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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1997)
3 0 ▼ a u g u s t 1, 1 0 0 7 ▼ j u s t o u t "We'd like to get to know you" C A special introduction; Mention you saw this ad in Just Out and Assembly is f r e e - You pay for the materials • Complete Projects only • Uniframes excluded ^Picture This’ FRAM ING GALLERY 2 8 0 1 S E H o lg a te • P o r tla n d * 2 3 6 - 1 4 0 0 Plenty o f FREE parking at our convienent Eastside location Mon.-Fri. 9:30 am - 6 pm • Saturday 10 am-5:30 pm Applies to complete projects only. Not to be combined w tb other offers Portland's only independent noncommercial listener-sponsored community radio station. listen Tuesdays a t 6pm W HEEL A LIG N M EN TS & TIRES 2454 E. BURNSIDE • PORTLAND, OR 97214 Family Owned & Operated Since 1952 Tim N e w lis tin g s : Walters does his fifty" Four Bedrooms 3 1/2 Baths M aster Suite w/sitting rm H dwds thru-out N ew Kitchen & Baths V i i j p f l - M arble Entry Alameda View $589,000 4 Bedrooms 2 Baths Hdwds thru-out Patio Finished Basem ent Private Yard homework. (And yours too) ■ ~ w a i t Special English Alameda Price Reduced - $235,000 Tim Walters 503 287-8989 ext. 127 - Pager: 503-301-7009 Platinum Club M em ber à wwnsm m P f Al TOR* A ct Terrence McNally’s play about opera diva Maria Callas is a lesson in the value of passion in art ▼ by Flora Sussely E Valour! Compassion! has to say to the straight ven if Terrence McNally hadn’t writ community. (The pair earned him consecutive ten it, a play about M aria Callas would Tony Awards for best play— Love! Valour! Com be worth seeing. And even if it were passion! in 1995 and Master Class in 1996.) not a play about “the most wonder Indeed, his plays are about people— their rela fully m usical voice we had ever heard,” we love a M cNally play. So, what tionships do you with themselves, theircompanions, their get when you cross Callas and M cNally? art. Master this Master Class of M cN ally’s, he con Class, which opens Aug. 5 for a six-day run at In the jures the spirit o f a great, passionate and tem pes Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. tuous artist. We are taken into an intimate conver The play, originally written for Zoe Caldwell, sation with Callas about art, indeed about life. Faye Dunaway courageously accepted the role while Patti Lupone was winning standing ova tions for her performances directly after Zoe Caldwell won the Tony for it. That, my friends, takes chutzpah. And, the beauty of it is that she has come through every bit as wonderful as her (which won her last year’s Tony Award) is a predecessors. The press is ecstatic, and audiences master class with the greatest opera diva o f our are in love with D unaway’s Callas. time: M aria Callas. For those o f you who may not know, a master Dunaway’s career started in the theater and hit class is a vocal coaching lesson with a master its discovery zone in 1967 when she appeared in artist— with an audience in attendance. There is the film Bonnie and Clyde, a performance that an accompanist and a program and each singer earned her an Oscar nomination. She gets a lot of perform s an operatic aria or art song; when she or publicity for her temperament. To that she says: he stops, the m aster cri tiques and advises. It’s very intimate in some ways, be cause e veryone’ s so raw and nervous, and it also has in credible beauty and inten sity. This is what M cNally’s play is about. T h e m a ste r a rtis t is M aria Callas, a gifted and brilliant opera diva who died in 1977 after rocking the opera world. She was so intelligent that she could learn an opera score over night, even after her voice began to go (and it began to go early in her career). She was fearless and driven in her craft. Callas would carry the chest voice up into her higher register and belt it out. Then she would sing distinct, graceful ascending phrases; each syllable was clear and, most o f all, ex pressive. Her gift was the gift o f expression. W hat she did not live, she sang. Until her tragic affair with Aristotle Onassis, C al las had a life completely directed by and for her sing ing. Her husband was her manager. She went from home or hotel to theater and back. Dinner out would be Faye Dunaway in Master Class pushing the envelope. She met Onassis on his “O f course I have temperament. Temperament is yacht in the sum m er of 1959 and by that Septem wonderful. It’s only a problem if you get angry ber she had filed for divorce. Unfortunately, over nothing and it’s not graceful.” About her art, Onassis was crass and ignorant, with a lack of she says, “ It’s about the experience o f the moment respect for her art. Her emotional and physical as opposed to the indication o f the moment.” health suffered as her life began increasingly to In the play, Callas tells a student who falls consist o f parties and cruises. Then Onassis met short of the mark, “You sang it, you didn’t feel it.” Jacqueline Kennedy, and dumped Maria publicly If you want to see a thinking, feeling perfor after she had reportedly aborted his baby. Callas mance, this is it. died sad and alone, her voice and her heart bro ken. M aster Class is on stage Tuesday, Aug: 5, The m asterclasses that M cN ally’s play looks through Sunday, Aug. 10; evening perfor in on took place in a period o f C allas’ life when mances begin at 7:30 pm, with 2 pm shows her voice was already shot. Clearly then, it is not Saturday and Sunday. The Sunday matinee a play that confuses the instrum ent and the artist. performance will be sign language interpreted. It is not C allas’ voice we com e to hear, it is her Tickets are $10-$45, and are available through words. And M cNally is very good at that. In a TicketMaster, 790-ARTS, the Portland Center recent Advocate interview he noted that he just fo r the Performing Arts box office, Southwest writes plays; he said he believes Master Class has Broadway and Main Street, or the Portland as much to say to the gay community as Love! Opera office, 1515 SW Morrison St. PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS CUSTOM FRAMING IS lass
