauren Weedman Doesn't Live Here Anymore" @ PCS

Lauren Weedman's first show at PCS was "The People's Republic of Portland" and I remember enjoying it, but thinking that it could've used more structure. Ms. Weedman's new show, "Lauren Weedman Doesn't Live Here Anymore" has a stronger sense of structure due to the plot-device of an imaginary Country-Western Variety show. This device also allows for frequent musical interludes and impressions. But, the best of Weedman's humor comes from the brief moments outside of the show-within-a show,  in moments like when she tells a story about freaking out her preschool-mommy  yoga class with a dark quip about Jonestown, and her desperate desire not to be judged by them when the joke didn't land. This was also true of "People's Republic of Portland," the one moment which stayed with me in the years since, was a story she told about not wanting to be judged by Portland parents who prized low-tech entertainment, as she tried to hide that she was keeping her own child occupied with an iPad. Weedman is at her funniest and most truthful when she is palpably anxious about not fitting in wherever she goes, despite her best efforts.

The addition of music and impersonations does help to create a fuller show, and I think it has broad appeal.

"Wild & Reckless" @ PCS

"Wild & Reckless" is a collaboration between Blitzen Trapper and Portland Center Stage. They term it a "concert event," and it is indeed a good concert, but I did find myself thinking that its dystopian plot,  having to do with a drug made from lightning,  needed a bit more spoken-narration than it received. Still, the music is gorgeous throughout, so much so that I am now a fan of Blitzen Trapper on the strength of this score alone. The show is as loud and as "wild" as its title suggests, with moody "trippy" projections to help set the scene. It is a truly unique piece, and a strong signal that PCS is making a commitment to new-work, which is laudable in itself. I'd say the audience for this show is made-up of people who like theatre and like music, but are not huge fans of theatre-music. This is an example of what can be done if the two worlds unite and yet keep their own identities.

"Feathers and Teeth" @ Artist's Rep.

"Feathers and Teeth" is a strange show, to put it mildly. Darius Pierce has long made a home in strange shows, but it is still disconcerting to see Agatha Olson in darker roles, having first become acquainted with her in "The Miracle Worker." She set a precedent for such a shift in Third Rail's "The Nether", but even then she was in the role of a victim. Here, she is almost a villain, though there is room for doubt.

The play can be funny, deeply sad, and sometimes genuinely psychologically unnerving, and at other times, recall the late-night horror creature features of yesteryear. It is a delicate mix, but one that the strong cast and script pull-off effortlessly. I would recommend it equally to those who are intrigued by that last sentence, as well as to those who read it and mentally exclaimed "huh?" Those who are intrigued will not be disappointed, and those who said "huh?" will see how well such disparate themes can coalesce. As one final enticement, and/or warning, depending upon your preference for such things, be careful where you sit, one side of the theatre is informally designated as a potential splash-zone.  

"His Eye is on the Sparrow" @ PCS

"His Eye is on the Sparrow" is a an ambitious, likely grueling endeavor for Maiesha McQueen.  It is a one-woman biography of Ethel Waters.

I will briefly compare and contrast it with "Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin" because they were both both one-person shows about musical icons. What I enjoyed most about "Irving Berlin" was being told about the tragic and triumphant life of someone most of us probably know only from his songs that became Standards, so many that it's not common knowledge that he wrote them all. Ethel Waters has some tragic moments as well, most interestingly terrible treatment despite her star-status during tour-dates in the South, but the play spends a little too much time on the incompatibility of fame and love, and McQueen singing is so rapturous that I would have preferred an extra song or two instead of the romantic subplot. Seriously, McQueen could sing the ABCs and I'd be enthralled. As further proof of her magnetism, I offer that circumstances demanded I take my father along,  a man who defines "reluctant theatre-goer, and he enjoyed himself as well. All that's left to say is that I can't wait until she graces the stage again.

"Marjorie Prime" @ Artists Rep

Well, at least I'm not the only one. Prior to curtain at Opening Night at "Majorie Prime" I chatted as I often do with an usher. She mentioned that the play was a strange-read, and mused that perhaps the forthcoming film version would make things clearer.

The play is a mere 75 minutes, which seems far too short to explore as many plot-lines as "Marjorie Prime" does. Scene One worked fine for me, and delved into a few themes I find particularly interesting, given my disability.  Namely, the replacement of human caregivers with robots. The questions raised by such a shift are fertile territory for drama, and to my knowledge the only work of art to tackle it thus far is the obscure film "Robot & Frank," which spends much of its time as a robot-assisted heist movie. "Majorie Prime" does address some of the expected issues, such as, the patient obeying the robot in matters of nutrition more readily than a human relative, and adds a layer of complexity because the robot can be made to appear as a person of their choosing, in this case, the deceased husband of the patient. There are also engaging moments dealing with caring for a relative with whom you have unresolved conflicts.

But then, things take a turn. Suddenly the play is no longer about the aforementioned themes. Scenes Two and Three revolve around using the robots not as replacements for caregivers, but rather replacements for psychologists, as tools to work out trauma caused by deceased people. I found these scenes much less interesting, especially since all scenes up to this point have included a large portion devoted to "programming" the robot with memories, a process that reminded me of monotonously calibrating a speech-to-text program. There are seemingly important details about the "truth" of a certain situation that vary depending upon who is doing the programming and whom they are programming, but the information revealed in these sessions remains unclear to me. But, all of that pales in comparison to the final-scene, which is the most frustratingly murky scene in recent memory. I have a guess as to what happens, but no idea what it's supposed to mean.....

