Choir Boy at Portland Center Stage

On Friday, Stephen and I went to see a play for the first time since before the pandemic began. Gosh, how I've missed the live theater experience: the sets and lighting, the satisfaction of watching real bodies on stage, the feeling of laughing in a theater filled with laughter and applauding in the shared thunder of an audience.

The show was Choir Boy, and it's playing now at Portland Center Stage. It's the story of a handful of teens who sing in the venerated choir of an elite Black boarding school—and in particular Pharus, the group's star singer and choir leader. The play opens with Pharus, a junior, singing a solo at the commencement ceremony for the senior graduating class. His performance is interrupted by the homophobic taunts of Bobby, fellow choir boy and nephew of the school's headmaster. When, later, Pharus is called into the headmaster's office and admonished for getting distracted during the song, the boy refuses to rat out the guilty party out of loyalty to the schoolyard code that says you don't snitch on a classmate.

Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who wrote the play that became the film Moonlight, Choir Boy explores themes of race, class, sexuality, coming of age, striving for connection, and most of all, trying to hold onto one's pride of self.

Pharus starts out with plenty of that. He's confident, ambitious, conspicuously queer, effervescent. He's got a light inside and somehow, even in this all-boys school full of rules and expectations, he isn't afraid to put on the high beams. You get the sense he can't not shine as bright as he does. At first. Many coming of age stories are about a character starting small and growing, starting quiet and finding a voice. In Choir Boy we watch Pharus's already-present shine dip and dim against the shadows of events that threaten his sense of self.

Within this tension, though, and the creeping darkness, the show is funny and clever. And actually: infused with joy. Because of the music.

Drawing on gospel and spiritual music, including the traditional songs known as Negro Spirituals, the music in Choir Boy is wonderful, sung in gorgeous harmony, often a cappella, by Isaiah Reynolds (Pharus), Luther Brooks IV (Bobby), Gerrin Delane Mitchell (Junior, Bobby's sidekick), Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. (David, a bookish classmate who wants to become a priest), and Wildlin Pierrevil (AJ, Pharus's roommate). Every song made me euphoric. Even when the music was there to evoke less joyful feelings—melancholy, longing—the beauty of it still made me euphoric. I'd find myself sitting up straight in my seat, leaning forward, as if to get closer to it. At the end of one song, the man directly in front of me raised his arms and made jazz hands, or maybe praise hands, as the applause erupted. 

I liked the minimal set, the towering columns and brick-wall background that made you feel like you were inside the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys. When we were in the shower room (where the boys wardrobed in nothing but towels made for opportunities for both tension and vulnerability), they rolled in a big tiled half-wall structure to denote the shower. When we were in the dorm room shared by Pharus and AJ, they rolled in two beds, Pharus's decorated with warm white Christmas lights, maybe alluding to that don't-hide-it-under-a-bushel light of his character.

This dorm room is the scene of some of the most important moments in the show, exchanges between Pharus and his roommate AJ that open up Pharus's character and gift him with some of the understanding and connection he needs as that bushel comes down. 

Watching Choir Boy, you do notice that the source material could use just a little more meat on its bones—the other boys are drawn a bit broadly and the premise isn't new—but this is made up for by the transcendent joy of its music, and the deep meaning of the power and tradition of that music. With clever dialogue and the always-skilled stagecraft of Portland Center Stage, it's a thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking show. It was a great production to experience after my pandemic-induced three-year theater dry spell. 

And truly, I'd see it again just for the music.

And it occurs to me as I say that last thing: this isn't what I should be getting out of going to see Choir Boy. This statement comes from a place of privilege. Me as a white woman, sitting at the edge of my seat enjoying the euphoric rush of beautiful sound. This music was not created for my enjoyment. The play goes into some of its true importance—and it's not my place to whitesplain it—but if you're interested in learning more about the amazing music the play draws from, Portland Center Stage wrote a great article about it here. 

Or hold off on the article and save it for reading in your program from your theater seats, Choir Boy runs through May 14, and more information is here.

Photo captions:

1) L-R: Gerrin Delane Mitchell, Isaiah Reynolds, Luther Brooks IV, Wildlin Pierrevil, and Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. in “Choir Boy”; photo by Jingzi Zhao/courtesy of Portland Center Stage.

2) L-R: Luther Brooks IV, Gerrin Delane Mitchell, Isaiah Reynolds, and Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. in “Choir Boy”; photo by Jingzi Zhao/courtesy of Portland Center Stage.

Poster design by Nick Orr.

Play at Home at Portland Center Stage

During this time when packing into a theater isn't a smart and safe option, Portland Center Stage has been finding creative ways to keep the theatrical arts alive. One cool thing they've gotten involved in is Play At Home. Here's what they say on their website about the program:

Play at Home was developed to inspire joy and connection during this period of social isolation. More than 100 playwrights have been commissioned nationwide, resulting in $50,000 paid to playwrights during this difficult time when we can't gather together in theaters. The plays are all available for FREE at playathome.org.

I love this idea. Not only is it a way for playwrights to continue working their craft, but anyone who wants can read the play scripts or even put on a show in their living room or stage a reading across Zoom screens with these brand new short plays.

If you're missing the theater, check these out: four short plays up on Portland Center Stage's website. There are even a couple performance videos you can watch. I took them all in and it was a really interesting experience. Each of these short plays was written during social isolation and they all reflect our times in different ways. Since it's been a while since I've had a chance to see and share my thoughts about theater, I thought I'd say a little about each of these.

Three Love Songs by Anya Pearson is as much poetry as play, an anthem to survival and to silence and to voice. Although it was written before the current rise in awareness and action surrounding Black Lives Matter, it speaks to this moment:

In some houses, children are taught that lack/fear/loss/less is their birthright 

The way some children are taught that privilege is theirs.

And farther down:

If you are feeling hopeless or enraged 

because you are a person of color and you are tired of having to explain WHY our lives should matter, 

or because this all could have been handled better so that people didn’t have to die, 

or because you are a survivor and you live each day waging war on silence and stillness and the night

and this whole thing feels so fucking familiar, and yet 

the outcome is already assured, 

and sometimes you just feel a bit hollow where faith should rest...

