Just entertainment
BY
•Raucous laughter to real tears
God's Country
Emotional roller-coaster takes us for a superb ride
Today's terrorism on stage
SANDRA
DE H E L E N
om oG enized” was billed as a lesbian
and gay performance festival and was
presented by circa NOW and Howie
Baggadonutz at the Echo Theatre during Gay
Pride Week. The two “acts” included eleven
separate performances, several of which are
among the best seen in Portland in the past
several years.
The results of lesbians and gay men
working together to create an evening of
entertainment truly unified the audience and
made us all laugh, cry and think. What more
could anyone ask of entertainers?
H
“Acting Out,” by Lesbian Improvisational
Theatre Troupe, opened the production with
audience participation. The finished their set
with an hysterically funny piece of visual
business that had the audience thoroughly
warmed up at the sight of Meg Grace being
made up from behind by Sara Packer.
“Love and Other Addictions” was a series
o f poems acted out by Don Tavel and Gayle
Forsberg. These ranged from moving to funny
and set the tone for the rest of the evening as
it swung from one emotion to another.
Approximately every other piece was a
musical one, such as “Safe Sex,” an excerpt
from the musical The Sound o f Lesbians,
written and performed by Sally Sheklow.
Sally wasn’t as accustomed to the microphone
is she could have been, but the WTiting was
impeccable, and her clowning was
uninhibited. Her demonstration of how to use
a dental dam will not soon be forgotten.
Howie performed his “Christ, Your Hair
Smells Terrific,” an irreverant look at what
might have happened at a biblical hair salon
just before the last supper of Jesus Christ. One
hopes that “HOMO II”(a must!) will contain
more of Howie’s writing and acting.
"The Lesbian Shuffle”Uy Carol Steinel
was a country and western look at how
lesbians break up. Eight women square
danced the shuffle only after Steinel laid the
groundwork for the audience. The “Shuffle”
contains some stinging truths which could
have indeed been painful to any audience
members who are in one of the stages of
breakup described. Instead, there was the
healing of laughter.
E. Arm Hinds made her stage appearance
preceded by a slide presentation of her
artwork which was captivating and brought
the audience to the appropriate emotional
setting for her “Cultural Differences.” This
was a telephone conversation Ann has with
her mother. “Mother” is nearly as sympathetic
a character as “Daughter”in this sketch, which
allows the audience to better understand
parental relationships and how our parents
might feel while trying to accept our lives.
Ann’s attempts to explain her anniversaries
with her two lovers to a parent who had been
clued in all along, but somehow still couldn’t
grasp the concept of non-monogamy was
delightfully funny. The end of the piece
brought us face to face with our inner
children.
Robin Lane opened Act Two by going in
search of her inner adult, the one who pays the
bills, makes the appointments, and wonders
why she does what she does so well. Robin’s
“ Adjusting to the Light” began with gibberish
and thirteen T-shirts with messages which
shifted our thinking back and forth between
new age angst and jealous, grumbling reality.
The production ended with “Pouf Positive”
by Robert Patrick, performed by Tim
Stapleton. Tim played a man with AIDS in
hes last moments, choosing to die as he had
lived, with humor, wit and dignity, this
brilliant piece should be mandatory viewing
for every citizen of the United States as we
face the scourge of our time. The lines are
funny, biting, and touching. This sketch
should grow to a full-length play and be
performed repeatedly until we all know the
entire script by heart
Between nearly every piece, Sarazan
Tore 11 James came by as “The Tap Dancin’
Fool.” She wore Biikenstocks with taps and
danced to Cris Williamson’s “Filling Up and
Spilling Over.” Her antics drew attention
away from the necessary scene changes, or in
some cases drew attention to them, whichever
suited her purpose. In addition to the pieces
mentioned above, the production included B.J.
Castleman and her music; “Know Water”
which was two songs performed by Meg
Rowe, Cathryn Heron, Lynda Byers, and
Elissa Goldberg; and “Acid Folk” by Barbara
Bernstein. All pieces were appreciated; all
were contributions from our complex and
varied culture. Nearly fifty people worked
together to make this production happen.
“Homo-Genized” should become an
annual tradition for Gay Pride: gay men and
lesbians performing, laughing, crying and
being together for the good of us all. Thank
you circa NOW and Howie Baggadonutz for
presenting the entire community with a
wonderful gift.
Entertainment editor Sandra de H elen has
won first place in the fiction category o f the
writing contest at Standard Insurance
Company. Sandra's "Birthday Boy" w ill be
published in “Life at Standard,” an internal
publication with more than 1200 readers.
TAVERN
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just out V 2 2 V July 1990
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A boy (Adam M ichael Hogan) lights an altar to A d o lf Hitler. The actual altar was fo u n d in a
raid by FBI agents in the home o f Order member Gary Yarbrough.
he Oregon Shakespeare Festival
presents Steven Dietz’ powerful play
G od’s Country, running through
September 16 in the Angus Bowmer
Theatre. Michael Kevin directs an
ensemble of twelve actors, each of who
plays multiple roles.
G od’s Country relates the history of
The Order, the white supremacist
underground responsible for the murder of
Alan Berg, the controversial and
combative Denver talk show h o st They
assassinated Berg for his “belligerence
toward the white m ovem ent. . . and he
was Jewish.”
The center of the piece is the 1985 trial
o f members of The Order, indicted for a
crime spree of robbery and counterfeiting
to fund their "call to arms for the white
race in its battle against ZOG,” (the
Zionist Occupation Government), a
governmental conspiracy existing in the
imagination and rhetoric of The Order and
other neo-nazi organizations. ZOG, they
believe, is financed by “Jewish capitalists”
and “Aryan-betrayers" who authorized the
American melting pot society and
bargained away the future of the white
race.
T
The members of The Order were — and
are — part of a proud racist community which
sees itself as victimized, revolutionary and
good. G od's Country illuminates their
mindset, white identity. The play moves in
time between the trial and moments which
reveal the tradition of this identity as it is
handed down from parent to child, from
family to community.
The Identity Doctrine is the official
religion of The Order, a combination o f
Nazism, revisionist history and selective
interpretation of the Bible. At the trial, the
“scriptures” o f the Identity Doctrine are
revealed: a novel called the The Turner
Diaries, essentially a how-to manual o f hate
and racism, and The Protocols o f the Learned
Elders o f Zion, supposedly incontrovertible
proof of a Jewish conspiracy to undermine
and destroy “goyim. "The Protocols was, in
fact, a forgery published and distributed in the
1920s by Henry Ford and his dealerships. It
resurfaced later in The International Jew: The
W orld's Foremost Problem.
G od’s Country will be produced next by
the Performing Arts Council o f the Transvaal
in Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa in
August and September o f 1990. It will be
performed by a multi-racial acting company.
CHAPPY HARVEST ¥