Lady
M
Hollywood
Theater
4122 NE Sandy
Blvd., 280-0391
8 pm Thursday-Saturday,
Oct. 5-7 $10-$12
Support for this
production came from both the Greater New York Development
Fund and from RACC and PICA.
Drew Pisarra's
book, Publick Spanking, is published by Future Tense
Books in Portland.
Miss Murgatroid
has contributed music writing to Willamette Week
under the byline A.J. Rose.
The avant-garde rock opera Lady M came kicking and
screaming into the world to the strains of improvised accordion
accompanying a dancer flailing around in a ravaged wig.
Even so, that was hardly the most surprising, or unlikely,
phase of its genesis.
Two former Portlanders, dancer Jennifer Allen and author-artist
Drew Pisarra, developed Lady M with Portland musician
Alicia J. Rose, a.k.a. Miss Murgatroid, diva of the squeezebox.
Allen, a former Jefferson dancer, and Pisarra now reside
in New York, where they've collaborated on dance-theater
duets such as FUTUREWORLD and The Land of Mystery,
both of which played in Portland two years ago. While creating
the soundscape for The Land of Mystery, Allen stumbled
upon Miss Murgatroid's haunting accordion dirges in Matthew
Bright's cult film Freeway.
"I became obsessed with Freeway," says Allen, "especially
the music. I began to hunt down all the Miss Murgatroid
CDs I could find, and that's when I discovered that she
was back home in Portland."
Allen and Pisarra incorporated various pieces of Miss Murgatroid's
music into their work, then contacted the accordionatrix
when they arrived in Portland for a performance.
"From that came our bizarre entanglement," says Miss M.
The three began to play together whenever they collided
in Portland or New York, and it was in the latter metropolis
that Miss M began improvising while Allen donned a ratty
wig and started to move.
"I suddenly asked Jennifer, 'What is this?'" says Miss
M, "and she said, 'I think it's Lady Macbeth.'" At their
next meeting, each brought copies of Macbeth, reading
passages from the play to more improvised accordion.
"From there, we developed free prose," says Miss M, "which
became rock songs."
As the piece developed, the three decided not to be slaves
to Shakespeare, departing at various points to reach a deeper
sense of the bloody queen. Allen, who plays Lady M, sees
her as a woman who rises from a servile position in the
court to attain some prestige. Her hunger for real power
drives her to knife her way to the throne, but her moment
of glory is short.
After the song "Welcome to My Kingdom," the music turns
suddenly and blackly tense. Finally, painted into a corner
with an impasto of gore, she descends back to the level
of a domestic, desperately hauling buckets around the stage,
though there's never enough water to scour the stains from
her hands. The three creators concentrate, as well, on the
women who flank Lady M, her handmaidens, who double as witches.
"I think most art has become ghettoized," says Allen. "With
this piece, we all wanted to create a fusion of disciplines."
Lady M is the first piece Allen has choreographed
on her own. Pisarra provides the text, as well as a libretto
made up of haikus, while famed video artist Tal Yarden takes
charge of projection designs, which include a French embalming
documentary from the '50s that stands in for the murder
of King Duncan. Linking everything together is the menacing
ambience of Miss Murgatroid, who plays live from the side
of the stage.
"The music's a strange hybrid," says Miss M. "It's a combination
of goth and glam." One segment, "Bloody Instructions," is
obviously inspired by Gang of 4, but all bears the restless,
oblique tones of Miss M's Dallape accordion, accompanied
by percussion and both electric and acoustic guitar. A drum
raps out like the crack of doom through the fifth segment,
"Witch Shapes," while a nervous and grinding feedback shapes
the later "Witches' Waltz."
"We wanted to create a thematic score for the opera," says
Miss M, "and I think we've succeeded."
Lady M premiered last July at the Galapagos Theater
in Brooklyn, playing for just two nights. Despite the short
run, the piece was touted by The Village Voice and
sold out immediately. "In New York, you constantly find
yourself pushing huge ideas into small spaces," says Allen.
"I'm looking forward to placing this in the Hollywood Theater.
I'm glad we're performing this here, because Portland is
where we all seem to have developed as artists."
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