Dead Man's Cell Phone, Theatre Vertigo (Grade B)

Writer Sarah Ruhl

Director  Buck Skelton

Cast:

Jean  .....  Kerry Ryan

Gordon  .....  Mario Calcagno

Mother  .....  Jane Fellows

Dwight  .....  Joel Harmon

Hermenia  .....  Heather Lundy Kahl

Gordon's Lover  .....  Jenn Hunter
Ensemble   .....  Clara-Liis Hillier & Nico Marquez

 story outline: woman (Jean) sitting in cafe discovers a man at next table (Gordon) is dead.  She takes over his cell phone and decides--for no particular reason--that she loves the dead guy.  She takes charge of his cell phone and begins to tell anyone who calls lies about how he felt about the caller.  Her lies are meant to make people happy and to think well of Gordon.  The callers include business associates, lovers, his mother etc.  She does this to keep him alive and to make him the good person that she wants to believe he is.  

But he (Gordon) was not such a nice guy. He got rich selling body parts on the international market. He explains his work as a form of helping people.  Meanwhile Jean meets Gordon's brother, Dwight, and they fall in love.  They speculate about love and where do all the contents of cell phone calls go--off into the infinity of the either, etc.  Jean decides to try and help one last customer of Gordon's by delivering a body part to South Africa--and insisting the body parts be given away for love and not sold for $$.  She is dealing with some very shady characters--she get knocked out and has a near death experience--where she meets-up with Gordon on a far away planet.  Luckily she isn't really dead but she returns from this experience to warn other about loving the wrong person.

sez says...there is just the right bit of camp in this production. And what a great play this is. We saw it in Ashland a few years back and while they had a bigger venue and more $$ to spend on props and costumes and staging, Vertigo did a better overall job telling this story. They built up a "Tim Burton type" atmosphere, not dark and morbid but quirky-dark with a touch of vamp-satire.  There are many themes running around it this loony story. The whole thing is played straight but with a cartoon-esq, flat edge. And as we go along we are asks profound and inane questions:  Are Jean's lies better than Gordon's lies?  What are the unimagined and unknowable impact of communications becoming increasingly electronic?   How many kinds of love are there? Who owns the cell phone?

While the production as a whole was on the mark--there were some disappointing aspects.  Most distressing is that the acting was uneven.  Fellows and Ryan held up their ends but esp Calcagno fell off his sharp edge more than once. That is really too bad.  We have seen him do ever so much better and here, in this play, he was cast to type to a T.   He could have done so much more with Gordon.  Maybe Calcagno needs to take a trip to New Jersey and meet a real-life witness protection guy. The kind of fellow who wears Gucci Loafers and gold chains and who is overly aggressive in his presentation of slimy business propositions -- (these guys do exist but they are not so very common in Portland) Such an example might have suggested where he could take this character.  And Kahl was great one moment--and then would drop away and seemed to repeat her lines as if she were still working on memorizing them.  I can only guess that a little more work all around would have lifted this performance onto a substantially higher plane --but even as it, it is fun and worth seeing.  

Bloodyvox, Body Vox, (Grade C)

Co-Directors Jamey Hampton & Ashley Roland

Performers: Jamey Hampton;  Matt Hope;  Heather Jackson;  Daniel Kirk;  Ashley Roland;  Eric Skinner;  Zachary Caroll;  Jonathan Krebs

sez says:  hummm, this was a real mixed bag which I guess can be expected from a show that is made up of many short pieces..but overall this was a disappointment. It felt like too many of the pieces were more circus acts than dance. (ie George & George) I know, I know we don't what to limit what falls into the definition of dance--and I love Body Vox for that--even their name (Body Voice) conveys that notion. The body can and does talk...etc etc. But, when I go to a dance show I expect certain things..and again (this is at least the 2nd time I felt this way after a Body Vox show) I felt that some of the dances where not well enough rehearsed.  There was too much choppiness and off kilter action from the dancers. 
Not so in all cases.  For instance Little Miss Tough It  was masterfully choreographed and performed. It required precision and the job was done to a tea.  But what could have been a lovely piece, The BloodyVox Ball was a mess of people not handling their costumes correctly (lots of cloth needed to be integrated into the dance and it was slipping and having to be grabbed up and in general not handled well by the dancers) which suggests not enough rehearsal time.  It is frustrating to watch this sort of thing -- you can see there is a beautiful dance possible but it isn't happening.
I do have to say that again I was totally impressed with the costumes. Ashely Roland does most of the designs and she shines: out doing her self again and again. The designs, the cloth, the colors all work to make each dance something special. 

MJC says: fun innovative not necessarily dancing...


 

Kiss Me Like You Mean It, Third Rail (Grade C-)

by Chris Chibnall
directed by  Slayden Scott Yarbrough
cast:
TONY  .....  Isaac Lamb
RUTH  .....  Lauren Bair
EDIE  .....  Jacklyn Maddux
DON  .....  Brian Thompson

sez says:  oh my-what has happened to Thrid Rail's Cutting Edge?  In past years you could count on them to pick provocative plays that challenge an audience.   This play is not bad..but it is not the least bit edgy.  It seemed to me to be more like a TV Sit-Com than a play. It is a pleasant little romp but it does not stimulate thought. It does not push us to think about or reconsider the world in any way at all.  It has a few 'bad-boy' moments -- like talk of testicles and senior citizens who enjoy sex and and older women who know curse words and can use them properly. (Ho hum--don't the young ones know that us geezers have sex and have been known to curse?)   This sort of stuff got a few laughs--but why I am not really sure.

