Good stuff, short run

A lot of the best stuff in theater and art -- the edgier, more experimental art -- tends to be limited run or one-night-only. So I don't get to review them in my weekly columns. Here are some announcements I recently received for events you might want to check out.

Lord Frannzanian's Royal Olympian Spectacular Vaudeville Show
"You'll be so glad you went......."
A performance hosted by Elizabeth Lord Friday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Sept. 27 at 8 p.m.at The Midnight Sun Performance Space downtown Olympia.

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=125978972363&mid=110ebd5G22a0c2f7G2ae3953G7


Special event at Fulcrum Gallery

As highlighted in the September issue of City Arts Tacoma, Goldfinch band members Aaron Stevens and Grace Sullivan collaborate with local photographer Jason Ganwich to create a series of highly symbolic nude stills exploring human frailty, grief, religion, celebration, doubt, and honesty.

A one-night only event at Fulcrum Gallery that is bound to be one of Tacoma's most provocative art events of the year.

Also featuring the art of Zachary Marvick, the artist behind the album cover of the self-titled debut Goldfinch record.

Pick up a copy of the new City Arts to read the full article:

"Working with local photographer Jason Ganwich, Stevens and Sullivan self-choreographed dozens of breathtaking stills during a marathon shoot at Fulcrum Gallery in July. Inspired by the public nudes of Spencer Tunick and the kinetic sequences of Eadweard Muybridge, they smeared themselves with white paint and posed, often with props." - Mark Thomas Deming, City Arts

For those who don't know, Spencer Tunick is famous for photographing large crowds of naked people in public places.

The event is this Saturday at Fulcrum Gallery, 1308 Martin Luther King Jr. Way,
Tacoma from 7-11 p.m., suggested donation: $5.

Finally, Bryan Willis sent me a last minute change to the scheduled performance of his play “I Love You, Flavilla,” a 20-minute pirate monologue. The one-day-only performance at Olympia Tiny Theater has been moved to a slightly larger venue, 2312 Muirhead Ave. NW on Olympia's West Side. The production will feature the talents of seven different actors, including two from Olympia, Andrew Gordon
and John Ficker, and Tacoma actor Aaron Jacobs.

Here's the announcement:

Sept. 19, 2009

(International Talk Like a Pirate Day)
Olympia Tiny Theater

Presents:
“I Love You, Flavilla”
by Bryan Willis
Every hour – on the hour from noon to midnight
Suggested Donation: $4.00

Olympia Tiny Theater is located at 2312 Muirhead Ave. NW
Reservations highly recommended (seating capacity limited to 10 per show). Please e-mail willis@olynet.com or call 360/754-2818.
Note: “I Love You, Flavilla,” is not suitable for young children, Episcopal missionaries or impressionable adults.

Recommended

Here are a couple of theater announcements I got from Northwest Playwrights Alliance:

Sat. Sept. 12 - at Theater on the Square, Tacoma

Rosalind Bell directs two staged readings of August Wilson's
Joe Turner's Come and Gone

2:00 & 7:30 p.m.

In this staged reading of "Joe Turner’s Come and Gone," the second chapter of Wilson’s works, the theme of slavery is addressed as audiences experience the transitions of moving to industrial cities of the north in search of a new life and identity through the life of the protagonist, Herald Loomis. The play deals with a variety of issues faced by African Americans in 1911, as well as universal themes of redemption, the importance of family, and the power of the human spirit. Tony nominated Joe Turner’s Come and Gone will inspire and move audiences as they experience Herald’s struggle.

For tickets and information please call the Broadway Center Box Office:
253/591-5894
**********************************************************************

Sat. Sept. 19 - Olympia Tiny Theater
(Sophia's Salon - 1706 Harrison Ave. on Olympia's Westside)

World premiere!
I Love You, Flavilla
by Bryan Willis

a brief monologue celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Performances every hour, on the hour, from noon to midnight

ONE DAY ONLY!

for reservations please call 360/754-2818
or contact willis@olynet.com

Magical murder mystery in the moonlight

Published in The Olympian/The News Tribune, Sept. 3-4,2009
Pictured: Helen Harvester and Aaron Lamb, photo by Tor Clausen

“Mating Dance of the Werewolf” by Mark Stein is unlike anything seen on Puget Sound stages. It is a beautiful, moody, hilarious love story, and it’s a murder mystery/comedy about one of the rarest creatures in literature or entertainment – a female werewolf.

