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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2001)
Sharp satire hits the wits of ‘Mere Mortals’ ■The Pocket Playhouse production rewards those who appreciate both vulgar and intelligent mockery ‘Mere Mortals’ Pocket Playhouse By Mason West Oregon Daily Emerald The Pocket Playhouse will chal lenge audiences’ wits this Thurs day with the opening of “Mere Mortals,” a play by David Ives. University sophomore Nathan Loveless directs six fellow stu dents in the four one-acts that comprise the show. The four vignettes have nothing in common except their absurdity and humor. Ives is a satirist and ex cels at sharp social commentary. In slightly less than an hour, audi ences are assaulted with jokes about sex, feminine and masculine stereotypes, death and general hu man interaction. The viewer is as saulted because the play makes fun of the life that everybody leads, not just the characters in the play. The first act, titled “Foreplay: Or the Art of Fugue,” revolves around one man at three different stages in life, taking three different dates out to miniature golf. Although the three couples don’t exist in the same time, they exist in the same space. The beauty of the action is brought about by the dialogue, which resembles the musical style of a fugue — a repeated theme played and bounced around by different instruments. The second act, “Time Flies,” is based around two mayflies who have just met. During their brief time together, they discover that they only have a day to live, and the audience experiences that short day in an even shorter 15 minutes. This act is the funniest of the four, which is partly because of its universal appeal. The third act, “Degas C’est Moi,” requires a little knowledge about Edgar Degas. As the act unfolds, a man has decided to assume the persona of the famous painter, and he goes about his day seeing things in a new light. Freshman Eli Levine supplies the innocence and amazement at simple things that is required for the role. The final act, “Speed the Play,” is worth much more to an audi ence that has an understanding of the works and style of playwright David Mamet. The act is a con densed version of five of his plays, mediated by a hilarious cross dressed Talia Thelen. Ives mocks Mamet’s male-dominated writing style by having the men talk al most exclusively about women and say “fuck” a lot. The act seems more improvised than scripted, but that only reflects Ives’ mastery of the language and the caliber of the performances. The set is minimalist, as most Pocket shows are, but the lack of defined physical references in creases the focus on the text. If the audience is willing to pay enough attention to keep up, it will be a re warding experience. All around, the actors are up to the demands that Ives requires in his plays, and Loveless does the writer honor with his production. “Mere Mortals” runs today at 5 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the Pocket Playhouse in Villard Hall. Chrystal McConnell Emerald Amanda Dumler and Tyler Boeh cling together in a fleeting moment of passion. Their time is short because they are mayflies, insects whose lives start and end in one day. Greatest hits album looks ‘Cycleways’ at rap music ■ Pharcyde’s best-of release highlights ‘four goofballs’ in a post-gangsta world X CD REVIEW The Pharcyde ‘Cydeways’ Rhino Records By Dave Depper For the Emerald The year was 1992, and the rap world was going through some foundation-rattling changes. MC Hammer was about halfway down the wrong side of his 15 minutes of fame. Gangsta rap was enjoying its first taste of mainstream success, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan probably had fewer than 50 arrests to his name. And signifi cantly, a group of four goofballs from Los Angeles released their groundbreaking debut album, /'Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde.” It | was e truly astounding first effort, bounding with positive energy, deft wordplay and innovative beats. It is 2001, and the rap world is post-Hammer, post-gangsta and ar guably post-Wu Tang. Is there room in the new millennium for a greatest-hits album from a some what forgotten rap group? The an swer is an emphatic YES. “Cyde ways: the best of The Pharcyde” comes as a breath of fresh air to these Jay-Z-weary ears. The Phar cyde always occupied a strange spot in the rap pantheon: Their music was predominantly light hearted, but definitely not as be nignly cheerful as efforts by Vanil la Ice or Young MC, as the weed-toking anthems “Quinton’s On The Way” and “Pack the Pipe” suggest. Nor were The Pharcyde interested in becoming gritty street poets a Id N.W.A. — sunny an thems such as “Drop” and “It’s Jig gaboo Time” were miles away from what Ice Cube was rapping about at the time. Until last year’s excellent “Plain Rap” (sadly not represented on this compilation), The Pharcyde had only released one album after “Bizarre” — the decidedly darker “LabCabinCalifornia.” Where does this leave “Cyde ways?” Well, it’s heavy on cuts from the first album (a whopping nine show up here); it contains a sprinkling of tracks from the sec ond (five to be exact); and of course it includes that essential el ement of compilation albums, a previously unreleased track (the raunchy “Panty Raid”). Drawing material from only two sources that are so different lends “Cyde ways” a somewhat schizophrenic feel, especially since the tracks are in chronological order. However, the sequence could be a good thing — the optimistic rhymes from the first album would have sounded pretty strange if they had been mixed with the grittier subjects of the songs from the sec ond. Not surprisingly, it is somewhat hard to narrow down the high lights of this album — being of the greatest hits variety, the peaks are many and the valleys are few. If I had to pick out some true gems, though, I would start with the wonderfully titled “Oh Shit.” This song is just awesome. Slim Kid, Booty Brown, Fat Lip and Imani each take turns describing in deli cious detail the perils of 1) having sex on the 50-yard line of a football field, 2) having sex with your best friend’s mom and 3) having sex with a transvestite. You also can’t go wrong with the aforementioned “Pack the Pipe” — a comic ode to the joys of smoking weed that cul minates in a “charming” descrip tion of getting a 4-year-old child high. And you would be hard pressed not to like the uplifting “Otha Fish,” the simple tale of a guy that gets dumped and decides to move on. So there you go. “Cydeways” is n’t perfect (where the hell is their terrific debut single, “Soul Flower”?), but it is a stellar repre sentation of four guys that weren’t afraid to go against the current trends of hip-hop in their day. Oh yeah, the beats are smokin’, too. || 686-2458 ^ 492 E. 13th Ave R*c«1vi our wab put wmily AUTOMATICALLY! Go to www.bllou-clnomoo.com Rant Hit Bijou any morning of aha moon for partial, oto. Meet the Marquis de Sade. The pleasure is all his. 5:15, 7:45 & 10:15pm Sun Mat 3:00pm FINAL WEEKI Kate Winslet Geoffrey Rush Starting Friday, February 2/2: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon BIJOU LateNite S3 TH-SA/52 SU-VWE 5:00,7:105 9:20pm - Sun Mat 2:45pm m Requiem For A Dream 1 Must End Soon! 11:30pm I Courtesy Rhino Records PULSE EDITOR: REBECCA WILSON