(I know I didn't let the author finish her thought, but I just love that last bit of language: a bit of hollow where faith should rest.)

Pearson packs many important topics into her examination of quarantine life—including a focus on the way our stresses dampen the creative spirit and, conversely, the way the creative spirit can save the soul during these stressful times.

A Wing and a Prayer by Josie Seid is a modern feminist fairy tale that turns the Cinderella story on its head as a group of women on their way out to a lecture get sidelined by an unexpected visit from a behind-the-times fairy godmother harboring a wish of her own.

It's a bubbly story full of humor—and by god, we need humor right now. Along with the play script, this entry has a video you can watch with a cast of characters performing via Zoom. It's a good example of what you could do if you got a group of friends together (together in air quotes) to put on some theater of your own.

There's a very interesting shared element between A Wing and a Prayer and The Third Prisoner by E. M. Lewis. I'm not going to disclose it because spoilers, but reading these plays back to back, I loved discovering the serendipitous overlaps, and this one in particular.

The Third Prisoner takes our anxieties about pandemic life and places them in a literal prison where two, and then three, prisoners are held captive together. I loved the surreal tone of this play, and the dialogue is snappy and smart and funny.

PRISONER #8836729 Wake up. 

PRISONER #4588930 I don’t want to wake up. 

PRISONER #8836729 I don’t want to be alone anymore. 

PRISONER #4588930 You can talk to me while I sleep. Quietly. Very quietly. 

PRISONER #8836729 I want you to talk back. 

PRISONER #4588930 I hate you. 

PRISONER #8836729 I know. 

PRISONER #4588930 I was trying to have a dream. 

PRISONER #8836729 Was it working?

In the middle of the witty back-and-forth and the wonderfully quiet surreality of the situation, The Third Prisoner explores topics of anxiety and identity and asks the question what would be worse: being stuck together forever or always being alone.

Joy Frickin’ Hates Her Dumb Stupid Room: A Trapped Little Play for Trapped Little Times by Sara Jean Accuardi examines quarantine life in a different way: through the interactions between a thirteen-year-old girl and her hamster who may or may not also be the fifteenth century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch.

I loved the inventiveness of this play, and it's funny throughout, even down to the stage directions, like this description of the character Joy:

Can be played by absolutely anyone who sorta feels like they're 13 and really over this whole thing.

Show of hands of people who could play this one?

Within the deadpan humor and the wackiness of the premise, Joy Frickin’ Hates Her Dumb Stupid Room gives us lots to think about, and deftly allows us to share our frustrations and our stress surrounding these strange shelter-in-place times while at the same time reminding us of our privilege. 

With humor and poetry and smarts and lots of different kinds of magic, the four plays that have come out of PCS's partnering with Play at Home are a great way to get a little bit of theater back into your life. Reading these scripts reminded me of what a particular experience it is to read, rather than see and hear, theater. I like that the writers put personality into even their stage directions, and I like that sets and casts started to materialize in my mind as I read. Side note: my husband and I have been binge watching the show Pose, and somehow as I was reading A Wing and a Prayer, the lines started to come out in my head as recited by characters in that show, and I think Dominique Jackson would make a great Begonia, just saying.

If you want to check it out, links to all the play scripts and playwright bios and more info on Play at Home is up on Portland Center Stage's website here.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Portland Center Stage

Man, I miss rock 'n roll.

I've realized in the last year or two that I hardly listen to music anymore. When I drive to and from work, I'm listening to the news. On my lunchtime walks, it's podcasts, and when I'm working on a design project and want something in my ears, it's old-time radio shows. In part, I think, because I don't have children, I've lost the thread of modern music. I don't know what it is anymore. But music used to be nearly everything to me.

And Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the film, was huge to me when it came out. What year was that? Wow, 2001. I was nuts for that film, especially the music, so I was equal parts excited and trepidatious when I heard Portland Center Stage's was going to be producing it. Would their Hedwig stand up to my revered image of John Cameron Mitchell? Would the music be tight enough? Would the show (feels silly for me to say, but) rock enough?

(Feels silly for me to say, but) The show totally rocks! And is hilarious and is raunchy and is complex and is a wonderfully immersive experience in the Armory's intimate Ellyn Bye Studio. And the set!

But wait.

Let me give you a recap if you don't know the story. You're in a mall. Yes, you. You're part of the show because you're a member of the audience as Hedwig, the genderqueer (I use that term specifically because that's how John Cameron Mitchell describes her) front-man for the broken-down rock band The Angry Inch, performs a show in the food court of an equally broken-down mall.

As she performs, she tells her story—being a boy in Germany; escaping from East Berlin to America with the aid of a botched sex-change operation (hence the "angry inch"); mentoring young rocker Tommy Speck; losing her way as Tommy Speck became superstar Tommy Gnosis, stealing her music as he left her behind.

Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. as Hedwig

But now, relating her story on stage, accompanied by her four-piece band and her backup singer/husband Yitzhak, Hedwig is head-up and haughty, audacious and sexy as she rocks the house in that sad, dilapidated mall—oh, but I was telling you about the set!

It's perfectly awful. And I mean perfectly in the positive sense. The overflowing trashcan, the broken candy machine, the half-burnt-out neon sign over the entrance to the mall-embedded Chili's restaurant. I love the signs that advertise the place as the "Star Court," a branding that's also on that broken vending machine. But the pièce de résistance is the tongue-in-cheek irony of the poor, dead escalator, standing in for the luxurious staircases of the musicals of Golden-Age Hollywood.

Hedwig is played by actor Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. His vocals seemed a little unsure at the start of the show, perhaps opening night jitters, but it didn't take long for him to find his footing. As an actor, he mixes Hedwig's haughtiness with just the right amount of bitterness and poignancy, and his sexy banter with the audience brings lots of laughs. I enjoyed the moments when he was playing both Hedwig and Tommy, switching back and forth between voices, accents, genders. When he more fully takes on Tommy's character toward the end of the show, it's a fabulous transformation.