The play, directed by Scot Whitney, is cinematic in presentation with movie-style flashbacks and hints of film noir and swelling music during the most dramatic moments a la 1950s love stories.

In program notes Whitney tells how the playwright queried him with sample pages from the script.

He writes that he was immediately intrigued by the title and by the opening line of the play.

It opens with the piped-in sound of a police radio dispatch. Ken (Aaron Lamb), an off-duty cop in running shorts, sits on the front of the stage smoking a cigarette. His boss, Raul (Steve Manning) approaches and Ken asks, “Have they found Allen’s head yet?”

From this bizarre opening line, a murder mystery unfolds as Raul questions Ken and his answers are acted out by Ken and the remaining cast of characters: Ken’s girlfriend Abby (Helen Harvester, the werewolf); the dead guy, Allen (Daniel Wood), who is a fellow cop and, if not exactly Ken’s friend, at least a guy to spends a lot of time with him; and finally Pam (Tracy Leigh), Allen’s girlfriend and Ken’s ex-wife.

So Allen has been murdered, and that’s all the plot I’m going to divulge. It is, after all, a mystery.

In the present, all of the characters talk to each other about what led up to the murder, and in the past they act out what happened.

The transitions between present and past are seamless and, in some instances, almost dreamlike.

It’s also a very modern, intense and highly stylized love story that is simultaneously realistic and absurdly comical.

The set by scenic designer Jill Carter is as unique as any I’ve ever seen. It’s Ken’s living room. The walls and all the furniture are black. Even the bookshelf and all the books on it are black.

Nat Rayman’s lighting design is dramatic. The projected images of a moonlight forest at night are both dramatic and highly romantic, intentionally clichéd.

Seldom has sound played such a large part in a drama, from the police radio to soaring, lush music that lends that 1950s-style kitsch to the love scenes. Credit sound designer Keith Jewell and a crew of actors reading the police dispatches, including Douglass Bowen-Flynn, John O’Keefe, Rod Campbell, Rayman, Jewel, Whitney and Ann Flannigan as the dispatcher.

All of the cast members are highly competent actors. Harvester and Lamb together and singly make impossible-to-believe characters and situations seem almost real.

Harvester is inspired as the woman who turns into a wolf. Her physical gestures are dance-like whether she’s actually dancing (there’s a tango with Ken that’s highly sexualized in an almost sado-masochistic way) or whether she’s simply moving around in Ken’s living room – but Abby never simply moves around; she leaps and stretches and contorts her body while climbing over furniture and out of windows and slithering up and down Ken’s body. Never mind that some of her moves are more spidery and catlike than wolf like; her physicality is mesmerizing.

In the best of live theater there are moments when the lighting and sets and music and acting all converge in ways that transport the audience to a magical place where a woman really can turn into a wolf and a cop can fall in love with her.

Such moments are rare, but they happen in this play. One such moment is the first time Abby climbs out the window to vanish into the moonlit night. I may never forget her silhouetted image in one frozen moment.

There are also scenes in the best of plays that fit as snuggly as Spandex on an athlete and yet are totally unexpected and somehow out of keeping with everything that has gone before.

Such scenes can shock the viewers or make them go wild with laughter. There are many such scenes in “Mating Dance of the Werewolf.” The tango mentioned above is just one such scene.

Despite murder and horror and scenes of intense sensuality, this play is neither scary nor obscene. If movie ratings were applied, it would probably rate a PG.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 12
WHERE: State Theater, 202 E. Fourth Ave., Olympia
TICKETS: $24-$33, rush tickets $12-$20 half hour before curtain
INFORMATION: 360-786-0151; www.harlequinproductions.org

Fancy frames

This week's column in the Weekly Volcano was a toss-off. I was busy last week with PFLAG business and doctor appointments (routine) and observing the Referendum 71 signature count and visiting an old friend and other stuff and did not get to see an exhibition I could review. So I knocked this one off right at deadline without giving it much thought. Please be aware that it was written at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Fancy frames
And other pet peeves

I’ve been told by friends whose artistic judgment I respect that my reviews are too forgiving. They might be right. Fact is, I try to give artists the benefit of the doubt, and I’m never as critical in my reviews as I’d sometimes like to be. Mama said, “If you can’t say anything good about someone don’t say anything at all.” That’s kind of a hard order for a critic to follow.

