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CALENDAR » Performance Listings
Performance Listings
For the week of Wednesday February 3rd thru Tuesday February 9th
STAGE BY Ben Waterhouse, CLASSICAL ETC. BY Brett Campbell, DANCE BY Kelly Clarke (kclarke@wweek.com, send events to dance@wweek.com).
To be considered for listings, send information at least two weeks in advance to:
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Performance, c/o Willamette Week
2220 NW Quimby, Portland, OR 97210.
Phone: 503 243-2122. Fax: 503 243-1115.
Jump to: STAGE, CLASSICAL, DANCE
A horny journalism student with a curious fainting condition (Brooke Fletcher) answers a Craigslist invitation from a biology researcher (J.R. Wickman) looking for “highly significant coupling.” He lives in an underground lab and watches fish sleep. She hopes she’ll find some solace in no-strings-attached sex. In an alcove behind them, an attendant (Heather Rose Walters) throws switches and pounds a tympani. I’m loath to reveal much more about Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s apocalyptic comedy—reportedly the most-produced comedy in America this season—other than to say that it is very strange and surprising without feeling contrived, and that it packs a lot of laughs into its 90 minutes. Theatre Vertigo’s production is impressively designed and delightfully performed, an excellent diversion for the days when we all feel a bit trapped by the cold and wet. Wickman, who looks like Paul Giamatti’s sexier younger brother, is the most likable underdog in town at the moment. BEN WATERHOUSE. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 306-0870. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays. Closes Feb. 6. $15. Map
Aaron Ross terrorizes Dante’s every Tuesday night as Ed Forman, a frenetic, oversexed, foul-mouthed 1970s talk-show host who abuses local notables (this week his guests are Alma Rubenstein of PDX Speed Dating & The Bachelor and Ma’Rollin Monroe of the Rose City Rollers), roams the audience stealing drinks and flinging insults, and generally makes mayhem. Imagine Stephen Colbert as a libidinous sociopath. Ross’ lacerating wit and bottomless energy make for a hilarious evening of great gags and public humiliation. With two guests and a new house band every week (Tiger House), it’s the best entertainment $3 can buy. BEN WATERHOUSE. Dante's, 1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630. 9 pm Tuesdays. $3. Map
Portland's totally dada comedy talk show, hosted by a hyperactive man-child in a lucha libre mask, is now running the first Wednesday of every month at Curious Comedy. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., curiouscomedy.org. 9 pm Wednesday. $10. Map
There are few better examples of the importance of editors than Hamlet, the Greatest Play in English, a full production of which runs a terrifying four to five hours. This staging, produced by CoHo and actor Chris Murray, who also edited and stars in the show, rings in at a brisk 150 minutes with all parts played by five actors. I can hear purists gasping as I write, but lemme tell you—you don’t lose much. A lot of dick jokes, mostly. Murray’s version, directed by Kristan Seemel, sticks to the facts of the story: There has been a murder, there is a ghost, and more killing is inevitable. Murray subscribes to the belief that Hamlet is not a madman, but an asshole, and he plays it well, punctuating his obnoxious remarks with a humorless chuckle that would be infuriating in any other context. The four actors who round out the cast (Brittany Burch, Victor Mack, Gary Norman and Valerie Stevens) are similarly adept (Norman makes a particularly good Polonius and Burch a particularly good gravedigger), and the multicasting is only intrusive in the one scene when Burch plays both Ophelia and Laertes. It’s a brooding, passionate Hamlet, passing on philosophy in favor of intrigue and badass swordplay. There’s no thesis to the production beyond Murray really, really wanting to do Hamlet—and that’s the only excusable reason for doing Hamlet at all. BEN WATERHOUSE. The CoHo Theatre, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 205-0715. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 20. $20-$25. Map
Portland Center Stage remounts Adam Bock’s dark comedy about office politics of the truly frightening sort, which Rose Riordan directed last year at CoHo. Sharonlee McLean (who won a Drammy for her performance) and Laura Faye Smith reprise their roles. The remount is exactly the same as the CoHo production except for the addition of Chris Harder and Robert M. Thomas in place of Chris Murray and Gary Norman and the comfier seating. What I wrote about that production still stands: “Bock has a uncommon facility for capturing the way people really speak, in leaps and spurts and nonverbal noises. His realist dialogue and the ordinariness of his workplace settings lead audiences to believe they’re watching a funny but unremarkable quotidian comedy. The gut punch of depravity, when it comes, is wholly unexpected. The modern office is an ideal place to address the banality of evil." McLean has her role, as the titular receptionist, nailed. She switching in and out of her telephone voice in midsentence and flips her head mic up and down like a defensive visor. She juggles calls and conversation and coffee-making and advice-giving. She’s magnificent. The costumes, designed by Riordan, are brilliant, down to the details of ill-fitting blouses and misadjusted collars. It’s all perfectly ordinary, and exceedingly menacing. See this show! BEN WATERHOUSE. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays, noon Thursdays, alternating 2 pm Saturday and 7:30 pm Sunday matinees. Closes March 21. $24-$45, $20 day-of-show rush tickets available. Map
[HAITI/ACROBAT RELIEF] The many students of acrobat Stefan Furst come together to raise funds to pay for the medical bills their mentor incurred after a windsurfing accident. Furst, ever generous, is going to donate much of the proceeds right back—to Haiti earthquake relief efforts. The performance will feature "hand balancing, aerial dance, juggling, martial arts and a four-armed drum monster." Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 231-1232. 4 pm Sunday, Feb. 7. $7-$15 suggested donation. Map
