Murder Most Fowl

Murder Mystery Dinner Theater at Pellegrino’s Event Center

Rehearsal photo with Samantha Chandler, Dennis Rolly, Rob Taylor and Amy Shephard

Murder Most Fowl at Pellegrino’s Event Center in Tumwater is not high art; it is not profound or particularly thought-provoking. What it is, is a bunch of the Olympia area’s very best theater professionals getting together for a romp of pure silliness while sharing the fun with diners whose dinner in four courses is served in between the four acts of the play.

We were seated next to the stage with a friend and a Tumwater family consisting of a couple and their two daughters who were dead serious and meticulous in figuring out whodunit, so much so that one of them won the top prize. Yes, there are prizes every night. Ticketholders are given clue sheets and a chance to compete by guessing who the killer was, including motive and what clues were used. Between acts the actors circulate among the tables in character answering questions and dropping hints (or perhaps false hints to throw the amateur sleuths off base).

The play was written by Andrew Gordon, who also played the role of Walter, director and spokesperson for the Empire Shakespeare Company, with music by Bruce Whitney and lyrics by Scot Whitney, both of Harlequin Productions fame.

 

 

Heather Christopher with chicken

Dennis Rolly, Samantha Chandler and Andrew Gordon

The Empire Shakespeare Company is putting on a production of Hamlet starring the aging actor Terence Portman (Dennis Rolly), founder of the company but now a washed-up actor who drinks too much.

The actors in this play-within-a-play dive into a dress rehearsal with a live audience. Portman hams it up and makes up lines, thus frustrating Anthony White (Rob Taylor) the young actor playing Hamlet and someone off stage who keeps shouting “Call for lines. Don’t make it up.” That someone was either Alice St. Claire (Samantha Chandler) the show’s director or Betty Stamper (Amy Shephard) the company stage manager. I didn’t see which one.

The actors almost come to blows, and suddenly a member of the company drops dead, poisoned, and the remaining troupe members ask the audience to help them figure out who the murderer is.

Gordon’s script, if not for the audience participation, could almost be seen as a straight-forward murder mystery without a lot of comic elements. It is the actors who bring on the laughs with comical performances by Gordon, Rolly and Heather Christopher as Rachel Fowler.

There used to be a saying that any movie with Dean Stockwell in it can’t be all bad. Now I’d like to say any play with Rolly and Christopher in it can’t be all bad. I’ve seen more plays with them, separately or together, than I can count, and I’ve never seen one in which they were less than outstanding. I can now add Gordon to that duo.

Rolly is at his over-the-top, comedic best playing two different characters, descriptions of either of which would constitute spoilers, and Christopher is precious as the ditsy, spoiled daughter of the chicken restaurant king Ornett Fowler (played by Brian Obscuro). Gordon is also outstanding and equally over-the-top in his comic shenanigans as the self-important managing director.

In a more sedate and straight-forward role is Shephard as the company’s no-nonsense stage director — a nice surprise for me because I’m used to seeing her in musicals in which she is an exuberant bundle of energy.  Chandler as Alice St. Claire also plays it straight and is excellent, as is Taylor as the young actor playing Hamlet.

There was also singing with a nice solo by Christopher and harmony by a chorus with Shepard’s voice a standout.

Kudos to director Jenny Greenlee, stage manager Kris Mann and their cast of thespians for making this demanding project seem easy.

I enjoyed the play, the dinner, and the companionship of our table mates. My only complaint is I wish they had come around to take drink orders sooner.

I don’t know if the dinner menu will change from evening to evening. Opening night we started with an appetizer of Shakespearean Antipasto Skewers followed by a Bloody Dane Beet Salad; an entrée of Chicken Béarnaise, Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Whole Green Beans. The dessert was Soused Claudius Champagne Cake. All tables were served the same meal but before serving they did ask if anyone had special dietary needs so they seemed prepared to accommodate.

Remaining shows are June 14, 20 and 21. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., Pellegrino's Event Center, 5757 Littlerock Rd. SW Tumwater.

Tickets: Call 360-709-9055, or come to Pellegrino’s Italian Kitchen or Pellegrino’s Event Center to buy tickets – $60 general seating, $75 for front table seating. The cost of beer, wine and mixed drinks not included with ticket.

Advance tickets recommended.

2 for 1 Amazon Local deal available!  Two tickets for $75 - http://bit.ly/1s0ibWP

Post script – There was a mock newspaper clipping inserted in the program with news about Empire Shakespeare Company and a review of their production of Othello. No one was credited with writing it, but whoever was responsible did a great job.

Photographic presence and Contemporary Indians

Matika Wilbur, Adrienne Keene (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), 2014. Digital silver image, 16 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist

Matika Wilbur, Mary Evelyn Belgarde (Pueblo of Isleta and Ohkay Owingeh), 2014. Digital silver image, 16 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Matika Wilbur’s “Project 562” is an ambitious and fascinating photographic study of Native American culture and an equally ambitious artistic project of which Tacoma Art Museum is fortunate to be able to present to the world the inaugural exhibition.

Wilbur is a Native American with connections to the Tulalip and Swinomish tribes. Over the past year she has traveled more than 60,000 miles in the Western United States taking photographs of contemporary American Indians in their home environments, be those environments the reservation, Southwestern plains or urban or suburban America. Wilbur’s intent is to document the lives of contemporary Indians in each of the to-date 566 federally recognized Native American tribes through portraits of boys, girls, men and women (and, I would hope, gender-ambiguous two spirits honored by many Native cultures).

Wilbur began photographing members of the Coast Salish Elders for the “We Are One People” project after her late grandmother, a prominent Swinomish leader, appeared to her in a dream and urged her to come home and photograph her people.

