Short stories that are actually good, profanity-laden conceptual art, brave new theater—here’s what’s happening this weekend in art:
LYNNE TILLMAN: Tomorrow evening, Lynne Tillman, plus a small army of local and less local interdisciplinary artists, will celebrate New Herring Press’ reissue of her first book, Weird Fucks, at PICA. Why should you care about Lynne Tillman? Because she’ll never string you along like some unwieldy, plot-heavy fiction writers, she said, gushing:
If you’ve ever felt like an author was dragging you along against your will as you plodded through a 200-page novel, Tillman is the writer for you. It never feels like she’s wasting your time. This is an effect that takes painstaking effort to achieve, and it’s all too rare in contemporary fiction.
TRIBES: Rebecca Waits saw Tribes at Artists Repertory Theater, a play (just extended through May 8!) about the only deaf member of a dysfunctional family. Rebecca appreciated its complex take on issues of inclusion, community, and the limits of language, as well as the sense of connection among the audience she saw it with:
As a hearing person, it was illuminating to attend an ASL-interpreted version of this play. Lit up alongside the actors, the interplay of the interpreters was compelling and hypnotic; they kept astounding pace with the constant, manic arguments of a heavily troubled family. I found my attention darting back and forth from the spotlight to the stage; it was like keeping up with subtitles. I found that being a minority in a mostly Deaf or hard-of-hearing audience gave me the opportunity to sit back and listen, by watching people speak intimately with their hands across a wide theater; to be honest, more strangers engaged and talked with each other at this show than at perhaps any other Portland play I’ve seen.
TROUBLE: And if you’re doing the hermit thing this weekend, Courtney Ferguson recommends Kelly Link’s new short-story collection, Get in Trouble:
The arch heroines (plus a few arch heroes) of Get in Trouble are a weird and delightful lot, covetous and funny, impish and mesmerizing—like Immy in “The New Boyfriend,” whose jealousy of her perfect best friend becomes overwhelming. “If you can’t be honest with your best friend’s Vampire Boyfriend, who can you be honest with?”she thinks as they dance at a party.
ARTISTS WANTED: Disjecta needs a curator; Wordstock needs authors, and they’re accepting small-press and self-published titles—go get ’em!