Mason West for the Emerald Joe VonAppen recounts a glue-induced vision of being led through forests of velvet leaves and velour grass on the way to heaven. Playhouse swears at God ■ Swearing at God’ opens in the Playhouse today as a showcase for Joe VonAppen, though he falls a little short Pocket Playhouse ‘Swearing at God’ ★★★☆☆ By Mason West for the Emerald As the end of the 2000-01 Pocket Playhouse season approaches, Joe VonAppen asks, “What does it all mean?” This crucial question is what centers his self-written, self directed one-rfian show, “Swearing at God,” which opens in the Pocket today at 5 p.m. The play is a series of monologues that VonAppen appropriately calls “schizophrenic,” but all the charac ters are struggling to find meaning in their existence. As the title suggests, the play does deal with some heav enly aspects, but it is by no means re ligious or religiously offensive. “God” is really just an entity to whom we address life’s big question. VonAppen assumes all people are searching for meaning in life, but he theorizes that all people ac tually experience it at some point. However, the experience is too brief for them to comprehend the mean ing. Thus, people replace the ques tion “what does it mean?” with “what the fuck?” Basically, the audience is prepped from the beginning to understand the end of the show. VonAppen, wisely, doesn’t offer any answers to his questions; all the characters come up short. While this leaves audi ences a little unfulfilled, it is much better than VonAppen trying to pro pose some meaningful answer that is complete crap. Expecting one man to resolve the human condition causes theater to be pretentious. While VonAppen stays humble, his schtick gets old. Anyone who spends an hour and a half vocally questioning existence is bound to seem cranky. He holds out longer than you might expect by taking hu morous approaches vto asking the question. His first search is made by a wannabe gangster taking night class es in foreign languages — he has al ready mastered the four-letter dialect of English. The endeavor is to find the language God spoke in during a vi sion induced by huffing glue. This is perhaps the funniest of the mono logues and contributes to the disap pointment in later aspects of the play. In contrast to the rapid-fire slang spouted by “homie” Joe, VonAp pen later becomes more reserved as a scorned ventriloquist whose dummy won’t speak to him be cause it has emotional problems and wants to die. Later still, he is “the revolutionary leader of ab solutely nothing.” After doing a successful job of bal ancing humor and melancholy, Von Appen drops the ball with the last two monologues. While he doesn’t lead audiences to expect a happy ending, they won’t be pleased or sat isfied with what is presented. That is the bad side of not having a preten tious answer; there’s nothing on which to pass judgment. At least when actors go out on a limb, view ers can leave saying “dude, they are so wrong” and feeling superior. Well, kudos to VonAppen for not giving audiences that chance. So, what does it all mean? People who will want to attend this play are the same people who watched the film, “Requiem for a Dream”; they aren’t looking for answers or emotional pleasure, they just want to experience someone’s art. It’s un clear whether this show is art; it didn’t have Jennifer Connelly in it. “Swearing at God” plays today and Saturday at 5 p.m. in the Pock et Playhouse in Villard Hall. WeVou suffer? 0youfl*''e*h4rciUrn is a lack of energy keeping you from enjoying 'ncllss***^1** the finer things in life? Then try a sharp needle stuck through a sensitive part of your body! * Safe * Proven effective * 100% satisfaction guaranteed! High Priestess Piercing 675 Lincoln St 342-6585 You may only live once, but you can get pierced over and over. 011911 ■ Tonight ■ Ayanajalu Dance Company with Foli Kan African Dance Performance $10 advance, $12 door, 7:00 pm ■ Saturday ■ Community Dance and Husk Festival with loint Forces Dance Co. andLaZOO DanceAbility Performance/Jazz Fusion $5 door, 7:00 pm ■ Monday* Alkaline Trio, Dashboard Confessional, No Motiv, Hot Rod Circuit Punk Rock $10 advance, $12 door, 7:00 pm Ail Ages Welcome • 687-2746 AG THE WIDOW jp% } of Saint-Pierre * S1S ft f:30pm Nightly - Sun Mat 2:45pmog Rant th« Bijou any mominfi or afternoon for parties, etc. Brilliant! A BEAUTIFUL FILM! * I LOVED IT! Sbcrt, ft ROEPER AND THE MOVIES THE CENTER OF THE WORLD TwoTliumbv Terrific s:oo & io:aopm N Outclasses Pulp Fiction in both Heat and Heart!! (English subtitles) i'twu-m; in 7:00pm Nightly - Sun Mat 2:00pm EB Id Overt 9:45pm Nightly New Expanded Menu Food & Beverabe Specials! FRIDAYS IAve Alternative Music! ■■■■■■■ MONDAYS Booster's LTVS BLUE’S JAM! 683-8101 • 11th & Charnelton • Eugene Looking for a GREAT CLASS! The School of Music has terrific fall term courses open to non-majors. Those with an asterisk (*) satisfy either Arts & Letters or Multicultural requirements. • Basic Music* • History of Jazz Music* • Music in World Culture* • History of Rock* • Film: Drama/Photography/Music* • Survey of Opera* • Class Piano • Class Voice • Electronic Music Techniques • Guitar Theory Basics • Guitar Technology • Guitar Classes: Classical, Jazz, Blues, or Funk • Tabla Class • Jazz Drumset • Band and Choral Ensembles For more information, call the School of Music at 346-3761 or check our web site at music.uoregon.edu and click on Music for Non-Majors