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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1985)
X/WIVES' Buried Personalities b y Sandra de Helen "B uried Personalities” is an evening o f one act plays recently presented at the Echo Theatre by a new w om en's theater group called X/W IVES. The pieces were all written by Portland wom en with the exception o f the first piece, “ Lem onade" by Jam es Prideaux. The perform ance was well done and well received. It had a professional look to it "Lem onade" got the evening o ff to a good s ta rt The play is cleverly written, with lots o f funny lines. Two wom en set up roadside lem onade stands side by side and proceed to reveal the ir dissatisfaction with the ir lives by discussing their m orbid fantasies about their fam ilies. They can hardly tell what is real and what isn’t and alternately support and attack each others’ lies. W hat is real is the obvious: w om en are oppressed, and w om en who spend the ir lives w orking inside the hom e often feel useless at m iddle age, ju st when w om en are at their natural peaks. One disturbing factor in this particular pro du ction is the age o f Edith. She has been m arried 25 years, so by m y calculations, should be 4 5 -5 0 ,5 5 years old tops. But as portrayed by Carol Steinel, she appears to be closer to 75. W hen actors are playing “ older” characters, it is im portant to be as realistic as possible It helps to com pare with real people. F o r exam ple, Gloria Steinem celebrated her 50th birthday a year o r tw o ago. O therwise, this piece was excellently done. Sarazan Torelle James, Kelley Edwards, Carol Steinel, Tillay Christensen, and Kathay Duff in Buried Personalities. C arol and T illay Christensen (Mabel) both dis played appropriate em otions, and their tim ing was outstanding. “ W alt was W rong” w ritten by director Kathay D uff, is a new look at an old fairy tale. IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM Here we see Sleeping Beauty and M alificent co n fro n t destiny and control it Sleeping Beauty is not the perfect young m aiden she looks like. Instead, she’s a bored teenager w ho is into drugs. M alificent is bent on acting o u t her evil fantasy o f putting the entire co u n try to sleep fo r 100 years, all because she w asn’t invited to the party when SB was bom . SB pouts, “ but I was ju st a baby!" She’s rig h t o f course, and after som e conversation, they decide to w ork together and SB’s drug habit is neatly dism issed (“ You can’t fly when you’re h ig h !” ) * “ 2 S m ile and 2 Frown,” by Carol Steinel is one o f those plays that leaves som e m em bers o f the audience going, "I don’t get it’’ It is so fu ll o f sym bolism that everybody knows she is supposed to get som ething, and lots of us w orry that we d id n ’t get what we were supposed to. T his play could use som e m ore work by the p la yw rig h t ju st to clarify matters. If the cent ral point were a little m ore pointed, and the sym bolism m ore universal, this would be a very good play. It certainly contains all the The finest imported coffee beans, teas, chocolates and beverage brewing accessories. , rig h t elem ents, and personally, 1 like seeing plays about everyday relationships between Lesbians. I w rote “ Beauty Standards” w ith Kate Kasten back in 1978. It’s a piece about the oppression o f wom en by M adison Avenue. A w orld in w hich the average w om an preparing herself fo r a day at w ork on the outside uses 23 products! The final play o f the evening is “ Stacy,” and is about the Green River m urders. Som e tim es 1 th in k Kathay D uff is the only person do ing anything about those Green River m urders. As one audience m em ber said, “ I wish this piece were out o f date.” W hen Kathay first told me she was w riting this play, I thought it was gruesom e, and w ondered why anyone w ould want to write about it A fter seeing it 1 can only w onder why we aren’t all w riting about it “ Stacy” points out how once again, w o m en are trivialized. Because the wom en be ing m urdered are som etim es prostitutes, people say to themselves, oh well, what do they exp ect Well, wom en do not expect to be m urdered! And we m ust not expect o r think th a t w om en deserve to die, to be m urdered, no m atter what we do fo r a living. “ Stacy" stays with you, long after the TWENTY-THIRD AVENUE BOOKS Offering competitive prices on an outstanding collection of photographs by Imogen Cunningham Wide Selection of: • Lesbian/Gay • Best Sellers, • Hardcover and • Paperback Books. PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGE GALLERY Portland’s premiere photographic art gallery specializing in landscape, fine art,nudes and historical photographs for investment decor. 2 0 8 s o u t h w e s t f ir s t Open 11 - 7:00 Monday - Friday (5 0 3 ) 2 2 4 -3 5 4 3 11 • 5:00 sat/sun In Waterfront Park's Ciallery Row C U S T O M F R A M IN G 14 P o r t la n d or by appointment The Coffee Merchant ^ THE BROADWAY COFFEE MERCHANT 1637 N.E. Broadway Portland. 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