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John Rudoff

John Rudoff is a photojournalist and documentary photographer living in Portland, Oregon. He also occasionally reviews theater. 
Posted inSpring Arts 2026

A Mirror Shines Like a Kaleidoscope

The questions Sam Holcroft poses about making art under authoritarianism are certainly timely.
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These are deeply worrisome times. Stability, democracy, countries, our neighbors—all seem less permanent than they once were. Sam Holcroft’s complex and frightening 2023 play A Mirror reflects this uncertainty. The play isn’t timely, nor is it meant to be. It’s more like a kaleidoscope—as is our current, fractured reality. We can look at this play and ask […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Theater Review: A Mirror Fractures, Like a Kaleidoscope

The questions Sam Holcroft poses about making art under authoritarianism are certainly timely.
Avatar photo John Rudoff

These are deeply worrisome times. Stability, democracy, countries, our neighbors—all seem less permanent than they once were. Sam Holcroft’s complex and frightening 2023 play A Mirror reflects this uncertainty. The play isn’t timely, nor is it meant to be. It’s more like a kaleidoscope—as is our current, fractured reality. We can look at this play […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Tour de Force Productions’ Fool for Love Is Spare, Harsh, and Precise

Meghan Daaboul’s new Portland theater company started off easy with some devastating Sam Shepard.
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Playwright Sam Shepard opens the script for his 1983 Fool for Love with a thick paragraph of setting direction, describing details as small as just how much the bathroom door should be ajar. But his first direction is his most important: “This play is to be performed relentlessly, without a break.” With their first staging, […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Happyness (The Wrecking Ball) 

Imago’s absurdist production wrestles with the common question: Do I need to buy a gun?
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Many themes in Happyness (The Wrecking Ball) can be found just outside its performance hall doors. Sidewalk-blocking tents, hundred-dollar dinners, visible homelessness, and blooming high-rise luxury condominiums are all part of the backdrop for playwright Carol Triffle’s engaging new work, currently being staged at the venue she and Jerry Mouawad co-founded, Imago Theatre.  Happyness is […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Imago’s Salome Is Tied Together by the Dance of the Seven Veils

Jaiden Wirth and Max Bernsohn reprise the onstage intensity we recently saw between them in A Streetcar Named Desire.
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Oscar Wilde originally wrote Salome in French because he predicted it would be quickly banned in Victorian-era England. (He was correct.) Wilde revised an English translation, but he never saw his play produced in either language—by that time, he’d been imprisoned for “gross indecency,” AKA having sex with other men in Victorian-era England. Salome was allegedly […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Is Cruel and Perfect From the Start

Portland Center Stage’s breathtaking ensemble cast reveals the ties that bind and cut.
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You’ll find Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on every list of great American plays. Edward Albee’s 1962 masterpiece of biting remarks and weaponized adultery is vicious and hilarious, timeless and worth your time. But while plenty of companies take on the challenge, Portland Center Stage has mounted a production that puts even the 1966 Academy […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Profile Theatre’s Samsara Is a Comedy About Reproductive Imperialism and Desire

Celebrated playwright Lauren Yee uses cycles of infertility and surrogacy to touch on something powerful and eternal.
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If you’ve known someone caught in the degrading grind of infertility—whether in adoption, in vitro fertilization (IVF), or surrogacy—you’ll immediately recognize the steaming locomotive of baby fever that propels the characters in Samsara forward. For its 2024-25 season, Profile Theatre is focusing on the works of celebrated playwright Lauren Yee (Cambodian Rock Band, The Great […]

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