As a singer, Curtis has a lovely voice. What an incredible range. It can take him from quite low to beautifully high, as in the surprising opening to his performance of "Hedwig's Lament." And when he's in full-on rock 'n roller mode, he hits some high notes that blow you away.

Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. as Hedwig and Ithica Tell as Yitzhak

If you're familiar with the film, take a tip and see the play. It's beautifully constructed around the device of the shopping mall performance, with the story of Hedwig's life perfectly weaving in and out. You're immersed in not only the drama of the stage play but the joy inherent in a rock show. There's a wonderful moment from an editing standpoint where Hedwig is telling you just how it came to pass that she was persuaded to have the botched sex-change operation. Suddenly the music starts and she sings, "When I woke up on the doctor's slab." From the moment before to the moment after—and you go from this very dark place right into music. Powerful, driving music. That's when I thought to myself, "Man, I miss rock 'n roll."

You could have a blast at Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the music alone, but it's also a surprisingly moving show. Stephen said the same thing to me, leaving the theater: "I was surprised, I got a little teary." (OK, me, I got very teary.) Stephen talked about Hedwig's emotional transformation, and I'm going to leave it at that because there's a surprise twist not only for those of you who, like me, were enamored of the movie but unfamiliar with the stage play, but also for those of you who've seen the play before, and I hate spoilers. But what was interesting to me was that while Stephen's emotional reaction came for Hedwig, mine was for Yitzhak.

Both characters have their moments of emotional climax (man, after all the double-entendres in that show, my brain has a little slant to it today). The thing about Yitzhak is that he's so in the background for much of the show that the conclusion of his particular story arc, at least for me, hits surprisingly strongly. I'll leave it at that because again with the spoilers, but let me talk for a moment about Ithica Tell.

Ithica Tell as Yitzhak

I loved her in a recent production of The Color Purple, and I was intrigued to see her name in the cast list as Yitzak. I thought she was a wonderful choice. She does great deadpan straight-man work as Hedwig's long-suffering husband, and her quiet smolder of in-the-background bitterness provides a great build-up of tension as we follow her own story as it rides secondary to Hedwig's.

Like Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr., Ithica Tell also has quite a range on her, vocally. She's able to go from very feminine to very masculine as she sings backup on Hedwig's songs. This range combined with her beautifully masculine look gives Ithaca Tell's Yitzhak the perfect gender mix for the show, I think, and makes her seem just right as Hedwig's other half. 

I thought she did a sweet turn on her solo "The Long Grift." Her voice on that was clear and lovely feminine. Then elsewhere her sound would be surprisingly masculine, like on the backup vocals of a certain song where she was so deep and angsty she reminded me of the heavy metal music of my youth. It was very different from what I remembered of the same song in the film, and it felt so much more effective, so much more powerful. I loved the interpretation. So much that I wanted to tell you all about it, but one day later, and I can't remember which song! I've been wracking my brains. That's what a lot of my experience of theater tends to be like, actually, with this incredibly flabby memory of mine. The next day I'm basking in the reminiscence of a lovely evening, but the particulars have faded and what I'm left with is the memory of feeling. Of all the laughter, of the joy of music, of the surprise of tears from a moment unexpected. Portland Center Stage's Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a very full show and even as we were leaving the theater, I was craving another look. "Makes me want to watch the movie," I told Stephen.

Stephen countered with, "Makes me want to see the play a second time." 

We may just do that.

*

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is playing now through February 23rd at the Armory. More information is here.

Photos by Owen Carey/Courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory

Poster art by Mikey Mann

Miss Bennett: Christmas at Pemberley at Portland Center Stage

Of the differing opinions on how (and specifically how much) to celebrate the holidays, I'm in the celebrate-all-December camp. Time goes too fast these days and for me it takes an entire month to equal the potency that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day used to have for my kid brain. If you're in my camp, one thing I'd highly suggest along with the decorating and the well-wishing and the gift-giving and the winter overeating is for you to go out and see at least one piece of holiday theater.

A wonderful example of this is Portland Center Stage's Miss Bennett: Christmas at Pemberley. We saw it last night and it was the perfect kick-off for this holiday season.

The setup: it's 1815, two years post-Pride and Prejudice, and the Bennet sisters and a couple of their significant others are gathering at Pemberley for Christmas.

Cindy Im, Treasure Lunan and Kailey Rhodes

Along with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, now-pregnant Jane and her husband Charles, and flighty-flirty, married-but-still-on-the-lookout Lydia, there is Mary Bennet, the middle child, who has never found her significant someone and spends her time mostly with her books and her pianoforte. Written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley reimagines the Pride and Prejudice universe, putting Mary at the center as she meets her match, the equally bookish Arthur de Bourgh.

Lauren Modica as Mary and Joshua J. Weinstein as Arthur

You don't have to be a Jane Austen aficionado to enjoy Miss Bennet (although if you are, there are lots of added treats in the script for you). For that matter, you don't have to be big into Christmas either. The story stands on its own with lots of romance and lots of laughs, some beautiful staging that's almost like dancing at times, and doses of good old-fashioned screwball comedy. I think Jane Austen would be pleased with the snappy, witty dialogue and the insightful social commentary. I'd love to know what she'd think about how the playwrights imagined the lives of her beloved characters carrying on into the future.

Lauren Modica

OK, can I just talk for a moment about Lauren Modica? I just thought she was terrific and stole the show. I think you don't usually use the phrase "stole the show" for a leading lady, but I can't help it. Her delivery of Mary Bennet's sharp wit was pitch perfect and she moved between emotions with a fluidity that was kind of mesmerizing to me. There were times when the action was happening in one part of the stage and I found myself listening to the dialogue but watching, instead, Lauren in a completely different part of the stage, as she silently reacted. Incredulity on her face would make me laugh and then it would melt into something hurt or something bittersweet and I would feel a pang of heartbreak for her. I couldn't stop watching the play through her reactions. They were so beautifully nuanced and changeable that I could have watched the entire production with my eyes on Lauren Modica, taking in all the other action peripherally. 

