Tag Archives: Allen Nause

Trikes, gnomes, and boating for love

By Bob Hicks

While Mrs. Scatter is off in the creeping undergrowth of the northern rainforest hunting gnomes, Mr. Scatter is sitting at home pondering the plausibility of the electric bicycle.

Could this be the Mr. Scattermobile of the future?Nay, nay, not just a bicycle. An electric three-wheeler, with neat little wire basket in the rear, a vehicle fit for the odd grocery trek and the regular coffee-shop run. Could it be? Might Mr. Scatter don a plaid neck scarf and houndstooth riding cap and sport about town at a dashing 17 mph, shouting wild-eyed imprecations at crows and chihuahuas to clear out of his path if they value wing and limb? Might this be fitting familial payback for a garden suddenly lurking with warty-nosed painted gnomes?

... and could this become Chez Scatter's new Large Smelly Gnome? Photo: Ioannes.baptista, Wikimedia Commons.Ah, one can dream, as Jack does in the play Jack Goes Boating, just opened at Artists Repertory Theatre. And sometimes, if a person dreams a dream that is simultaneously quite large and very small, that dream might come true.

Mr. Scatter is not speaking of Mrs. Scatter’s dream of being featured in an eight-page pictorial splash in Better Gnomes and Gardens. He is speaking of Jack’s simple yearning for his one true love, which, after all, is a common enough dream, if not one all that commonly fulfilled. And that Jack must endure unlikely trips to the hospital, a marital catfight by his two best friends and some excruciating swimming lessons with little relief other than a sturdy patience and the occasional hit off a mighty bong only goes to show that when grace arrives, it’s a good idea to be ready and willing to receive it.

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Tracy Letts, the ‘Superior’ actors’ writer

Bill Geisslinger and Vin Shambry in "Superior Donuts" at Artists Rep. Photo: Owen Carey.

By Bob Hicks

When you see the killer-good performances in Artists Repertory Theatre‘s current hit Superior Donuts, remember this: Tracy Letts is an actor. And when actors write plays, they write them with actors in mind.

Letts, the Steppenwolf Theatre stalwart who won the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize for his 2008 family drama August: Osage County, has a long history with Artists Rep, which has also produced his plays Bug and Killer Joe and commissioned his adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. In each case, viewers argued about the literary quality of the scripts, but most everyone agreed they made for terrific performances.

Which brings up an interesting point: If a script creates juicy roles, doesn’t that mean it’s a good script? If it gives actors the opportunity to do the things actors do best, is that somehow different from literary quality? Or is performance its own thing?

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Late scatter: All hail the Devil and Rudolph Valentino

Tobias Andersen, Bill Geisslinger, Todd Van Voris, The Seafarer

What with arts politics and scratchy throat and other everyday interruptions I’ve avoided actually writing about any art since talking about Portland Opera’s The Turn of the Screw and the finale of the Fertile Ground new-plays festival a couple of weeks ago.

But I don’t want Artists Repertory Theatre‘s brilliant version of The Seafarer and Opera Theater Oregon‘s campy but gorgeous Camille/La Traviata to get any farther in the rear view mirror without picking up my virtual pen. Both shows have ended their runs, which turns this into something more of an afterglow than what’s sometimes known in the biz as a “money review.”

Still, darned near everything in The Seafarer was pretty much right on the money, beginning with Irishman Conor McPherson‘s multiply layered script and extending to Allen Nause’s precise yet lively direction of one of the best ensemble casts you’re likely to see in a long while.

McPherson broke on the scene in 1999 with The Weir, when he was still in his late 20s, and although he’s become a leading voice in contemporary theater he’s something of a classicist: The Seafarer, which was first produced in 2006, is an old-fashioned play in a lot of good ways.
It revels in language (the way McPherson lobs curses is much funnier and, dare I say, humanitarian than the way Mamet usually does). It’s a “well-made play,” a form that’s fallen out of fashion but has historical staying power. It plays with checks and balances and dramatic weight, encouraging you to shift your view now and again about who the “central” character in this cosmic-showdown drama really is. It’s — hold your breath here — entertaining, a basic value that all too often gets lost in the name of cultural relevance and Art.

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