Here is what we are given in this story:  Young folks need to find mates--and that is not always easy to establish. But when the opportunity arises it is important to be bold and to act, rather than miss the opportunity of finding a  life partner. And, two, when you know you are going to die, it makes sense to take matters into your own hands rather than to allow a disease to be in charge of your last days.  OK --and.... there is no more here than that...and all of this has been done much better elsewhere. I would have given this eve a lower grad if it were not for the acting--which was solid.  Also, the set was well done....but we need content for our good actors.

Touch, Theater Vertigo (Reading)

Writer Toni Press-Coffman

Director: Tamara Carroll

Cast:

Danielle Larson
Brooke Fletcher
JR Wickman
Andy Lee-Hillstrom
Jenn Hunter

sez says: this is a wonderful play--the reading was a little bumpy at times but overall well done..and the story is really appealing.  Telling the story of a young man--geek/science student in high school. who falls in love with Zoe, marries her and lives, mostly happily every after, until the day she disappears and is later found murdered.  With many long monologues buttressed by dialogue that fills out people who encircle the primary character, this story explores the realm of the ways and means of human connectedness. How  strongly we are able to bond, how the tearing of that bond can leave us drained. How life without feeling or passion is deadening. How physical reality, emotional reality and even intellectual reality are tied together.  Our Vertigo Ensemble sure does pick great work to read and to perform, and that is appreciated.  

Telethon, Portland Playhouse (Grade B)

Written by Kristin Newbom
Directed by Rose Riordan

Cast:
Scott  .....  Michael O'Connell
Anne  .....  Valerie Stevens
Shelly  .....  Nikki Weaver
Lewis  .....  Casey McFeron
Larry  .....  Gary Norman

sez says: two care takers (Scott & Anne) and their flock (Shelly, Lewis & Larry) who are a trio of people inflicted with Cerebral Palsy, sit in a donut shop after various holiday fundraisers and unwind.  They are a family of sorts--or at least a community of individuals who know each other intimately.  They banter and brag and fight and joke-around like any group of close friends..except in this case, two are paid (paid very little $$ wise) to care for the other three.  The three who are the cared-for are part of the invisible word--the world we would rather not look at, so we shy away from them and their awkward jerky physical motions, and we seldom see them as people in the world.  But here, in this play, the audience is forced to see them as they are, just as nutty and aggressive and helpful and belligerent, and wanting to be accepted as the rest of us.  And they are sometimes care givers themselves--connected to each other and to their care givers via the interactions of everyday life.

This is not specifically about cerebral Palsy--it is about people caring about each other..and then moving on. It is about ephemeral relationships, that can be intense when they exist and then can be gone in the wink of an eye.  This is not told in a linear fashion, but rather it is presented as the sum of shared experiences and told via snippets of time that our group spends together. And then about how all that seems solid turns to dust, as life moves on and changes come from unexpected places.

Well acted. A gathering of people who won't be easy to forget.

MJC SAYS:  The acting pool has deepened and gained in skills since our arrival in Portland as demonstrated by this production.

Great Falls, Profile Theater (Grade A)

by Lee Blessing
Director, Jane Unger
Cast:
Monkey Man  .....  Tim True
Bitch  .....  Ana Reiselman

sez says:  this is the story of a step-father and step-daughter who are deeply connected (as father and daughter) but who have been torn apart by a difficult divorce.  They are on a car trip across country initiated by the step-father and begrudging supported by the step-daughter.  Step-dad says he wants to talk--but does not do it when the opportunity is available;  Step-daughter is caustic, angry, verbally abusive, and very much in need of an adult to help her through a serious problem.  Neither party here is all right--or all wrong.  They struggle to find a way to heal the past and the present but there is no easy fix.  Dad claims there must be a place --a time--when he will no longer have to pay for his past discretion.  The daughter can not imagine a man --even a son--that deserves to exist.  Both are wrong.. there is no point when the the past is wiped away and there may be men in the world who are not monsters --one might be her step-dad, but the bridge to that place is tenuous.  Step dad sums it up with the line that was something like:  I wish I could do you good with doing you harm. 

Great acting and a really moving, contemporary story.

MJC Says: well acted, solid story, got emotionally engaged, what more can you ask. Thanks for making a step parent into a caring person and not a villain.

An Iliad, Portland Center Stage, Grade A

Written by Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson, based on Homer's The Iliad
Directed by Penny Metropulos
Staring Joseph Graves

sez says: this is what theater is suppose to be, engaging, serious, alive, even breathtaking and full of purpose.  Rage is the beginning, an epic is told, but what is the human reality underlying the emotion and the history?  Why do humans war?  Strife raises its head and grows till it fills the sky, says our one man singer/storyteller.  He asks repeatedly, do you see what I am saying? can you really see it?   And no one can ignore what his words bring into the room. He makes us see even if we don't want to look. The energy required to provide this performance is extraordinary--but Graves ran this marathon--a full hour and 45 minutes, non-stop, without skipping a beat, or resting in the process.  This is a suburb piece of theater, beautifully done.