Fact is, after more than 25 years writing art reviews I’ve become easily bored. It takes something awfully good to get me excited about a work of art. Most of what I see has not only been done, it’s been done to death.

It’s hard to say what may get me worked up. I know it when I see it. On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to say what turns me off.

Fancy frames. A beautiful frame will not make a bad painting good. Keep it simple.

Impressionism. Impressionism was over more than a century ago. You can’t do it better than Monet and Degas, so quit trying. Find your own damn voice and quit trying to sing with their voices.

Calendar kitsch. From clichéd landscapes to cute animal pictures, if it looks like a calendar it damn well better include days of the week.

Sentimentality. That’s one of those know-it-when-you-see-it things.

Split formats. What’s with the popularity of paintings done on two or three panels with the image continuing from one to the other? Why is that so freaking popular? Wouldn’t it look the same if it was done on a single panel? Such gimmicks not only fail to make bad art good, they can sometimes make otherwise good art bad.

Joseph Cornell wannabees. Joseph Cornell was a great artist. He put little objects in little boxes. Now there are millions of artists who put little objects in little boxes. See “Impressionism” above. (Feel free to substitute Picasso or Dali for Cornell.)

Pretty glass. Glass art should be judged by the same criteria as any other art, not adored just because it’s pretty. Prettiness is a natural byproduct of the media.

Just because it’s …whatever. I constantly see where people make a big deal out of art created from unusual media. How do I explain this? Let’s say an artist makes a sculpture of a dog, and it’s made out of, say, dog biscuits. Oh how cute. But if it doesn’t look more exciting, beautiful or unique than a similar sculpture of a dog made out of wood or clay, the dog biscuits don’t make it art. Yet I see hundreds of examples of art that’s no better than any other but is praised because it’s made out of unusual materials. Sorry, that’s just not a good basis for judging art.

The obligatory hook. This applies to abstract art only. An artist creates a really nice abstract form. It could easily stand on its own as a work of art, but the artist is afraid the public won’t “get it,” so he tags on a head or eyes or wings or something to make it look like a person or animal. That’s a cop-out, and it may ruin what otherwise might have been good art. It’s a lack of courage or of imagination.

That last sentence is the key. Courage and imagination. I really don’t care so much about skill. Technique is secondary at best. Just get out there and do something unique and gutsy.

Miss Pride

I’m from Mississippi and proud of it. That’s the name of a group on Facebook. A friend invited me to join this group.

It’s terrific that the Internet allows us to connect and reconnect with old friends. I’ve been able to reestablish friendships with a lot of wonderful people I grew up with in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Most of them, true to their Southern heritage, are politically conservative. I’m not. We tend to not talk a lot about politics.

Among these old friends only two are self-professed liberals. Ironically it was one of these two who sent me that invitation. I’d like to join if I could just think of something about Mississippi to be proud of.

First off, I’m not even so sure that pride is a good thing. Isn’t it one of the deadly sins? Doesn’t pride “goeth before the fall”?

Well, there are different definitions of pride. The meanings of words evolve. Black pride and gay pride, for instance, are seen as good things—unless you’re a bigot. They instill a feeling of self-worth in people who have been abused, cast out and made into second-class citizens. If you happen to have been born white, male and privileged, on the other hand, pride in that is probably not such a good thing. In that case, pride might be more akin to arrogance.

Pride in another person’s accomplishment, a parent or child, for instance, is also a good thing.
But to be proud of where you happened to have been born or that you grew up in a certain place makes no sense at all. That’s not an accomplishment. I grew up where my parents lived. I had no choice. So that’s no more something to be proud of than it is something to be ashamed of.