The plot of Miss Bennet goes where you expect it to go, but a story like this isn't a question of oh-no-what-will-happen; it's all about how we get there and all the laughs along the way. With fast-paced, smart directing by PCS Artistic Director Marissa Wolf and a beautifully diverse cast, Miss Bennet Christmas at Pemberley is a witty, first-class romp and a great way to celebrate the holiday season.

It runs now through December 29th. More information is here.

Photos by Russell J. Young/Courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory

Poster art by Mikey Mann

In The Heights at Portland Center Stage

In the Heights, the award-winning musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes, is three days in the life of a mostly Hispanic-American neighborhood in Washington Heights, New York. Usnavi de la Vega, whose first name comes from the first sight his parents spied when they arrived in America from the Dominican Republic (a ship with a sign reading US Navy), owns a bodega in the center of the barrio but dreams of getting out and returning to the land his people came from. Also living and working here are Kevin Rosario, the ambitious owner of a taxicab business; Benny, his dispatcher and the one non-Spanish-speaker around; and Abuela Claudia, the loving matriarch of the barrio. Kevin's daughter Nina, the one often praised for being the first to "make it out," has just returned from Stanford University, not quite ready to tell her parents and friends that she has dropped out.

There's also Vanessa, the salon worker who dreams of having her own apartment outside the barrio but can't afford the down-payment, and the Piragua Guy, who sells Puerto Rican shaved ice in fierce competition with Mister Softee. There are relationship problems and thwarted ambitions and a huge citywide blackout during an intense heat wave, not to mention the winning lottery ticket that has just been sold at Usnavi's store, but through it all, the central theme in In the Heights is home.

What does home mean? Is it something to endure, something to go out and find, something you're given, something you create?

The answer, of course, is yes, but it's much more interesting an answer when it comes with the music and drama and wit of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes. We saw Saturday night's performance of the production put on by Portland Center Stage, one of my favorite Portland theaters. I've never seen Hamilton and didn't know what to expect with In the Heights. I'll admit that at first I was afraid it would be difficult to follow for the likes of me. As the music began, the rhymes and the wordplay were coming at me so fast, but by halfway through that first piece, my brain had caught up and I was along for the ride. Here's a little taste:

I am Usnavi, and you prob’ly never heard my name

Reports of my fame are greatly exaggerated
Exacerbated by the fact that my syntax
Is highly complicated 'cause I immigrated
From the single greatest little place in the Caribbean:
Dominican Republic!
I love it!
Jesus, I’m jealous of it
And beyond that
Ever since my folks passed on
I haven’t gone back
Goddamn, I gotta get on that...

I can be kind of a jerk when it comes to modern musicals. Well, at least inside my head. There's a sameness and a preciousness and... just a sound I don't always enjoy. But In the Heights is different. The music is a mix of salsa and rap, feeling like the best of America: the vibrancy of its diversity and the energy of its perseverance. And it's so darn fun. The orchestra for Portland Center Stage's production, led by Eugenio A. Vargas, is tight, and the singing is first rate. And there's plenty of dancing by the whole, large cast. Including breakdancing! So much energy, so nonstop. We had to wonder how pooped the cast was when they finished the show.

See in the above picture? That balcony above the bodega? Not only does some of the action of the performance take place up there, but the whole band—keyboards, reeds, guitar, trumpet, bass, drums—is mounted up there. Like the music is a part of the barrio, which feels perfect.

Some of my favorite parts in the show were delivered by secondary characters. Lillian Castillo was fantastic as Daniela, the feisty salon owner and neighborhood gossip, and I loved whenever she was suddenly, surprisingly belting it out on stage.

Center: Lillian Castillo as Daniela

Another high point for me was "Enough," the song sung by Camila, the mother of Nina and the wife of Kevin, as she gives them both a piece of her mind about all their fighting and pig-headedness that's been driving the family apart. Carmine Alers performs the song with equal parts fierceness, funniness, and grace. It's a wonderful surprising turn for the character, and it's delivered beautifully. After the show, I looked up and watched some clips of that song to enjoy it again, and I found actors who tried to push too much tragedy or too much rage into their performances. Alers' delivery felt exactly as the song should be.

Left: Carmine Alers as Nina

The night we saw the show, one of the actors must have been sick, because there was a cascading of understudies in a handful of characters, and one of the very biggest parts in the production, Nina, the romantic lead, was played by someone who doesn't normally play the part. She was great! Energetic and confident and nuanced and seemed like she must have been performing that character from the start. I don't know how much practice time understudies get, but Paola Hernández, who pinch-hit as Nina, and Emily Madigan, who pinch-hit as Carla, were both terrific. As was Debra Cardona, who's doing a short run as Abuela Claudia. 

It says something about the actors, of course, but it also says something about the production as a whole, and how well it works together. Portland Center Stage's In the Heights works together very well. It's one of those shows where, in the end, you think that maybe the most important "cast member" is the ensemble. It sure feels that way when the stage is alive with music and dance. Like the rollicking "Carnaval del Barrio," the song that celebrates finding joy in both good times and bad, In the Heights, through all the plot's ups and downs, is simply a really good time.

It's playing now through October 13. More information is here.

Photos by Owen Carey/Courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory.

Poster art by Mikey Mann.

The Breath of Life at Portland Center Stage

On Friday night, Stephen and I saw one of two previews for Portland Center Stage's production of The Breath of Life. The play, by David Hare, imagines two women who spend 24 hours together in a house on the Isle of Wight. The kicker is that they are the wife and mistress of one man, who has now left both for a younger woman.

The cast of two is Julia Brothers as Frances Beale, the wife, and Portland favorite Gretchen Corbett as Madeleine Palmer, the mistress—both really great actresses who deliver heart and humor in equal doses. There's an odd steadiness to Hare's play—plenty of tension throughout but it doesn't seem to rise and fall. But the dialogue snaps and the humor is wicked and witty. We laughed a lot.

Friday night was also a really interesting example of the old adage the show must go on. Just before the date of the play's original preview (only one week back), the actress originally set to play Frances had to drop out. I can't imagine what a crazy scramble it must have been to recast such an essential part at the very last minute.