The title, “Project 562,” reflects the number of federally recognized Native tribes when she started the project; as of this writing that number has increased to 566. She has now photographed members of more than 150 tribes, with many more to go, so this exhibition is just a beginning of a much larger project. To date she has focused her cameras on the Southwest, Hawaii, Montana, California, and the Puget Sound region.

She asks each person photographed how and where they want to be pictured, whether in contemporary or traditional clothing. She also records interviews with her subjects, and the interviews are included as an audio portion of the exhibition.

“It is said that history is dead and that nature can’t really speak,” Wilbur says. “For prominent society, Indians occupy a silent and isolated, covered over, virtually extinct existence, part of the grievous though inevitable eradication of ‘manifest destiny’ and which most abandon to history. But Native America is utterly enduring, alive, and thriving as part of the core concept and reality of America.”

TAM director Stephanie A. Stebich says, “Matika Wilbur’s comprehensive and creative work opens the door to a new, genuine understanding of the lives of Native Americans today.”

From Mary Evelyn Belgarde of the Pueblo of Isleta and Ohkay Owingeh tribes displaying her oneness with nature through her proud stand amidst sage brush to the beautiful Star Flower Montoya of the Pueblo of Taos and Barona Band of Mission Indians in a prayerful pose, to Stephen Yellowtail of the Crow Nation looking like a pensive cowboy contemplating the future of his homeland, the people I saw pictured in this exhibition represent dignity of a diverse people united by their care for one another and for the land upon which they live.

Wilbur’s photographs are excellently composed with strong contrasts and subtle nuances of gray tones. What she is beginning to do for Indians with this project is much the same as what Walker Evans did with his celebrated portraits of migrant workers during the Great Depression. As sociological documentation they are unique and destined to become a vital record of America’s history.

“Matika Wilbur’s Project 562” Wednesdays–Sundays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Third Thursdays 5–8 p.m. through Oct. 5, Tacoma Art Museum, adult $10, student/military/senior (65+) $8, family $25 (2 adults and up to 4 children under 18), 5 and younger free, Third Thursdays free from 5-8 pm., 253.272.4258, www.TacomaArtMuseum.org]

Ink This at TAM

The Weekly Volcano, May 29, 2014

Janet Marcavage, Heap, 2013. Screenprint on rag paper, 28 x 22 ¼ inches. Collection of the artist.

Dionne Haroutunian, Connection from the Outside My Helmet series, 2011. Etching, archival digital print, 22 x 30 inches. Collection of the artist.

Prints are not what they used to be. Not that artists do not still make etchings, lithographs and silkscreen prints, but what they do with these and other print media — often in inventive and never-before-thought-of combinations and employing new digital technologies — can be like nothing ever before seen.

Frank Janzen makes prints using smoke, Dionne Haroutounian combines print media and collage is ways that are almost indefinable, and Janet Marcavage creates sparkling optical prints using traditional media. These are but a few of the new and exciting works by Northwest printmakers to be seen in the new exhibition “Ink This!” at Tacoma Art Museum.

This survey of Northwest printmakers opening June 7 includes approximately 85 works of art by more than 70 talented Northwest print artists. Included are works by Rick Bartow, Ben Beres, Amanda Knowles, Susan Lowdermilk, Rae Mahaffey, Hibiki Miyazaki, Tyna Ontko, Barbara Robertson, Charles Spitzack, Jessica Spring, Christy Wyckoff, plus Janzen, Haroutounian, Marcavage and many more.

Let’s look at just one of these as an example. Marcavage, who teaches art at University of Puget Sound, puts together bands of color that seem to fold and pulse and optically rise off the wall. “My hand-pulled screenprints on paper reference the topography of lines following the form of fabric. In this work I draw relationships between the process of weaving and the underlying construction of line-mapped imagery,” she states on her website at www.janetmarcavage.com.

Other works in the exhibition showcase a wide variety of printmaking techniques, from traditional print media to installation and digital media. It includes letterpress artists and artists who create handmade books that are in essence small sculptures. A museum spokesperson says there is a surprising variety of creative technique and tools that question the definition of print in contemporary art practice, and how that definition is challenged as artists push the boundaries of the medium.

Throughout the 20^th century and continuing into the 21^st, print art has been a strong part of the Northwest art scene. The museum states that “print arts are as indicative of the Pacific Northwest’s artistic identity as salmon and microbrew are identified with regional food culture.”

"The contemporary print arts community in the Northwest is both lively and varied and incredibly supportive of individual expression,” says curator Margaret Bullock, sharing her enthusiasm about the show. “While working on this exhibition I got to see etchings that could have been made centuries ago alongside works that combine printmaking with new technology and everything in between. I also got to meet a group of artists who were as excited about the work of other printmakers as they were their own, even if they were worlds apart in their interests and aesthetics. I hope that ‘Ink This!’ will surprise, excite, and inspire while honoring the creativity and enthusiasm that make the print arts a rich and vital part of the Northwest art community."

Microbrewing is another outstanding Northwest tradition, and Tacoma Art Museum has collaborated with Harmon Brewing Company to craft a signature ale, amusingly named “drINK THIS,” a name which cleverly plays on the title of the exhibition. Harmon Brewing Co.’s co-owner Pat Nagel describes the IPA as having "bold flavors of orange, lemon and melon (that) give way to a crisp, clean and smooth finish.” The ale will be available at special museum events, on tap at the Harmon’s four restaurants, and sold in 20 ounce bottles at the museum’s cafe.

Many related events will be held at the museum in conjunction with the show, including the “Lunch and Learn” series featuring discussions with curator Margaret Bullock on Wednesday June 4 at 11 a.m. Additional programs and events will be announced on the museum’s website at www.TacomaArtMuseum.org.