But if you grew up in a place that is looked down upon by other parts of the world pride of place may be akin to black pride or gay pride in many ways. Like African-Americans and gay Americans, some of us who grew up in the South have been scorned and laughed at because we’re Southerners. People hear that syrupy Southern drawl and immediately assume they’re talking to a redneck or a bigot.

Ironically, I can relate to African-Americans who can’t get a taxi to stop for them or who are followed around stores by security personnel because I have experienced the unwarranted assumption that people with Southern accents are trailer trash, country bumpkins, dumb as a fence post—except that in my case I have to open my mouth and say something for that to happen where assumptions about a person of color don’t take that long.

It is understandable that people from the Deep South, probably more than from any other section of the country, become easily defensive. It’s understandable that they get sick and tired of seeing their fellow regionalists portrayed as idiots in movies and in television shows, and it’s no wonder that a little pride of place may bolster their self-esteem.

I left the South in about 1973 and returned in 1977. The South had changed a lot during those years. There was a lot of talk about “the New South,” which I was told had cast aside its racist attitudes. Fine upstanding white business people in town were quick to brag about the New South, which they portrayed as not necessarily more liberal but more open minded and welcoming. We were happy to have elected a governor, William Winter, who was much more liberal than predecessors such as Theodore Bilbo and Ross Barnett. People that we interacted with on a daily basis were black and white and sincerely sought to bring about racial harmony. But we also knew many white people who were defensive about race relations in the South, quick to brag about the progress we’d made and blind to the holdovers of the institutionalized racism from just a few years before. Even many liberal white people, for instance, got incensed about any move toward restitution based on past wrongs or about affirmative action, because they saw it as giving minorities not just a leg up but a decided advantage over whites. It’s not our fault, they would say, that our parents and grandparents were bigots. We’ve overcome that and shouldn’t be make to feel ashamed, and there’s sure as hell no reason we should have to pay for the sins of our parents.
That’s sounds sensible on the surface, but it simply masks a more subtle form of racism.

During our sojourn back home in Hattiesburg from 1977 to 1988 we lived in a sort of bubble. Because we were the publishers of the only alternative newspaper in town the more liberal-leaning people tended to cluster around us. Sometimes it felt like the whole town was much more progressive than it had been when I was growing up. But then we’d run into some good ol’ boy who would remind us that it was he and his friends, not we and our friends, who epitomized the local populace. There was a lawyer who had an office across the street from us. He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and on the team that defended Byron De La Beckwith, who was finally found guilty of murdering Medgar Evers thirty years after the crime was committed. There was a neighbor who showed us his old Klan robes and said, to his credit at least, that he joined for a short time but got out after he realized “those people were crazy.” I remember once when I was covering a city council meeting for our newspaper there was talk of a black man who had gotten off with a reprimand after committing some minor offense. A member of the council, a white man (they were all white) said, “Back in the day they would have taken him out back of the courthouse and hung him from an oak tree.” And everybody laughed. I didn’t.

There were no gay rights activists in my home town. In fact, there were no openly gay people at all that I was aware of. The few gay men I knew drove 90 miles away to New Orleans in order to date. At home they were securely closeted.

I was told that the South had changed. I was told it back then and didn’t see a hell of a lot of evidence to back it up, and I still don’t. Granted, I have seen some changes. They did finally convict De La Beckwith, and I recently heard about some active gay rights groups in Hattiesburg.

To their credit, no matter what their politics may be, the people of Mississippi are as friendly and caring for one another as any people anywhere. Southern hospitality is no myth. We were taught from early childhood to be polite and to treat other people the way we wanted to be treated.
For the bigots, of course, the Golden Rule applies only to their own kind.

Almost everybody treated us decently when we were publishing the newspaper in Hattiesburg, including old friends who may have sharply disagreed with our politics. Similarly the people I grew up with and have recently reconnected with are fundamentally kind and decent human beings. If and when we discuss politics or sensitive social issues, which we usually avoid, our disagreements are expressed with respect. We try not to insult anyone of hurt anyone’s feelings because that’s the way we were brought up.

I cannot understand how year after year they can continue to vote for right wing demagogues like Trent Lott and Haley Barbour and support causes that are bigoted and mean spirited. That’s why when my friend asked me to join the group I’m from Mississippi and proud of it, I could not bring myself to say yes.