It was so last minute that Brothers, the new Frances, had a script on stage with her during the show. Sometimes she just held it, sometimes she referred to it as she delivered her lines. You'd think this would be a distraction. Well, it was, but not an annoying distraction. On the contrary, it was fascinating. It felt like a privilege to get this behind-the-scenes-in-front-of-the-scenes glimpse of theater.

I wondered: how much did she really need that script? When she referred to it, was it mostly a bit of a safety net, or was she really in the process of still memorizing her lines? If she didn't have it, how much would she be able to recite? After the Friday night show (which was a preview night, for the press and maybe donors, etc.), would she be casting the script aside and performing the Saturday preview (her last before the regular run began) without a net?

It was hard to tell, because she was so darn good. She delivered her lines beautifully, moved across the stage, used plenty of body language, all of it seeming very, very real, while holding that script in her hand. At times she had to navigate props with it. Transfer the booklet to this hand while this other hand reached and poured the cup of tea. Little things like that kind of fascinated me. One object was inside the play, one object was not. It was like watching someone half in one dimension and half in another.

(Pictures sans script, of course.)

I kept thinking, how does an actor so fully inhabit a role, so beautifully become someone else in some made-up situation, how does she make that real while holding the script, the evidence of the fiction, in her hand? How does she keep from having that distract her from being completely immersed in the scene? And how does she come out on stage after a last minute change like this, not yet even having her lines completely committed to memory, and fit into the production so well?

My hat's off to Julia Brothers, and to Gretchen Corbett who had to switch gears to work with the timing, the delivery, the physical presence of a completely new costar. And to Portland Center Stage for deftly rolling with the punches and delivering yet another aspect of theater magic—the quick change—with finesse and expertise.

Loved the set. It was beautifully elaborate in the intimate Ellyn Bye Studio.

The Breath of Life runs now through June 16. More info is here.

Photos by Kate Szrom/Courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory.

Poster art by Mikey Mann.

Tiny Beautiful Things at Portland Center Stage

Tiny Beautiful Things may be my favorite of Cheryl Strayed’s books: the way she transforms the vehicle of the advice column into a forum for deeply complex personal essays that not only fully address the questions posed by the advice-seekers but also tell her own story and, taken all together, get to the heart of what it is to be human.

When I heard this column that became a book was becoming a play I was equal parts excited and perplexed. How does someone turn a book like this into a play? How do you fashion a set around it? How do you take the question-and-answer structure of an advice column or the start-and-stop structure of a collection of essays and bend it into something with a single plot and a beginning-to-end story arc? Or do you?

Then I saw photographs of the production showing people sitting around a couch in a set that looked like someone's house—and that confused me, too. I didn't get how those pictures related to the Tiny Beautiful Things in my head.

The play opens with one of those four, a woman, alone in the house. She comes in with a laundry basket in her arms, passes through, goes into a laundry room, closes the door. Nothing for one beat, two. Then she re-emerges.

And I finally got it. This was Sugar. Or rather this was Cheryl Strayed, in her own home. Which is where all those pieces of advice, all those lovely essays came to life.

And that's what the play does. It brings those essays to life, as the advice-seekers, in the form of three actors, appear in her home, inhabiting different characters, beautifully anonymous (now he's a man, now he's a woman) hovering around her couch, her kitchen table, asking her their questions and letting her spin out her answers as the tiny beautiful essays they are.

I loved this approach. What an intimate thing, bringing these people into her personal space just as her intimate and generous responses to their questions must have brought her right to them in a personal way. Which is what the book does for the reader as well.

You might think this back-and-forth structure would get old, but it doesn't, because each issue brought up, each monologue performed, is so different and so heartfelt—at times funny, at times wrenching. An unexpected arc forms as the monologues start to piece together the story of Cheryl's life. And toward the end, something happens that takes the play to a place the book never could have gone, and it's surprising and wonderful.

Each of the players (Dana Green who plays Cheryl/Sugar, and Leif Norby, Lisa Renee Pitts, and Brian Michael Smith, who get to exercise their versatility chops playing all the advice-seekers) is fabulous. But the star is Cheryl's words and the masterful way they're shaped and arranged and brought to life on stage. Kudos for this have to go to adapter Nia Vardalos, co-creators Marshall Heyman and Thomas Kail, and of course Cheryl Strayed herself, as well as director Rose Riordan.

A good example of this mastery is a moment during the sequence advanced by an advice-seeker who calls himself "Living Dead Dad." I remembered it from the book. It's shattering. In fact on impulse—just this second—I got out my book and read that piece again and it shattered me again. The issue brought up by "Living Dead Dad" is so difficult for him to express that he presents it in a list rather than the paragraphs of a letter. And Cheryl/Sugar responds in kind. In the middle of their interaction, Cheryl walks over to where "Living Dead Dad," played by Leif Norby, is sitting, and struggling, at her table, breaks a fourth wall we didn't know existed, and hands him a box of tissues. It's such a tiny thing, but this exchange, this intimacy, is exactly what the play is all about.

I knew this performance was going to touch me, but I was somehow not ready for how much. I was holding my breath to try to cry less, because we were in a public place, and the only thing that made me feel better was that I could hear Stephen, my date for the evening, crying just as much.

Artist Jeana Edelman, also in the audience, later said, "I’d never experienced an entire house crying at once before."

Stephen expressed it in a slightly different way. He said, "In the part where she hands him the box of tissues, all I kept thinking was, maybe they should pass them around."

*

The other thing Stephen said? He coveted the kitchen. The set is a lovely craftsman home, the perfect setting because of its openness and its beauty but also its hominess, with a dog bed at one corner, books and shoes under the couch, evidence of life lived. If you saw our kitchen, the one un-fixed-up room in our house, with its cracked, rust orange counter tops and old, chipped cabinets and dead appliances, you'd understand why Stephen loved the layout created by Scenic Designer Megan Wilkerson, all blue and white and tiled and fresh.

"Yeah," Stephen said as we were driving home after the show. "I want that kitchen."

