Watching The Memory of a Killer is like reading a spy novel written during the Cold War
Alison Hallett
Alison Hallett served nobly as the Mercury's arts editor from 2008-2014. Her proud legacy lives on.
Posted inTheater & Performance
The Flu Season
Theatre Vertigo opens their new season with Will Eno’s The Flu Season, a more-meta-than-thou slice of “contemporary realism”
Posted inBooks
The Heart is Also a Furnace and Pants All Night
There are 26 separate entrees in The Heart is Also a Furnace, Portland author Magdalen Powers’ 43-page collection, but it would be a mistake to read them all in one sitting. The unassuming stories
Posted inUncategorized
Drinking the Cure
SIN Nights Do You Right
SIN night roundup I hope I don’t get fired for saying this, but working in the service industry totally sucks. Not only does it suck in the “is unpleasant” sense, but years behind the counter have effectively sucked away any of my affection for mankind as a whole. Eight hours of fake smiling at people […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Omnium Gatherum
Omnium Gatherum West End Theater, 1220 SW Taylor, 223-4240, Thurs-Sat 8 pm, Sun 7 pm, through Aug 14, $18 The Pulitzer Prize-nominated script for Omnium Gatherum is witty, provocative and smart; with a script this good, any failure can only be attributed to the production company itself. Thankfully, WillieWorks Productions, in only their second production […]
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Dining Up
Apotheke Speaks Many Languages
Apotheke 1314 NW Glisan Suite 2A 241-7866 The smell of fresh paint was the first thing that registered when I walked into Apotheke–followed shortly by the realization that everyone in the room was hipper and better looking than me. My date and I, luckily, were wearing black, so at least we matched the monochromatic decor: […]
Posted inMovies & TV
La Cinema de Merde
Even Francophiles Hate Après Vous!
Après Vous dir. Salvadori Opens Fri July 8 Fox Tower I’m probably one of four Francophiles in my age group and income bracket, and I realize that it’s an unfashionable and pretentious affinity. But whatever–I love the goddamn French. I love croissants, and Brigitte Bardot, and tossing off the occasional “Je ne sais quoi” like […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Electra
Electra West End Theatre, SW 12th & Taylor, 258-9313, Fri-Sat 8 pm, Sun 4 pm, closing this weekend, $10-15 I generally love Greek theater, both for its soap-opera trashiness and for the endless shadings of allegory and subtext. Sophocles’ Electra is a cool play about sex, betrayal, and the inadvisability of vengefulness. Unfortunately, the Classical […]
Posted inBooks
People I Wanted To Be
People I Wanted to Be by Gina Ochsner (Houghton Mifflin) People I Wanted to Be is a poetic, meditative new collection of short stories from Oregon’s own Gina Ochsner. She opens with a quotation from David Barker: “according to quantum physics everything not forbidden can and will happen. That’s both very good and very bad […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind Theatre Vertigo at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont, 306-0870, Thurs-Sat 8 pm, through July 2, $13-15 Love. Hate. Sex. Violence. Familiar enough themes to anyone with a pulse, they’re explored with relish in Theatre Vertigo’s production of Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind. The play opens on a darkened […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Fourteen Hundred Thousand & Mud
Fourteen Hundred Thousand & Mud defunkt theater at the Back Door, 4319 SE Hawthorne, 481-2960, Thurs-Sat 8 pm, Sun 4 pm, through June 25, $8-15 Someone at defunkt theatre had a clever idea: present two stylistically different one-act plays with roughly similar themes, emphasize said stylistic differences, and in so doing, compel a comparison between […]
Posted inMovies & TV
We’re Immature Assholes
(Thanks for Pointing that Out, Godard.)
Masculin Fminin dir. Godard Opens Fri May 20 Cinema 21 It’s 1966. Cute hair and tumescent ideals are the norm, Vietnam is exploding, and the sexual revolution is sprouting. And filmmakers are experimenting with new ways of expanding the medium, abandoning traditional narrative structure in favor of more complex political and psychological agendas. In Masculin […]