Postscript: I began this by mentioning two self-professed liberals among my old friends from Mississippi. I saw one of those two in Seattle yesterday and met her husband for the first time. He is a history professor at a community college in the Deep South, and he said that he has seen changes among young people. He said that in the past decade he has not heard a single racial slur from anyone under that age of 30. Maybe there’s hope after all.

‘Ugly Duckling’ handsome as musical ‘Honk’

Published in The News Tribune, Aug. 28, 2009
Pictured:Timothy B. Lott as Drake, Mauro Bozzo as Ugly and Diane Lee Bozzo as Ida


In its second season the ManeStage Theatre Company in Sumner seems to have matured a bit. That’s not to say that its current show, “Honk,” is for mature audiences, but rather that the professionalism of this decidedly amateur theater company has been kicked up a notch since I saw last year’s “Bye Bye Birdie.”

“Honk” is a musical based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling,” with music by George Stiles and book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe. It is co-directed by husband and wife Brenda S. and Jay Henson.

It’s a silly, fluffy, Disneyesque telling of the story of the ugly duckling who is rejected by his brothers and sisters and just about every other farm animal in the world – except for his devoted mother. I don’t think I’ll be giving away any earth-shattering surprises if I divulge that he turns into a beautiful swan in the end.

It is a children’s tale that adults can also enjoy because of its adult humor – adult in the sense of being sophisticated, not risqué, although there is one spicy scene between Cat (Brian Redpath), a feral tomcat, and Queenie (Christine Riippi), a house cat.

Diane Lee Bozzo and her son Mauro Bozzo are outstanding as mother and son Ida and Ugly. She comes across as sincerely loving and as fretful as any mother with a troubled child can be, and she sings beautifully. He also is a fine singer (being able to hold a note for incredibly long times without wavering seems to be a family trait), and his acting is outstanding. Long-limbed with wobbly legs, he exemplifies the movements of a gangly chick with movements reminiscent of Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz.” And it is awe inspiring when he lets out with the eardrum-shattering “honk.”

Also excellent are Marion L. Read, as Maureen, who has a strong voice and commanding presence, and Scott C. Eagan as Greylag, with his outlandish parody of the incompetent leader of a troop of military geese. Credit Riippi and Daisy Nau as, respectively, Queenie and a chicken named Lowbutt, for their highly charged comic relationship.

In his brief turn on stage, Kent Wilson is fabulous as a jive talking and jazz singing Bullfrog, and Brandon J. Mitchell as Snowy provides two of the most hilarious moments in the play – a shocking gesture and a takeoff on a popular song, neither of which I shall explain because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Some of the other actors are inconsistent. Redpath is mostly funny as the nasty villain Cat, but tends to overact in places and is too loud overall (possibly a problem with his microphone on opening night). Timothy B. Lott’s performance as Drake, the father duck, is funny in spots but inconsistent. And Lindsay Delmarter sings well as top bird Grace, but her part of the story is superfluous.

The kids in the ensemble are particularly outstanding dancers, and the choreography by Brenda Henson is very good, especially on the big production numbers in which the entire cast is on stage. The tap dancing and the chorus line-style dancing – sometimes traditional and sometimes reminiscent of a Monty Python takeoff – are much better than the ballet numbers.

Not costuming the animal characters as animals was a brilliant decision. Rather than trying to make human actors look like animals, they tried, successfully in most instances, to capture an essence of the animals through costume, voice and gesture. Ida wears a simple yellow dress but does not in any way attempt to emulate a duck. Instead, she emulates a mother. Cat is not dressed as a cat but as a gangster, which reflects the nature of this character. Michael J. Bowen as Turkey wears an ill-fitting and out-of-style suit and a terrible greasy hair style to personify a “turkey” as slang for a loser. And the geese, who fly in military formation, are played as British flying aces (who crash a lot). Costuming in this manner must have been written into the script, because actors are pictured in similar costumes on Stiles and Drewe’s official Web site.