"Murder on the Nile" at Lakewood

My favorite Lakewood productions have been mysteries, and "Murder on the Nile" fits in well with what I would call by now the "Lakewood Tradition".  It is an Agatha Christie play, so it's not as brisk or funny as Lakewood's frequent mystery-farces, though it does have a sprinkling of humor. What's most important in a Christie play are the twists, and "Murder on the Nile" has an abundance of those. All of Lakewood's cast is in top-form and the set of the opulent ocean-liner is gorgeous.

Due to the winter-storm,  I was forced to attend a performance closer to the end of the run than I would have liked, but it runs through February 12th, and imagining yourself floating along with them near Egypt's warmer climate is a welcome diversion.

Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin @ PCS

I must confess to some initial hesitation toward "Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin." I assumed it would essentially be a one-man jukebox musical, and it is, but it also has quite a lot of unexpected drama. Berlin's first wife dies young, and later a child dies at or near Christmastime.

I also was unaware of the sheer breadth of Berin's body of work, only associating him with "White Christmas" (We learn in the show that Berlin hated one of its best known versions, Elvis Presley's.) Berlin also expresses distaste for rock 'n' roll as a whole, and that leads to one of the most interesting parts of the show, watching the world and music change around a man who has influenced so much of its culture. I had no idea he had written "God Bless America," a song so much a part of our cannon of patriotic tunes, I had always assumed it was far, far older.

Hershey Felder is both a fine performer and musician, keeping things brisk and lively in a show which is just slightly too long to run without an intermission.

Also of note is the judicious and inventive use of projections, much like the soon to be revived "Pianist of Willesden  Lane," another show featuring one performer and a piano.

Despite the Christmas-tree on the stage, and the narrative being structured as a direct-address to the audience, who are carolers Berlin has invited in, the bulk of the show is actually a welcome respite from holiday fare. Like "Beautiful" it shines a light on a songwriter who was quietly responsible for some of our best known songs. It is a show that gives Berlin his due.

"A Very Merry PDX-mas" @ Broadway Rose

Broadway Rose continues its tradition of being the local theatre 100% unafraid to be in the Christmas Spirit. I just finished praising Artists Rep's holiday-offering precisely for its strangeness, but it is certainly far too dark to put anyone into the mood for the season. For that, you must look exclusively to Broadway Rose.

"A Very Merry PDX-mas," as the title suggests, takes aim at some uniquely Portland things, and has quite a few name-dropping moments. Still, there is all of a sudden a very long break in that theme, so when it comes sputtering back about midway through Act II it seems somewhat out of place.

But, that is a minor quibble, as is its lack of any kind of "book." It is my preference to have even a slight structure in revues. I kept thinking back to 2013's Holiday show "A Christmas Survival Guide," which seemed to be on a more solid foundation due to a little bit of "book." Both shows also share "A Walk Through Bethlehem," which "Survival Guide" wisely chose to use as the Finale. Then again, "PDX-mas" had to leave room for a very cute little kid dance-off.

All-in-all, "PDX-mas" does fill an unexpected void,  there is no other unabashed tribute to yuletide fun, and when its competition is set in the Civil War, and "Santaland" is much more acerbic than I had remembered, one can not deny that it is needed.

"A Civil War Christmas" @ Artists Rep

Playwright Paula Vogel must have some issues with Christmas. The seeming mismatch of "War," "Christmas" and "Musical" reminded me of another Vogel play, which was dark and serious, but still managed to make use of puppetry, an art-form not known for somberness. I just now recalled that the title was "A Long Christmas Ride Home."

Here, Vogel manages to make the play part history lesson, part seamless musical, and even part comedy. (The extremely versatile John San Nicholas plays both Mary Surratt and a horse.) Yes, he plays a horse, a feat that would be all the more notable had he not just played a chimpanzee in "Trevor."

Of all the holiday offerings on local-stages, I would dub this one the "must-see" of the bunch. I say this because it is the one most likely to be passed over due to its strangeness, from the title on down. See the intriguing shows, they deserve an audience they often don't receive.

"The Oregon Trail" at PCS

"The Oregon Trail" computer-game was a staple of childhood in this state. For the Nostalgia-Factor alone, "The Oregon Trail" stage-play would be worth the price of admission for students of a certain era-quite possibly exactly my era-because Jane, the protagonist, mentions being in middle school in 1997. The fact that there are also some of the most true-to-life one-liners I've heard relating to my generation is an added bonus. "You chose Media Studies...which is nothing", booms an off-stage narrator, in reference to Jane's impractical major. That one hit close-to-home, but I laughed anyway. "The Oregon Trail" game comes to represent the pitfalls in her life's journey, and this device quickly becomes the more interesting of the two plots, the other being the members of Jane's in-game wagon-train. Though they do end-up playing a pivotal role near the end, a scene or two fewer would be welcome editing.

Still, for me it was the little things that made the play enjoyable, not only the tidbits of nostalgia, or the self-deprecating jabs at my generation, but also things you'd never have thought of had you not been reminded, like that no one can remember making it to the end of the game. (Not even me, and Your Crippled Correspondent was allowed to take his gargantuan Apple IIe home with him over summer-vacation.)

If you want to vividly relive a moment in time, see "The Oregon Trail." You will be transported.