What do masturbation, foxes and Motown have in common? My weekend. No worries. This is not a TMI moment. Bear with me.....
FRIDAY November 1
I’ve never seen a performance on a stage that included
masturbation – wait that isn’t quite true. There was that unfortunate event put on by that
god-awful Howard Stern on New Year’s Eve many years ago.
Granted, Salome is a whack job. Crackpot. Scary crazy bitch, if you ask me. But somehow, Kelly Cae Hogan pulled
off that evil temptress dual personality thing with an exquisite rendition of a
Brooke Shield’s Pretty Baby and with a little touch of some psycho you never want to meet. Yes, she was a wreck, that Salome; the
kind you couldn’t take your eyes off because she bitch slapped you around just like
a ping-pong ball in a wicked competition between frat boys.
As Salome flip flopped between love/hate for that other
crazy guy, John the Baptist, you could see the train wreck from a mile
away. But man, that girl was
determined to have her man and I can appreciate that on a certain level.
On second thought, I think every character in that opera was
a crazy as a loon.
The production put on by the Portland Opera is an
interesting jump out of the gate for the new season - a story that clearly
doesn’t have a happy ending and whips you through the tragic tale within 90
minutes.
The set represented the cracked, unbalanced makings of this
story, with gaping dark holes of cragged edges and a sloped stage thanks to the
talents of Benoit Dugardyn. Comfort could not be found anywhere on that stage
and the actors pulled off a story that had all of us uncomfortable and that only seemed fair.
Salome - November 7 & 9 at the Keller Auditorium.
SATURDAY November 2
The following night, I attended opening night of the U.S.
premiere of Foxfinder, a play written by Dawn King and directed by Damaso
Rodriguez, the relatively new artistic director for the Artists Repertory Theatre.
I interviewed Damaso Rodriguez in May 2013 and you can listen
here.
I specifically chose not to read one gosh darn thing about
this play as I wanted to be totally caught off guard and I was pleasantly so.
It could have been a post-apocalyptic English countryside with
a scary familiar thread of current day attitudes as it jumped right into the
whole quandary of ‘believing is
seeing, right?’. Or is it?
Since I had not read anything about the play, I hand no idea
what the story was about (and I’m not going to reveal it here either). I practically
sat on the edge of my seat as each scene changed and each character revealed
themselves throughout the performance.
I think the storyline could be placed anywhere and I didn’t
like any of the characters after it was all said and done, to tell the truth,
but I ‘get’ why they did what they did.
I guess I found that compassionate side of me I forget I have
sometimes.
There was some bravery in the context of the heavy cloak of
fear that filled the pores of all those souls and there was also this brazen
sense of survival. Who knew that such fear
could be aligned to one of the cutest of furry creatures, but in hindsight, you could put
that ‘face of fear’ on anything if the messaging is done just right.
Foxfinder runs now through December 1 at Artist RepertoryTheatre.
SUNDAY November 3
My final artistic foray in to the Portland cultural scene
was a visit to Polaris Dance. The
dance company has started its eleventh year in the Portland arts community, and
today’s production, X-Philes, was a 2-hour look back at some of the productions
they shared with the world over the past decade.
This was my first-ever visit to the studio but I now have to
wonder if I have actually seen this fantastic ensemble do their stuff at a
previous engagement as some of the pieces felt very familiar to me.
One piece I found especially moving was a segment called
“Change” that was first seen in
iChange (2010). It features the
music of Arvo Part called “Mirror in the Mirror”, one of my favorite pieces of
music.
Listen to it here.
I interviewed artistic director and co-founder, Robert
Guitron, in the summer of 2012 and you can listen to it here.
I can’t believe it took me this long to get to one of their
performances but I’m sure it will not be my last. I couldn't help but do my version of a chair dance during the performances done to Cloud Nine and Papa Was A Rolling Stone by The Temptations.
There next production begins in January called Groovin’
Greenhouse. The show will serve as
the dance hub of the annual Fertile Ground Festival.
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