Theater! Theatre!, 239-5919 Through Sept 30 It’s those exclamation points that give the game away. Like the one-word titled musical versions of popular movies, everything about Triangle Productions! seems to end in an exclamation point, from the name of the company to its venue. In a theatrical context, it bespeaks high spirited mediocrity, self congratulatory […]
D.K. Holm
Posted inArt
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Art Review
Written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Kevin O’Neill (America’s Best Comics) Three art forms from the old 20th Century have never received their due: stand up comedy, network radio, and comic books. Their status? The fluid performance technique more or less invented by Lenny Bruce and perfected by Richard Pryor was taken over by a […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Let’s Get Ready to Rififi!
King of Heist, Granddaddy of New Wave
HERE’S HOW to dress for a heist: First, don a dark, pinstriped suit. It better have ridiculously broad shoulders, too–keeps you fast and loose. Then you top it with an insouciant porkpie-style hat. For color, you add your best silk tie–pink, perhaps, or silver. None of this makes sense for what you have to do, […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Fall Theater Lineup
Theater Preview
A theater season has a life span very much like a movie season. First there are the vague hints, causing the first stirrings of thespian enthusiasm. Then, with the announcement of company lineups comes the warm glow of anticipation, when every play on the horizon looks exciting, interesting, progressive, unique. When the season starts, you […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Hellcab
Theater Review
Russell Street Theater 116 N Russell, 306-0870 Through Aug 12 The first thing the viewer notices about Theatre Vertigo’s production of Will Kern’s Hellcab is just how unhellish it is. With a title like Hellcab, one expects something dark, scary, and unnerving. Instead, one finds a play that is gentle, mushy in the middle, even […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
A Piece of Cake
Theater Review
Stark Raving Theater Theatre! Theater! 3430 SE Belmont St, 232-7072 Fri-Sat at 10 pm, through August 12 Stark Raving Theater made a small, tactical error when it mounted character actor Raymond J. Barry’s satirical view of post-apocalyptic America. That is, the company decided to sell the book that contains the play outside in the lobby. […]
Posted inNews
TIE ME UP, (YAWWWWN) TIE ME DOWN.
Is Portland’s SM Scene in the Doldrums?
IT’S A STEAMY SUMMER NIGHT and the fetishists are out in force. Despite the heat, they are dressed up in their best, tightest leather and rubber, and have gathered at Moody’s in downtown Portland. 300400who knows how many people fill the multiple floors of this surprisingly large club, and it’s not even midnight. Not far […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Wackoland
A Dispatch from Planet Watson
WHAT PLANET is Emily Watson from? Elfin-looking, yet surprisingly tall, with a broad open face where sparkles dwell, Watson’s eyes smile but communicate nothing. She seems to be attuned to an inner music to which no one else is privy. Directors tend to use her when they want a woman-child, a naîf lost in a […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Mercury Video Picks
Slinky dresses, smoky voices, sweaty skin: the heat of summer brings out bare flesh and the lust for it, at least in movies. Recent DVDs hitting the streets on Tuesdays feature some great screen queens both young and old, from femme fatales to girly girls. And God Created Woman (1956)–B.B.–That’s Brigitte Bardot to you. Blond, […]
Posted inUncategorized
Last Supper
Hawaiian-Style Foods
Portland Saturday Market, Saturday 10 am-5 pm, Sunday 11 am to 4:30 pm, $4.25-$6.25 Believe it or not, there really is a reason to venture into the fetid mass of unwashed, greedy, zig-zagging humanity known as Saturday Market. And that would be for a plate of yakisoba noodles with lemon chicken at the Hawaiian-Style Foods […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
LATE NITE CATECHISM
Main Street Theate 904 SW Main St. 790-2787 $24.50-$29.50 Late Nite Catechism is a mildly amusing evening at the theater, but this one person, two-act play also highlights all the things wrong with one-person shows and religious or political satire on the stage. What’s more, in the end the play is bold-faced Catholic propaganda. Of […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Shills, Urine, and Staring
Less than one percent, if even that, of the Portland public attends a theatrical event, but if the reader decides to enact such a folly, here are some realities about the local theater scene to be aware of. Shills: These are members of the company and friends of the actors who laugh really loudly in […]