Profiling the creators of musical comedy The Waterman. (It’s a musical about water-men. Duh.)
Virginia Thayer
Posted inTheater & Performance
Improv 101
Exploring Portland’s Off-the-Cuff Comedy
Stand-up gets all the attention, but improv comedy in Portland is thriving.
Posted inTBA
Review: Nacera Belaza, Le Cri
Agathe Poupeney Arm swinging. Lots of arm swinging. It can feel like there is a lot of pressure to understand and celebrate all the really unusual and challenging work presented at an art festival like TBA, especially as a reviewer. After all, it’s very carefully curated, and many of the artists have won international awards […]
Posted inTBA
Alexandro Segade: Boy Band Audition
Of all the performances I’ve seen at TBA over the years (a fair sampling), I can’t think of one that comes close to Alexandro Segade’s Boy Band Audition in how much the concept really took over the reality of the performance. This event really, actually did feel like a boy band audition. The real performers […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Review: Daniel Barrow, The Thief of Mirrors/Looking for Love in the Hall of Mirrors
Daniel Barrow “The new creed of the obscenely rich: sorrow for sorrow’s sake alone.” Daniel Barrow’s The Thief of Mirrors is a wry takedown of the upper class, positing that “crying is a class privilege.” The wealthy victims of the story’s protagonist, a harlequin “kissing bandit,” wake one morning to find that they’ve been robbed […]
Posted inTBA
Eyes Wide Open: A Q&A with Lola Arias
David Alarcón Here’s an extended version of the interview the Mercury conducted with Lola Arias, whose excellent show The Year I Was Born has one more showing tomorrow night. – eds MERCURY: The show you are bringing to Portland, El año en que nací (The Year I Was Born), tells the recent history of Chile […]
Posted inTBA
Still Standing You: This Show is Delightful and I Want You to See It
Phile Deprez Guilherme Garrido and Pieter Ampe: Really, really intimate While you file in to the Winningstad, Guilherme Garrido is watching you. He is perched aloft on the feet of his majestically-bearded partner Pieter Ampe who is laying on his back with his legs up. Before the lights go down over the audience, Gui chats […]
Posted inArts
“What Happened, Who to Blame, How to Judge”
An Interview with Lola Arias
Lola Arias holds a mirror up to generations born under dictatorships.
Posted inArts
Man on Man
Why Don’t We See More Dance Like This?
An examination of an intimate friendship, man-on-man style.
Posted inTBA
Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, Asalto al Agua Transparente: Simple and Relatable Foreign History
One mark of a promising theater company, to me, is the ability to do a lot with a little. Tackling a centuries-long, war-addled saga in a foreign language with a cast of two and a set comprised mostly of produce boxes? Yeah, I’d say that counts. Juan Leduc All right, I’m sorry to say it, […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Abundance in Drought
Oregon Children’s Theatre and Black Prairie Shine in The Storm in the Barn
Oregon Children’s Theatre and Black Prairie shine in The Storm in the Barn.
Posted inBooks
A Simple Machine for a Simple Man
Hey, Portlanders, Somebody Wrote a Book About You
Hey, Portlanders, somebody wrote a book about you.