An awkward loser learns the hard way that you can't go home again in this world premiere by Hunt Holman at Portland Playhouse. Doug (Patrick Oury) returns to the miserable rural Washington town of his youth after a failed attempt to make it as a “professional role-playing game facilitator” in Seattle. He finds his mother, Sondra (K.B. Mercer), has rented out his apartment to a middle-aged alcoholic (Ben Plont) and his young companion, Willow Jade (Jazzi Mason), who may be fugitives from justice. Doug settles in for a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his high-school pals Lance (JJ Johnston), a hopeless slacker, and Steve (Matthew Dieckman), a real-estate agent. Everything goes fine until the cops and orcs show up. The cast is mostly excellent, newcomer Johnston (nailing a post-grunge Wayne Campbell) and the always reliable Plont especially so. Plont is usually cast for his extraordinary comic timing, but here he gets to pair his knack for the absurd with some real despair. His hilarious second-act drinking binge is the show’s most moving scene. Don’t sit in the front row if you like your clothes. BEN WATERHOUSE. Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 205-0715. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and Monday, Feb. 8, 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 14. Closes Feb. 14. $10-$19. Map
Portland Piano International brings the much-lauded and -recorded Austrian-Canadian pianist to play an all-Beethoven program, including the famed Appassionata and Les Adieux sonatas and the majestic Diabelli Variations. Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway., 228-1388. 4 pm Sunday, Feb. 7. $54. Map
In what sounds like a wonderfully imaginative program, the early-music choir has framed a passel of many short pieces of Renaissance music (by Claudio Monteverdi, Thomas Tallis, Orlando di Lasso and Thomas Morley) with a kind of storyline involving the daily activities of a hapless music master, including his laments about noisy neighbors, healthy foods and other troubles, then continuing with songs appropriate to his church work, poetry and thoughts of love. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 246-4744. 8 pm Saturday, Feb. 6. $8-$12. Map
Mozart’s frothy 1790 Così Fan Tutte roughly translates to "all women are like that," but this production emphasizes the subtitle: The School for Lovers. Like a Shakespearean comedy, the comic surface plot, detailing the misadventures of two insecure would-be bridegrooms who test their intendeds’ faithfulness, barely conceals some sharp, still-relevant social satire and, perhaps, even a proto-feminist attitude. Stage director Elise Sandell says this Portland Opera production (originally from Santa Fe Opera) is set in 1950s postwar Italy, a pre-irony era whose superficial innocence makes the double deception almost plausible, not to mention providing design cues from Roman Holiday and La Dolce Vita and similar period artifacts. Maybe this will be the operatic equivalent of Far From Heaven, with the cheery surface not quite concealing some tough truths. Portland fave Angela Niederloh and sopranos Christine Brandes and Lauren Skuce star along with tenors Ryan Macpherson and Robert Orth and baritone Keith Phares, with Mozart’s ever-sparkling music conducted by New York City Opera music director George Manahan. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802. 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 5; 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 7; 7:30 pm Thursday and Saturday, Feb. 11 and 13. $20-$135. Map
Friends of Chamber Music brings still another acclaimed foursome, this one in residence at the Eastman School of Music, in two completely different programs. Monday’s show features one of Haydn’s landmark Op. 33 quartets, Samuel Barber’s only quartet (the most famous slow movement in American music) and Dvorak’s popular “American” Quartet. Tuesday’s all-Beethoven concert includes early (Op. 18, No. 3), middle (Op. 59, No. 3) and late (Op. 131) quartets. First Baptist Church, 909 SW 11th Ave., 7:30 pm Monday, Feb. 8. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 9, at Kaul Auditorium, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. $14-$40. Map
Jenny Hoyston of Erase Errata fame and local art director and illustrator Sarah Gottesdiener never really liked having to skip around town to different venues to check out bands, art and dance, so they’re launching “Art Party,” a new monthly mishmash of all of the above. The inaugural party kicks off with a DJ set from Yeti mag’s Mike McGonigal, a performance from local drummer Tara Jane ONeil with Marisa Anderson, Melanie Valera a.k.a. Tender Forever will show videos, and PNCA MFA candidate Allison Halter debuts Get Me Bodied, which apparently involves filling up “the space with humans and movement.” KELLY CLARKE. Branx, 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683. 9 pm Friday, Feb. 5. This event takes place the first Friday of every month throughout 2010. $5. Map
Up-and-coming Rio de Janeiro-based dancemaker Bruno Beltrão brings a sharp new vision of hip-hop to town, one that deconstructs street dance and patches it back together with everything from contemporary modern movement and classical music to the simple soundtrack of squeaking sneakers on a dance floor. His new 50-minute work, H3, features his lightning-quick all-guy group which streaks across the floor—jumping, spinning and sliding and one-upping one another—in ways we’re just beginning to catch on to. KELLY CLARKE. Bison Building, 419 NE 10th Ave., 8 pm Wednesday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday Feb. 3-7. Friday, Feb. 5 show SOLD OUT. $26, $16 students. Tickets through Ticketmaster or at whitebird.org. Map
Portland’s acrobatic community comes together for a spinning, juggling, backflipping, contorting benefit for “former Austrian National Team sport acrobat” Stefan Furst. Furst, who has trained a number of performers at Do Jump! and local gymnastics organizations, was injured in a windsurfing accident and can’t work. Benefit organizer (and ninja band Fist of Dishonor frontwoman) Tera Nova Zarra says the community just wants to give back to a man who has helped them all so much. Expect performances from aerialists Night Flight, fire dancer Shireen Press, juggler Curtis Carlyle and Brittany Walsh (think handstands and bow and arrows) and a slew of Do Jump!-ers, among others. But the giving doesn’t stop at Furst—the Vienna-born acrobat will in turn give part of the proceeds raised for his medical bills to Haiti relief. KELLY CLARKE. Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 231-1232. 4 pm Sunday, Feb. 7. $7-$15 suggested donation. All ages. Info and videos of performers at terazarra.com. Map


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