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Visual Art: Theater: Theater: Comedy:
Día
de los Muertos The Maude Kerns Art Center celebrates the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) for the 12th consecutive year with an exhibit that combines ofrendas (altars with offerings to the dead) and art by 26 artists from 20 states. The exhibit runs through Nov. 11. The Día de los Muertos festivity has a long, complex history. After the Spanish conquest in 1521, the elaborate August feast with which the Aztec of ancient Mexico celebrated the dead was moved to coincide with the Catholic All Saints' and All Souls' holidays on Nov. 1 and 2, and a number of Aztec and Christian rituals and symbols were combined. The use of ofrendas, marigolds and copal incense to honor the dead were among the native customs that endured.
Traditional Mexican altar offerings to the dead include the all-important image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, water and bread (pan de muertos), food and drink, candles, marigolds, copal. Sugar skulls were a later addition, along with toy-skeletons in clay or papier-mâché. Photographs and mementos of the deceased, streamers and papel picado (cut paper), also have their places on the altar. As it took roots in the U.S. among the Chicano population, the private and devotional Mexican ofrenda moved to a more public space such as the art gallery and developed into a form of installation art, often with socio-political overtones. Meanwhile, people without Mexican roots who feel the need to honor the departed have begun to observe this spiritual tradition privately. The Day of the Dead is a multi-facetted celebration of death and life, cultural roots and shared humanity. At once spiritual and earthy, it combines sorrow and humor and encompasses the private and the communal. All these aspects are represented in the MKAC exhibit. Augustin Galacias' papier-mâché skeleton of la China Poblana (the Chinese woman of Puebla) cheerfully greets visitors to the Center. The dominant piece in the exhibit is Eugene artist Jill Cardinal's lovely new community altar installation for which she received a Lane Arts Council Community Arts Grant. Against one wall stands a tall three-part papier-mâché structure in soft shades of blue, pink and green, its architecture part church-tower, part fairy-tale castle. In front, a "courtyard" of earth-filled clay pots awaits names of deceased loved ones. Blank streamers are provided for this purpose. Community members are also invited to pin Xeroxed photographs and messages on the memorial wall decorated with butterflies created during a workshop led by Cardinal. "I want people to really bring pictures to pin on the wall and offerings for the altar, such as candles, nuts, whatever," Cardinal said. "I want people to really use these altars. I think the lack of a place to mourn wreaks havoc in our society. The more we're able to process death and mourning, the healthier and happier we're going to be." Cardinal's personal altar to her father and late husband is up all year round at her home, though in a somewhat less elaborate form. "Doing the altar," she said, "collecting things of theirs, you start thinking of all the other things they did and were. I've known so many people who have been stopped in their tracks from a death, who have not gone forward since. I'd like to give a place for people to begin to relate to their dead people and talk about them and death."
Among the other altars at the Center, those by Michelle Saxton and Rocio Kimberly were also created individually and movingly dedicated to family members. The others were collective efforts. Amigos MultiCultural Center dedicated to the victims of hurricane Stan their traditional altar laden with offerings. Katherine Gorham's class from Edison Elementary decorated theirs with bright papeles picados, paper skulls and paper flowers as well as fresh marigolds. It is surmounted with garlands of photographs of and messages to departed loved ones. Deceased pets get their own offerings of tinned food. As always, the center's staff created an altar in memory of Maude Kerns, while the gallery's guides got together to give homage to artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Local painter Barbara Weinstein and friends built an altar to remember Waldport-based artist and Village Voice cartoonist Jimmie Frankfort. Much of the art inspired by the Day of the Dead is grounded in folk traditions, colorful, festive, and sardonically humorous. This is reflected in the jury-selected pieces on view. La Catrina, a great character created ca. 1895 by engraver José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) to satirize the high-society woman of his time and now an emblem of the Día de los Muertos celebration, makes a number of appearances. She peeks with fellow skeletons from the bottom of Bruce Allemani's mixed-media