*

Tiny Beautiful Things is playing now through March 31st on the main stage at Portland Center Stage. More information is here.

The book is available here.

Photos by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv/Courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory

Poster art by Mikey Mann.

Buyer and Cellar at Portland Center Stage

It's interesting, the things people choose when creating fantasy worlds in their basements. I mean people who have the money to create fantasy worlds in their basements. I mean Barbra Streisand.

I mean, if I had the money, I'd go for Rome circa 125 CE. Or Egypt circa 1345 BCE. Or, OH, OH - I'd make it the inside of a spaceship as seen through the eyes of the early twentieth century with thousands of blinking lights and one of those—

But anyway, I think the last thing I'd make is a shopping mall.

Still. The very true fact that Barbra Streisand has a life-sized replica of a mall in her basement makes for great theater. Buyer and Cellar, which we saw Friday night at Portland Center Stage, is the story of an out of work actor, not long from being summarily fired from his latest gig playing a character at... Disneyland, who receives the very strange offer of performing as the singular on-hand shopkeep of all the shops in Barbra Streisand's basement. He dusts her many collections displayed in the shops, serves frozen yogurt, even performs sales exchanges (complete with haggling) with the star over her own merchandise.

This show is totally weird, wildly inventive, and laugh-out-loud funny.

Full disclosure, Stephen and I are big Streisand fans. Stephen is hugely so (pre-1980s Barbra, specifically). As we sat in the theater before the play started, Streisand music piped in around us, he said, "If they'd play this louder, I could sing along, and if I sang along, I bet everyone would sing along."

I'd been worried Buyer and Cellar would be a musical. I can be quite a stickler where musicals are concerned, and I wasn't sure I could condone a guy giving us his life's story while crooning covers of "Evergreen" and "Papa, Can You Hear Me." But it isn't that at all. It's a charming and hilarious one-man show about ambition and the ways we create fantasies of our lives - with a sweet love story to boot.

The writing is fantastic, but what it takes to pull off this show is a really great actor. He has to stay "on" for a seventy-miles-an-hour one-hundred-minute ride with no intermission, playing four different parts (including narrator Alex, and of course Streisand, herself) (oh, and a quick cameo by Oprah, so five), has to play those parts with energy and subtlety, has to charm the pants off the audience and make them laugh for most of those one hundred minutes—and Nick Cearley did all that.

I can see this role being irritating if performed by a less experienced actor, but Cearley has beautiful timing and perfect nerdy lovability (I remember him as a great Seymour in PCS's production of Little Shop of Horrors a couple years back.). He has lots of energy but it's not over the top. As he spins his outrageous story, his face, and at times his whole body, comment on its ridiculousness with wonderful little asides. There's a great sequence where he dances while he tells his story, and every move is the elegant and perfect pairing for the words he speaks and the mood he wants to create. In dialogue, he's able to switch back and forth between characters beautifully. Conversations between Alex and his spirited boyfriend Barry in particular are absolutely seamless.

The framework for this play is a book Streisand wrote called My Passion for Design, all about the design of her home, the design and decorating of all the rooms, her gardens, her many collections. I was struck, watching the play, by the way design can mean more than just creating the look and feel of an object or a space. And by the way so many of us work so hard to design our own selves.

I was thinking, too, about the title Buyer and Cellar. How important is the idea of buying and selling to the big picture of the play? Did the author focus on this in the show's title solely for the pun on the word cellar? Or is it more? Interestingly, though the story is told from the point of view of Alex, he's not the buyer, he's the shopkeep, the seller. Barbra, haggling over price on an antique doll that's technically already hers, is the buyer. And the weird thing for me in the title is that this means Alex doesn't get mentioned at all. It's buyer (Barbra) and cellar (also implying Barbra). Or is he the buyer, too? What is he buying, with his time and his effort? A brush with celebrity? A brush with fantasy? A brush with the existential truth that we all, as humans—

Oh, sorry. I nerded out a little just now. But then again, why not? Buyer and Cellar celebrates the best of nerdiness, along with being deceptively smart, giving you lots of think about after you're done laughing your head off and go home to your apartment or your house with its very, very regular basement.

*

Buyer and Cellar is playing now through March 3rd in the lovely Ellyn Bye Studio (Hey, that's below ground, too! That's like having a theater in your theater's basement!) at Portland Center Stage. More information is here.

Photos by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory.

Publicity poster art by Mikey Mann

Sense and Sensibility at Portland Center Stage

I'd just had a medical test and was awaiting results, expected Thursday. I also had theater tickets for Friday. I thought, if it's bad news, will I go to the theater? Will I throw a little carpe diem on my disappointment, force a little eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die? I thought, no, I'd probably rather stay home and cry.

Oh my god, I am so glad I don't have cancer because Portland Center Stage's Sense and Sensibility is

the most delightful thing I've seen in a very long time.

I feel a little at a loss, writing about this, because to give you a sense (oops, no pun intended) of why you need to go see this play right now, I'd need to spill some details that were just so lovely to be surprised by. Let me say that it's an evening of beautiful stage magic. Brilliant stage magic. You know that thing where the characters are sitting on chairs and miming being in a car and they sway their bodies to show the car careening here and there? It was that stuff but perfected to the fourth power and used so cleverly that I laughed with delight all the way through (a couple times loudly enough to embarrass myself) at how smart it all was.

Alright, just to give you a sense (oh, lord, I did it again): Chairs with people sitting in them are skated around on stage so that it's like you're watching a film and the camera is moving. Disconnected pieces of scenery are moved and rearranged to form different settings. At one point - but, no, no, I'm not going to say more. The details are so masterful that you just have to experience it in person.

Whose idea was all that stage magic? Was it Kate Hamill, who adapted Jane Austen's classic novel? Was it Eric Tucker, who directed? Who was responsible for the intricate coordination of all that magic, a coordination that was so perfectly executed it seemed like a dance? Certainly credit has to also go to lighting director Sarah Hughey, who further refined the magic, particularly in a couple dreamy sequences that, for me, were dramatic high points of the show.

