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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 7, 2002)
June?. W f r t — 1|4 5 m s » I Mm H ...............¥ ............... t riangle productions! has announced its 2002-2003 lineup, and audiences still reel ing from last season’s hard-hitting and heavy material will be pleased to know it features a lineup of very popular comedies. Kicking off the season is the Summer Pride Series, which features Hedwig and the Angry Inch, running June 13 to July 13. Look for mag nificent costumes and an incredible score! The company’s regular season starts with Greater Tuna, starring Darrin Murrell and Michael Teufel (After the Zipper), running July 5 to 20. The two actors portray multiple characters in this lively comedy about small-town Texas. Down South, starring Daria O ’Neil, runs Aug. 28 to Sept. 15. Last seen with triangle in As Bees in Honey Drown, she plays a suburban housewife during 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis in this bawdy farce. t’s a tricky feat, putting on a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trasks unusual, uber- popular off-Broadway 1998 musical about a German immigrant rock star (originally played by Mitchell) who has undergone a coerced, botched male-to-female sex change. The theatrical experience, in contrast with the widely seen 2001 film Mitchell directed, is presented as a real-time Hedwig rock con cert attended by the audience. T he story of her rise to fame is relayed through plenty of expository asides and banter between the lead performer and her guitarist. It’s beloved not only for its specialized brand of gender-bending hut also for its clever, catchy songs (Bowie-like postmodern rock) and outra geous costumes and wigs. Hence, any Hedwig production has a lot to live up to. I tion manages to combine and spoof both Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. Dickens will turn over in his grave when Twist hits the stage. Run for Your Wife! by Ray Cooney will run April 23 to May 24, 2003, in repertory with its sequel, Caught in the Net, which plays April 30 to May 23, 2003. In these comedies, we meet John, a hard-working cabbie who is desperately trying to keep his two wives from discovering each other. In Caught, his son by one wife becomes Internet chat buddies with his daugh ter by the other, and they are determined to meet. And you thought bigamy was bliss. JI71 From Hedwlg to bigamy triangle productions! opens 13th season with Summer Pride Series by S a r a h L e im e r t % The hot musical revue / Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, back by popular demand for the third time, runs Sept. 13 to Oct. 19. Angry Housewives by A.M. Collins and Chad Henry runs Nov. 6 to 30. The House wives are back.. .and they’re mad as hell! Bored with everyday lives, these Wives search for per sonal fulfillment, finding none until one of them starts playing the guitar. A Christmas Twist will he the special holiday show, running Nov. 27 to Dec. 15. The produc Playing with cult “Hedwig has achieved...an underground cult status,” says Dennis Bigelow, director of the triangle productions! version o f Hedwig, which opens June 13 at Theater! Theatre! Recognizing this challenge, they “deliberate ly made choices— for instance, that her ‘look’ needed to be of the cult phenomenon, i.e., the wig, the basic makeup design. After all, there are a lot of Hed-heads out there!” Beyond that, though „ he insists, “we’re striving to make the production— and the look of it—our own.” Bigelow characterizes the show’s themes as being “about love, about finding your other half, about finding who you are.” S a r a h L eimert is a Portland free-lance writer. • triangle struggles with the importance of being Hedwig in C hristopher M c Q i ain Preparing for Hedwig has presented unique difficulties. “Rehearsing the show is challeng ing,” the director admits. “O f course you can’t have the musicians at every rehearsal; they are, after all, professional musicians. S o we’ve used a single piano...and, more often than not, the cast recording,” which, he explains, makes it “hard to capture the rock feel. A s we get deeper into our show it becomes challeng ing to have Mitchell’s voice in rehearsal because we are working so hard to develop our own.” Relying on punk aggression and eccentric glam artifice rather than convoluted witticism and cuteness, Hedwig is a far cry from standard musical theater fare. “S o much the better,” Bigelow exclaims. “O f course, it takes some getting used to, but in the same way that moving from light comedy to Shakespeare takes some getting used to. Or from a silly musical satire to Samuel Beckett. Theater is, after all, theater. We want to make them laugh, move them and shock them. In this case, we also get to interact with them a little. And we have kick-ass songs to sing.” JH triangle productions! presents HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY I n c h 8 p.m . June 13 to July 13 at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 S .E . Belmont St. Tickets are $22- $28 from 503-239-5919. C h risto ph er M c Q u a jn is a Portland free-lance writer. 9 Envy goes both ways. 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