coffin, wryly entitled Welcome. Elin Waterston portrays her gaily in one of her quilts and she is twice present as an elegantly clad porcelain figurine on Kimberly's altar. In C.J. Grossman's People with AIDS, a mixed-media wall assemblage showcasing skeletons going about their daily business in a cut-away dollhouse, the humor is both sardonic and poignant. The mood is lighter in Jae McDonald's quilt, Food for the Dead, in which a skeleton crowned with a wreath of marigolds happily accepts food offerings. Warm yellows and reds against cool dark blues suggest how warming such ofrendas are to the departed. In Becky Hart's acrylic paintings Old-Time Music for All and Good Time In the City, death is tamed with the sharing of music, while loose bones dance on Kristie Johnson's silks, leaving ghostly traces of themselves. To explore the theme of death, Janet Kozachek turns to Greek mythology with her dramatic three-dimensional mosaic renditions of Endymion (the handsome shepherd who, for the sake of the moon goddess Selene is granted eternal sleep and thereby eternal youth); Hypnos (god of sleep and twin of Thanatos, god of death) and Pandora (whose curiosity allows evil to enter the world, leaving only Hope as solace). Meanwhile, in her pensive Applegate Pioneer Cemetery Series, Susan Applegate returns our consideration to home, as she quietly meditates on her pioneer family roots in Oregon. The opening fiesta last Friday was a family-friendly community celebration in which all could share tasty food from Café Yumm and Chapala Mexican Restaurant, enjoy Ballet Folklorico Xochiquetzal and Jarrett Arnold's puppet show, and dance to the music of John Crider & Friends. Folklorist Susan Dearborn Jackson will give a lecture and slide show, Death & Fiesta, from 7 to 8:30 pm on Nov. 2.
Comedy
of Errors Anyone familiar with old-school comedies like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) will appreciate the frenetic pace and un-ironic humor of Ken Ludwig's Tony Award-winning farce, Lend Me a Tenor. Opening this past weekend at The Very Little Theatre (VLT), the play, directed by Chris Pinto, is an exuberant, Marx Brothers-style romp full of mistaken identities, double entendres and bad Italian accents.
Set entirely in a two-room hotel suite in Cleveland in 1934, the story centers on Italian opera virtuoso Tito Merelli's much anticipated visit to the Cleveland Grand Opera Company. When Merelli, played by Frank Muhr, shows up late, bickering with his hot-tempered wife, Maria, (Jennifer Sellers-Andersen) and unable to attend rehearsal because of a stomachache, the fate of the humble Cleveland Grand seems threatened. At least that's how the opera company's exasperated impresario, Henry Saunders (Frank Hof), sees things. The situation goes from bad to worse when Merelli's accidental overdose on tranquilizers is mistaken for suicide. In an effort to keep the opera company afloat, Saunders convinces his daughter's estranged suitor, uptight company gofer and wannabe opera singer Max, played brilliantly by Mike Hawkins, to impersonate Merelli and perform in the Cleveland Grand's production of Otello. When the real Merelli wakes up, the play becomes a vehicle for exhausting every possible scenario of the mistaken-identity gag. And although nothing about the plot is particularly original, some precise choreography, genuinely funny moments and a top-notch cast make for a night of solid entertainment. Much of this type of comedy relies on an audience's dutiful suspension of disbelief, like the kind that insists blackface and a wig isn't really that effective of a disguise. But it's all done with a wink to the crowd. That's what makes it so much fun. So it follows that the deception succeeds in fooling everyone right up until the moment when Saunders says, with great dramatic effect, "There's nothing that could possibly go wrong now." At which point everything goes predictably and wonderfully wrong. The ensemble is rounded out by Megan Lutsock, who flawlessly plays the part of Maggie, Saunder's gee-whiz daughter and Max's love interest, but who's only interested in a "fling" with Tito Merelli. Maggie Tryk is Diana, Otello's Desdemona and Merelli's opportunistic seductress. Nancy Boyett plays Julia, the obnoxious theater proprietor, and Jef Robertson makes a convincing run as the aggressively persistent and hopelessly star-struck bellhop. But in a production full of outrageous physical comedy, frantic costume changes and highly affected acting, it's the minor jokes that sell the best. Like when Saunders misreads the handwriting on the already misinterpreted suicide note and incredulously blurts out, "The fur is gone, and now so am I?!" Max offers the correction in perfect Woody Allen deadpan: "Fun … the fun is gone." That kind of humor never gets old. Lend me a Tenor runs Oct. 27-30, Nov. 3-6 and 11-12. Tickets are $9-$10 and can be purchased by calling 344-7751.