Not all of the costumes are that inventive, however. The father duck, Drake wears overalls and personifies a farmer more than a drake, and Maureen is supposed to be a bird of some sort but just looks like a woman in a house dress.

The set by David Josephson is a beautiful set of risers disguised as a rock garden with an atmospheric painted backdrop. It is most effective when used in combination with a scrim. The only major set change is for an interior scene with Queenie and Lowbutt in a room in which all the furniture is huge in relation to their small size relative to human scale. This is well done, but the brick backdrop in this scene is boring, not to mention it looks like an outside wall inside.

“Honk” provides an evening of terrific music and lots of laughs.

WHEN: 7 p.m. today and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, extra matinee Saturday at 2 p.m.
WHERE: Sumner Performing Arts Center, 1707 Main St., Sumner
TICKETS: $14 general, $12 seniors, students, military, $10 children 10 and younger
INFORMATION: 253-447-7645, www.manestagetheatre.com

Classical modern

Surrealism and abstraction at Childhood’s End


Published in the Weekly Volcano, Aug 27, 2009
Pictured: "Optical Bloom" and "Pincushion" oil on board by Blake Flynn

Angel Matamoros is a graphic artist at The News Tribune. I remember that just a few short years ago he expressed envy of fine artists as if fine artists possessed some kind of greatness that mere commercial artists can’t attain. And now he is a fine arts painter who manifests the kind aesthetic exploration he seemed to envy in the recent past. He’s come a long way in a short time.

Matamoros’ abstract paintings are paired with surrealistic paintings by Blake Flynn in the current exhibition at Childhood’s End Gallery in Olympia. It’s a nice contrast. Both artists display competent skill, and Flynn displays a very inventive mind.

Matamoros’ paintings are bold and simple forms on roughly textured surfaces with typically no more than two to three large rectangular shapes or a simple atmospheric surface with no definable shapes. The best of his paintings are all grouped together on the wall to the left as you enter the gallery. There is a group of small paintings in acrylic and mixed media, each in a monochromatic color scheme with a few rectangular shapes. The best of these are "Dunes Olvidadas" and "Su Última Palabra" (the titles are all in Spanish). "Dunes Olvidadas" is painted in shades of yellow with two overlapping dark boxes in the lower right side. Sharply incised lines that appear to be pencil lines (pentimenti of guidelines) extend into and beyond the shapes to add precise accents to an otherwise amorphous painting. This little painting may well be the best in the show. Next to it, "Su Última Palabra" is similar but duller in color, mostly browns and blacks, and is more classically balanced. The weakest of this group is "Más Allá Jardin" with its overly raw green color.

Also outstanding is "Rue St. Philip" (OK, that’s not Spanish), a large painting with three bands of color, orange, yellow and green, and excellent use of rough edges between the bands of color. This painting looks like a section of a wall on an old building that has been painted and repainted countless times.

Matamoros’ more atmospheric paintings, which look like stormy skies, are not as good as the ones mentioned above, and the one big drawback to all of his paintings is that they have high gloss finishes. I hate high gloss finishes.

Flynn’s paintings are highly inventive and skillfully painted, but the compositions are hit-or-miss. The works in a group of little oil paintings of flowers have can’t-miss compositions — single images smack dab in the middle like flowers by Georgia O’Keefe or Andy Warhol. Some of the flowers sport a single human eye. A similar compositional device is used in a really quirky image of a half-lemon, half-lime held in place with a clamp.

Most of his other paintings have figures in various strange settings; these are the most inventive but also the most inconsistent in composition. One called "Driven Woman" pictures a standing woman in a red dress in front of a roller coaster of a freeway overpass holding a steering wheel and pretending to drive. The relationship between the woman and the background is beautifully integrated. In some of his other paintings, such as one picturing fishermen holding a very strange fish, the artist seems to have not considered composition at all.

One of my favorites is "Her Story," a picture of a woman wrapped in a scroll, which she is reading. The scroll looks like a Grecian robe that trails off onto the floor. Behind her are classical sculptures that look vaguely familiar. One looks like George Washington, and another looks like the face of God from Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling mural.

[Childhood’s End Gallery, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, through Sept. 27, 222 Fourth Ave. W, Olympia, 360.943.3724]