And the cast did a beautiful job, playing their (often multifold) characters and being moving (often careening) parts in the execution of that stage magic. Stars Danea C. Osseni and Quinlan Fitzgerald were great as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, two sisters navigating love and representing sense and sensibility respectively. I also particularly liked Lisa Birnbaum as their mother, Mrs. Dashwood. Longtime Portland favorite Darius Pierce was great in a handful of turns including a fabulously deadpan... horse.

And a big standout for me was Lauren Modica as the gossipy wishful matchmaker Mrs. Jennings, who had crack comic timing and brought down the house with one particular outrageous and funny monologue.

With this great cast and the smart, funny but reverent adaptation of Jane Austin's novel and the whirlwind of stage magic that did exactly what stage magic should do (including retreating when things got serious), and which beautifully underscored the artifice of civil society that Austin was so adept at putting on the page, Portland Center Stage's Sense and Sensibility was, for me, exactly the perfect thing to celebrate getting good news.

But if you got bad news? Seriously. Go see it anyway.

Spoiler/not spoiler: my very favorite moment, which you'll get if you go see this show, is the moment with the teacup.

*

Sense and Sensibility is playing now through February 10th at the Portland Center Stage Armory Theater. More information is here.

Photos by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory.

A Christmas Memory and Winter Song at Portland Center Stage

I'm at the place in my life where time goes so fast that December 9th is two days before Christmas and next week it will be spring. I'm trying to hold onto the holidays hard, taking in all the lights, watching holiday movies. I'm printing holiday cards as we speak. Friday night Stephen and I went one better and saw A Christmas Memory and Winter Song at Portland Center Stage.

Two plays in one, downstairs in the lovely intimacy of the Ellyn Bye Studio. Winter Song is a series of holiday musings and songs tied together with some audience participation. I started to sense the coming audience participation before the show began when I saw the actors going out into the seats and talking to people. Instant panic. Stephen and I were in the second row, dead center, sitting ducks. Stephen, eyes in his program, murmured that maybe if he read really hard, they wouldn't come over to us.

"If they come," he said, "you have to do it."

But thank the ghost of Jacob Marley, it turned out to be the best kind of audience participation you can have. The players were just asking people their holiday memories and writing them down, to incorporate into the show. This introvert very much appreciates being able to participate and not participate at the same time.

It was really interesting to watch the way they incorporated those thoughts into the show. Takes some skill to bring that all together in a way that flows and hits the right emotions at the right time. And the music weaves in and out, with covers such as Simon and Garfunkel's Homeword Bound and Laura Nyro's Mother's Spiritual - some original music as well. The storytellers/singers are Merideth Kaye Clark and Leif Norby, and they're accompanied on piano (and occasional vocals) by Mont Chris Hubbard, who also directs.

Leif Norby and Merideth Kaye Clark

Merideth Kaye Clark has a strong, lovely voice and plays many instruments, some of which she brought in to accompany the music. Merideth and Leif perform and sing well together, and when all three voices get going, it's really beautiful.

Mont Chris Hubbard, Merideth Kaye Clark, and Leif Norby

But for me, the gem of the evening was Leif Norby's lovely interpretation of Truman Capote's short story "A Christmas Memory." I'd never read this, although many people I know incorporate a reading of it into their holiday tradition. My own holiday tradition includes the gorgeous Dylan Thomas story "A Child's Christmas in Wales," and I anticipated the Capote story being something akin to that, a warm holiday memory you'd want to read (or see/hear) year after year.

It so is. The story of a seven year old and his elderly cousin in 1930s rural Alabama making fruitcakes to send to, among other people, President Roosevelt is warm and poignant and quiet and beautiful. It's a small story that goes to the heart of friendship, generosity in the face of poverty, richness of spirit, and loss. Yes, loss, and it did make me cry, but mostly the story is joyful and you leave just being in love with seven-year-old Buddy, his unnamed cousin (who he refers to as "my friend") and their little dog Queenie. Three days later (as of this writing), thinking about the details of "A Christmas Memory," little things like how Buddy refers to her as "my friend" make me want to cry again.

Leif Norby

Leif Norby is wonderful as the elder Capote looking back on his childhood in this autobiographical tale. He has that magical way of presenting simultaneously as a man of, oh, I don't know, fifty, and a boy of seven, with no preciousness at all, and when he voices the dialogue of the elderly female cousin, he is she: sweet, funny, and real.

"A Christmas Memory" is definitely something I could work into my own holiday tradition, and I could come back to Portland Center Stage and watch it every year. It's a lovely place to stop for a moment in the constant onrush of time. This year, it's playing through December 30th at Portland Center Stage at the Armory. More information is here.

Photos are by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye, courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory.

The Color Purple at Portland Center Stage

I had seen the movie and read the book. My date had done neither. I kind of envied how fresh the story was going to be for my friend, but it's always fun to see how something you know is reborn in a new form. In this instance, it was The Color Purple. I was very curious what a musical based on Alice Walker's classic novel would be like, and what Portland Center Stage would do with the material.

I have to admit that I am not overly a fan of the music in modern musicals. It's my own problem. There's something about the general style that tends to put me off. So I was a weensie bit nervous as I went down to the Gerding Theater to see the show. But PCS's production began with music that started sweet and then blossomed into a full-fledged old-time gospel tune that filled the theater and put a huge grin on my face.

The score for The Color Purple is a mix of modern and period pieces. The more contemplative or solo pieces tend to be more modern, with the bigger production numbers more period. Contemporary music written in the style of old time music can often be a sad, limp imitation, but I think this score pulls the period stuff off beautifully. Some of my favorite songs featured a Greek Chorus trio played by Lauren Du Pree, Nia Marché, and Ithica Tell as church ladies in a manner reminiscent of the "Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little" ladies from The Music Man. 

