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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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