Nestled next to Starbucks on NE 28th, Navarre is a cozy, unobtrusive space with high ceilings, mismatched chairs, and bowls of plums and tomatoes lining the counter. Long a dinner favorite for their unpretentious yet elegant tapas-style meals, Navarre has recently begun offering breakfast and lunch seven days a week. Unlike their dinner menu, which […]
Alison Hallett
Alison Hallett served nobly as the Mercury's arts editor from 2008-2014. Her proud legacy lives on.
Posted inTheater & Performance
Reefer Madness!
If you’ve seen the 1936 anti-pot film Reefer Madness!, then you’re familiar with the over-the-top blend of hysteria and misinformation that characterizes the movie. The musical version does the film one better, keeping the public service announcement format while upping the cheese factor by introducing some spirited song-and-dance numbers to the mix. The plot follows […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Metamorphoses
Let’s get the water puns out of our system, shall we? The Artists Repertory Theatre (ART) makes a big splash with Metamorphoses! Dive into Ovid with ART! Metamorphoses goes swimmingly! Water is, actually, crucial to ART’s new show. Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of Ovid is famed for requiring a large swimming pool in the middle of […]
Posted inFeature
The Mercury’s Back-to-School Guide to Portland!
Pullout: Passing Notes: The Mercury’s Back to School Issue
Posted inArt
It’s About Time
Everything You Need to Know About This Year’s Time-Based Art Festival
by Chas Bowie, Alison Hallett, Evan James, and Justin Wescoat Sanders
Posted inMovies & TV
Haitian Cock
Women, Sex, and Politics in Heading South
Set in Haiti in the 1970s, Laurent Cantet’s Heading South (AKA Vers Le Sud) takes place at a pristine, beachside resort where middle-aged white women enjoy the sexual attention of young Haitian men (for a small fee, of course). British spinster Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), and the fragile, emotional Brenda (Karen Young) both come to Haiti […]
Posted inUncategorized
Butter Makes it Better
The Screen Door: Worth Every Calorie
I admit that my only encounter with authentic Southern food took place at a Waffle House in Gainesville, Florida (I had raisin toast and “smothered” hash browns). I live in a state of complete ignorance regarding the way fried chicken, collard greens, and grits are supposed to taste—I’m actually not quite sure what a “grit” […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Valparaiso
Theatre Vertigo opens their new season with Don DeLillo’s Valparaiso, written after the success of his 1997 novel Underworld. Valparaiso examines the consequences of popular media’s “human interest stories”: the push to feed the public’s hunger for ever more details, and the inverse relationship between fame and selfhood. If some of the work’s themes feel […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Looking for Olivia
There’s no doubt that La Bodega Productions aims to make some serious waves in their first season. The ambitious new company is three-quarters through a blitzkrieg of Portland theater: four plays in four months, in an ambitious back-to-back run that’s impressive in scope, but nonetheless raises some inevitable questions about quantity and quality. While I […]
Posted inUncategorized
From Tiny Acorns
Filbert’s Goes (Almost) All the Way
Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of Filbert’s. Though it opened in November of 2005, the high-end bistro has largely flown under the radar, in no small part because of its location: NW 23rd and Vaughn, well beyond Nob Hill’s chic influence. The restaurant is near a freeway entrance, in an industrial part of […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Herringbone
I’d never heard of actor Taylor Askman before the Vancouver Arts Equity’s production of Herringbone, but as I took my seat in the funky Main Street Theatre in downtown Vancouver, a drunken woman sitting in front of me assured me that the 22-year-old is “extremely talented.” My first thought? He’d better be. Herringbone is a […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Portland Actors Ensemble’s (PAE) Shakespeare in the Parks series is an annual happening, part of an ongoing effort to bring the Bard to the masses. The show moves from park to park, playing to diverse crowds of theatre lovers, theater newbies, and unsuspecting parkgoers alike. PAE’s current production of The Merry Wives of Windsor […]