It's worth noting today, as the first official day of Banned Books Week, that Alice Walker's novel has frequently been challenged and censored for reasons ranging from sexual and social explicitness, to violence, to "troubling ideas about... man's relationship to God." I thought the role of "man's [and woman's] relationship to God" was framed beautifully by the songs written for the musical retelling of the story. It doesn't matter whether you're a spiritual person or not. It's a thread that goes beyond the question of belief or religion. Celie's relationship to God has its own arc, which compliments the arc of her character as she (here come the spoilers) endures abuse, as she gives up her babies, as she's married off to "Mister," as she pines for her sister, as she falls in love with Shug, as she slowly finds self worth and independence.

Celie is beautifully played by award-winning Broadway actress Felicia Boswell. Boswell has big acting and singing chops and, like the character of Celie, seems to grow on stage. Toward the end of the production I found myself actively wondering how old the actress is, noticing that even from my fabulously close (4th row) seat, she appeared to have gone from girl to woman, slowly, seamlessly, in front of my eyes.

Another stand-out is Chaz Lamar Shepherd, who plays Mister. His performance of "Mister's Song/Celie's Curse" knocked my socks off.

The main stand-out for me, musically (and I'm cheating a little by saying this), was the ensemble, though. The mix of voices was somehow absolutely perfect in my ears, a gorgeous thing.

But I have to say, for me the star of the show (and when I mentioned this to my friend afterwards, he said it was the same for him) was the set. Or set and lighting, together. I debated mentioning this without explaining it, but in Portland Center Stage's own Flickr stream of promotional photographs, it's right there to see, so I figure it must not be too much of a spoiler.

But if you're a stickler about spoilers...

...like me...

...and you don't want to know until you've seen the show, stop right here and, well, see the show.

But if you want to read on...

...and see a couple of those pictures (which will give it away instantly, which is why I'm playing this little broken-paragraph game with you right now)...

...then read on.

The set is minimalist and bordered by walls of wooden slats. The wood looks worn and gives a nice sense of time and place, but somewhere along the line - surprise - the slats open up. It's a deceptively simple bit of stage magic used cleverly and skillfully in conjunction with light and color throughout the production. When the slats are shut, and depending on how the lighting is used, there's a sense of intimacy, or of claustrophobia. When they're open, they let in the world, they create dreams, they remind you of prison bars, they give you the sky.

Color, light, shadow, and set are all used with precision and with beautiful variation. I'd go see the show again just to track the visuals so expertly designed and executed by scenic designer Tony Cisek and lighting designer Peter Maradudin.

And there's one more surprise that happens with the set at the end that's pretty fantastic. My friend, watching beside me, later told me that as this last surprise was starting to happen, he turned and watched my face, looking for the moment when it would dawn on me, too. I want to talk about what it was and what it means, but no. I'm going to dispense with the spoilers and keep that one to myself.

The Color Purple is a wonderful production of the classic about womanhood, sisterhood, and redemption. It's playing at Portland Center Stage through October 28th. More information is here.

Photos by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory.

The poster art is by Mikey Mann.

Captions are wreaking havoc with Blogger's spacing, so I'm going to include them below:

Photo one: (L-R): Felicia Boswell as Celie and Danea C. Osseni as Nettie

Photo two: (L-R): Felicia Boswell as Celie, Danea C. Osseni as Nettie, and Chaz Lamar Shepherd as Mister

Photo three: Chaz Lamar Shepherd with members of the cast

Photo four: (L-R) Felicia Boswell as Celie and Danea C. Osseni as Nettie with members of the cast

bad faith

Recently I watched the short film Bad Faith, written and directed by Jonah Barrett. I got to know Jonah when he became one of thirty writers contributing a short story to my anthology City of Weird, a few years ago. Jonah's story in the book has human-sized newt creatures and a secret underground biodome and a woman who controls crows with her mind, so yeah, I could have predicted his film was going to be super imaginative.

If you want to check it out, you can view it in its entirety on Jonah's artist website Malicious Wallydrags here.

The movie concerns Jeane on her first week of work in an office job, plagued with anxiety attacks and the loss of a best friend - but it also concerns a monster with a mouth full of teeth and a journey to the edge of the world.

Look at that creature! Can you see its trio of eyes? Look close. That's "Crystal the Puppet," which Jonah's crew constructed from PVC pipe and wire and papier-mâché - in fact, there's a cool clip on how they made it in the very cool "Making of" video you can also find on the Malicious Wallydrags website.

There's some beautiful film craft in Bad Faith. I don't like to give things away, so I won't say what it is, but there's a bit of artistry that happens right at the beginning that made me gasp out loud. I loved the worlds created by Jonah's camera, his eye, and his storyteller brain, both in the bright, sterile office and in the bleak landscape of Jeane's fantasies. Jonah weaves fantasy with reality throughout Bad Faith, making you ask the question: what is scarier, monsters or loneliness... monsters or the endless soul-sucking drone of the corporate working world.

OK, don't answer that.

The film has a great cast of characters, including Jonah himself, who shouldn't be allowed to have so many talents that, wait, yes, it suddenly occurs to me that he made a pact with the devil in which he was allowed to steal the talents of three other people (sorry, guys) and keep them all for himself. He's great as Paul, the best friend Jeane has lost, who we meet in Jeane's fantasies and who accompanies us to the edge of the world.

Sarah Robertson plays Jeane with wonderful range, and a sense of so much pent up emotion - terror, shame, loneliness, even hope - just below the surface.

I love Deane Shellman as Mrs. Vander the office manager. She's the perfect corporate office trope, whose enthusiasm for the job reminds you why existential angst is a thing and whose chirpy helpfulness, as Jeane keeps screwing up on the job, just creates more tension.

And Amber Atalaya is pretty delicious as Phillis, the conniving coworker out to step on anyone's nose she can to keep her beloved place in the hierarchy of the office.

But the heart of the film is Howard, played with lovely realness by Kela Kealakai. I love the subtlety Kela brings to their role as maybe the one truly grounded character in the whole story. With all the peril Jeane endures, from betrayals to failure to loneliness to encounters with ferocious prehistoric beasts, Howard  brings to the story what was, to me, the most unexpected thing of all.

No, I'm not going to tell you. Watch it here. The website also has info on Jonah's writings and photography and more. This profile I wrote about Jonah's contribution to City of Weird contains some more fun info about him and his projects.