Open Season

[October 3rd, 2007]

Cabaret

Portland Center Stage, through Nov. 4

Let’s get this out of the way right now: This is the finest, most enjoyable production of a musical we’ve seen from PCS, and director Chris Coleman, to date. Storm Large is electric as Sally Bowles, monopolizing the audience’s attention no matter how hard Wade McCollum, the ominous and menacing Emcee, tries to steal focus. Acting is good all around with the exception of NYC import Romain Frugé, who makes a dull straightman (sort of) in the character of Cliff Bradshaw. There’s a lot of sex and a lot of pain in this show, but it’s (rightly) more grotesque than sensual, and the heat only really rises during Storm’s solos. You can’t tamp that fire.

That said, Cabaret has a problem: The set makes ingenious use of a revolving stage, but it doesn’t work well; at least, it didn’t on opening night. During a climatic scene in Act I the stage manager stopped the show, pulling the cast and audience out of the moment to fix a problem with the revolve. PCS needs to get their tech issues worked out fast (word is they’ll have it fixed this week) if they want to keep up the good word-of-mouth the show deserves. Fun aside, this story is now more timely than ever—the last scene of Coleman’s production, in which the Kit Kat Club performers huddle together as Hitler screams over the radio, is a warning: Don’t let this happen again.

Ghosts of Celilo

Artists Repertory Theater, through Oct. 14.

Centered on the drowning of Celilo Falls in 1957, Marv Ross’ long-anticipated musical is the story of Chokey Jim, a 15-year-old Native kid who’s kidnapped into the well-intentioned Christian brainwashing of an Indian school and has to escape to catch a fish and become a man before Celilo disappears forever. The centerpiece of Ghosts is Ross’ lovely and effective score, which borrows from Broadway, pop and Native folk songs. Acting tends toward hysteric hyperventilation—Corey Brunish, playing a gung-ho army engineer, seems like Nathan Lane next to the breathless panic of the rest of the cast—but the cast sings beautifully. Production values are high: This nicely lit set also makes use of a revolve, and a functional one at that.

The loss of Celilo to harness the Dalles Dam’s hydroelectric power is a terrible and oft-overlooked chapter in Oregon history, and Ross and Artists Rep should be commended for bringing it to the stage. Cultural importance and artistic achievement aren’t necessarily the same thing, though, and while the show succeeds as a history lesson and a memorial, it fails as dramatic literature—the dialogue alternates between blunt exposition and overt melodrama. Were the story fictional, the show would fall flat, but Ghosts is empowered by history, and that alone may be enough to give it life beyond the run of this production.

Grace

Third Rail Repertory, through Oct. 27.

Third Rail’s hyperbolic success may owe less to the ensemble’s many talents than it does to their infatuation with witty big-ideas playwright Craig Wright. This nuanced theological argument disguised as a domestic tragicomedy reverently dissects faith, loyalty and the problem of evil through the terrible confluence of a freeway accident, a financial disaster and a war crime—and it’s the best show I’ve seen on any Portland stage since The Pavilion , Third Rail’s last Wright production.

Grace is at turns desolate and hilarious, specific and universal. Everything about the production is extraordinary: Damon Kupper, Stephanie Gaslin, Leif Norby and Doug Mace give superb performances; Tim Stapleton’s set and Michael Mazzola’s lighting are stark and frightening; Jen Raynak’s ambient sound is a broadcast from a mechanical inferno. You get the idea? Drop whatever you’re doing and order your tickets now. You don’t want to miss this one.