Lucrezia Vizzana was a 17th-century Italian nun who wrote music in secret because composition was forbidden under the Inquisition. Discovered at an early age to have a gift for writing music, but prevented from fully developing that gift by the restrictions of the convent, Rapture depicts a Lucrezia (Joy Fischer) who will be driven insane if she can’t write down the music in her head. Her loving aunt Camilla (Paige Jones) breaks cloister and arranges for a male music teacher to sneak into the convent and help nurture Lucrezia’s talent—a dangerous thing to do, as Inquisitors from Rome are lurking about, searching for excuses to disempower the uppity nuns populating the convent.
If a play about a cloistered nun composing religious music sounds boring, go with your gut: Rapture, as produced by the still-unproven new company Stumptown Stages, is one of the most unwatchable productions to grace a Portland stage in recent memory.
Jeanne Marshall’s unwieldy script wraps itself in a 21st-century feminist rhetoric that has nothing whatsoever to do with the 17th-century convent where this production is set. The writing sets an embarrassingly chatty tone, asking the audience to believe that these Inquisition-era nuns were sassy ladies with a fondness for fart jokes, rather than women controlled by an oppressive and male-dominated religious system.
Actors Karen Boettcher-Tate as Lucrezia’s nemesis nun Beatrice, and Tobias Andersen as a fatherly priest, try to insert some restraint into the production, but to no avail: The rest of the cast delivers their lines as though they were acting in The Sound of Music. But despite the presence of nuns, Rapture just isn’t that kind of musical. It’s not “fun.” Seventeenth-century nun music is boring. Not to mention the fact that the audience is supposed to be able to distinguish between the “genius” compositions of Lucrezia and the officially sanctioned tunes, a distinction that proves impossible when all of the music sounds vaguely off-key.
If you need a goofy nun fix, rent Sister Act. Rapture falls flat, and the ticket price of $22 only adds insult to injury.
Bust UBSBy JASON RYANSept. 11, 2012 — An ex-banker and and moncler outlet and convicted tax cheat who told the IRS how his
UBS, helped thousands of wealthy clients duck U.S. taxes has has moncler jackets men has just been awarded $104 million by the U.S. government,
sum his lawyers say is the largest payout ever for for cheap moncler for a whistleblower.Bradley Birkenfeld, who was released from federal prison
weeks ago, pleaded guilty in 2008 to helping American clients clients moncler down jackets clients avoid paying federal income and other taxes to the
As part of his plea, Birkenfeld confessed to helping businessman businessman moncler down jackets businessman Igor Olenicoff conceal $200 million in assets and evade
$7.2 million in taxes.But while Birkenfeld was confessing his own own cheap designer handbags own sins, he also provided testimony that allowed the Justice
to punish his employer, forcing UBS to admit that it it cheap moncler jackets it had allowed its clients to evade taxes by hiding
assets offshore. In February 2009, under a deferred prosecution agreement, agreement, cheap replica designer handbags agreement, the company agreed to pay $780 million in criminal
for offering tax haven accounts for U.S. clients. UBS agreed agreed cheap replica designer handbags agreed to release data on almost 5,000 client accounts.Birkenfeld’s lawyers,
M. Kohn and Dean A. Zerbe, of the Washington-based National National cheap moncler National Whistleblowers Center, said that because of Birkenfeld the IRS
been able to recover $5 billion in revenue from 33,000 33,000 cheap replica handbags 33,000 U.S. citizens who have voluntarily disclosed their offshore accounts.”The
sent 104 million messages to whistle-blowers around the world — — replica designer handbags — that there is now a safe and secure way
report tax fraud,” said the National Whistleblowers Center in a a replica designer handbags a statement. “The IRS also sent 104 million messages to
around the world – stop enabling tax cheats or you you cheap moncler you will get caught.”According to Kohn and Zerbe, the $104
award is the largest award to an individual whistleblower to to moncler outlet to date, and the first awarded to an IRS whistleblower.The
report disclosing Birkenfeld’s award said that “while the IRS was was moncler outlet was aware of tax compliance issues related to secret bank
in Switzerland and elsewhere, the information provided by the whistleblower whistleblower cheap replica designer handbags whistleblower formed the basis for unprecedented actions against UBS AG.”Birkenfeld
serving a 40-month prison sentence in January 2010. According to to moncler jackets men to the federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, Birkenfeld was
on August 1 and is serving the remainder of his his cheap replica designer handbags his sentence in a community corrections center in the Philadelphia
Charles Grassley, R.-Iowa, who authored the whistleblower laws for tax tax cheap moncler tax fraud, said in a statement, “This case provides evidence