Still
Warped In a decade that produced such wonders as Harvest Gold-tinted shag carpeting, polyester leisure suits, pet rocks, the AMC Gremlin and disco, something even more unusual but really good emerged despite the culturally wanting '70s — The Rocky Horror Show. Perhaps the whole point was to time warp out of the '70s in this offbeat 1973 rock 'n' roll extravaganza about alien transsexuals from planet Transylvania. The play inspired the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which still enjoys cult status in late-night venues across the country.
On Oct. 28, Actor's Cabaret of Eugene opens the stage version, which is similar to the movie, but enhanced because the show is live. According to Adam Goldthwaite, who stars in the lead role as the diabolical Frank-N-Furter, the live show is much more dynamic and interactive — ACE is bringing in a local band, and the actors do their own vocals, versus lip-syncing to the film. "Rocky Horror, the movie, used a shadow cast of actors, but we've added some new elements to do something fresh; something different," he says. Goldthwaite, who performed superbly in another cross-dressing role — as Hedwig in ACE's 2004 production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch — is looking forward to slipping into a pair of fishnet stockings and lacing up his custom-made corset as the glitzy and enigmatic extraterrestrial transsexual, who encourages his unsuspecting guests to "give themselves over to absolute pleasure." "It [Rocky Horror] appeals to the unusual and he looks so unusual," he says. "He's a very powerful character." Still, Goldthwaite says he doesn't view Rocky Horror as just another men-in-drag show. "Frank-N-Furter is an alien. He's from a planet where all the men dress like that," he says. "It should be weird, but it's not." For those who've never thrown rice at the midnight movie or shouted "slut!" at a shivering Susan Sarandon, attending The Rocky Horror Show is like going to a party. Costumes are optional and audience participation is enthusiastically encouraged, including the bringing of props such as flashlights, newspapers, party hats, noisemakers, balloons and pink rubber gloves. However, items such as squirt guns, which could damage stage lights and possibly electrocute the cast, will be confiscated at the door. Do the "Time Warp" again Oct. 28–31. To purchase tickets, call 683-4368.
Clinton
vs. Bush For 24 years Kate Clinton has made strange love to politics. A feminist, liberal lesbian, she reads Molly Ivins for stress relief. Clinton entertains and enlightens, proving that the weird-but-true world of politics is hilarious. In her appearance at the McDonald Theatre, you can count on Clinton to skewer John Roberts, Harriet Miers, Katrina's aftermath and George Dubya, naturally. Following are excerpts from my recent phone conversation with Clinton. EW: There's always plenty to talk about, isn't there?
KC: Someone said to me last night, "Gosh, you hardly have to make anything up!" I think one of the jobs of the comedian is to have time to do a little analysis and transform it a little so that we can all have a moment of lightness about it and then go on. It's been reported that [Harriet Miers] would have supported a constitutional ban on abortion. As a feminist comedian is that something you would joke about? Absolutely I would talk about it. What I've really been talking about is how hard it is to find out what anybody thinks in these hearings. If you or I ever went to a job interview and were asked a question and we said, "You know, you can't ask me that," we would so not get the job. John Roberts not only got the job, he got promoted without a day on the job. It's a pretty neat trick. Right, and can that really ever be funny? Absolutely. It can be made into context. For example, I've always enjoyed George saying that we have the right to control our own money, but apparently not the right to control our own bodies. So a lot of times it's putting it into context, exaggerating the obvious logic of something. You've been performing for almost 25 years and following politics closely all that time. What changes have you noticed? Ronald Reagan and I began about the same time, as did Pope John Paul. Those are two people that in terms of comedy I miss so much. I think what we're seeing now is really the flowering (deflowering?) of the end of the Reagan Revolution. I have seen the concretizing of a really radically conservative message bolstered by a … Christian fundamentalism. I remember when I was little and John Kennedy was running and people were almost embarrassed that anybody would bring up his Catholicism. I think a lot of time people come to my show and are flabbergasted to hear people say those things. But then they laugh, because they're relieved to hear them.
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