Tag Archives: Portland Story Theater

Link: Shackleton’s amazing voyage

Launch of the lifeboat James Caird from the shore of Elephant Island, April 24, 1916. Published in Shackleton's book, "South," William Heinemann, London 1919. Photo is probably by Frank Hurley, the expedition's photographer. Wikimedia Commons

By Bob Hicks

I’ve just put up this post at Oregon Arts Watch about two extraordinary feats of endurance: Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton‘s star-crossed quest in 1914-17 to trek 1,800 miles across the Antarctic continent, and Lawrence Howard’s captivating three-hour solo telling of the tale at Portland Story Theater. Give it a read, and the next time you think of grumbling about a little Portland rain, think of Shackleton and his men. Still a few tickets available, I’m told, for Howard’s Friday-night performance Jan. 27.

Photo: Lifeboat James Caird launches from Elephant Island, April 24, 1916. Probably by expedition photographer Frank Hurley. Wikimedia Commons

Jones for love? Try ‘Love Jones’

Wikimedia CommonsBy Laura Grimes

“I thought you’d like to write about it because storytelling is your thing.”

My thing?

My thing is very occasionally, if properly goaded, spinning a knotted-up yarn after a beer or two.

Mr. Scatter was trying to encourage me — nay, uncharacteristically apply pressure on me — to write about Love Jones, which we were seeing that night. He stood above me, strongly silent. He raised his eyebrows.

I scrunched mine and looked back at my non-pressing paperwork as if to say, I’m busy. Go away.

Continue reading Jones for love? Try ‘Love Jones’

Singlehandedly: the art of storytelling

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“We did not believe in God,” Lawrence Howard recollects. “We believed in chicken soup and matzoh balls.”

As Mrs. Scatter has recently intimated, Mr. Scatter has embarked on a quest deep into the wilds of the exotic North American continent, hunting the elusive Snark. Today the Snark sleeps, and it is only sporting for Mr. Scatter to pause, too. Fortunately he’s discovered a forgotten hilltop with remarkably modern reception, so he’s decided to recount his recent adventure back in civilization, last Friday night at Hipbone Studio, at the opening of Portland Story Theater‘s Singlehandedly festival of solo shows.

Sharon Knorr meets her perfect partner. Photo: Lynne DuddyHoward is one of the founders of the story theater, and so it was fitting that his hour-long piece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Horowitz, kicked the festival off. Most everyone knows the mystical power of chicken soup, and most understand the pull of ritual and tradition in that thing we loosely call religion, so Howard’s audience, maybe 65 or 70 strong, rippled into laughter: the easy, familiar kind, the kind that says, “Yeah, we know what you mean.”

What transpired was a memory-tale,
a tale of growing up Jewish, sort of, but not in a particularly devoted sense. His father changed the family name from Horowitz to Howard because in the 1940s and 50s he couldn’t even get a job interview with a Jewish name, and the family celebrated the holidays with a Christmas tree, although not in a window where it could be seen. Still, being Jewish was somehow important, not only in the way Howard viewed the world, but also in the way the world viewed him. Which was not always in the kindest or most pleasant way.

This bothered him: “I wanted people to hate me for myself, not just for my name.”

Continue reading Singlehandedly: the art of storytelling