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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2003)
3 2 J u t a a t * tebruary 21.2003 eatingout ealingout eatíngout THEATER eatingout "All of ns shop and fuoh" Mark Ravenhill’s graphic masterpiece comes alive at Theater! Theatre! by G ary M orris UITR CAFE Serving fresh panini sandwiches. Delicious homemade soups & bold salads. Local hormone free beef burgers Many specialty & breakfast items too! Why not L Using local & organic ingrediants. own casual mediterranean café & wine bar Local organic beer, wine, & fresh juices. Spacious booths for groups and always quick service. Yummy kids menu! Try our specials $2^ Tuesdays Wine Down Wednesdays Live Music & Great Food! 126 NE 28th St., Portland • 503-236-wine open Mon-Fri 11 -late • Sat 4-late» Sun 4-10 Now Open 10-5 Weekdays & 8-5 Sat. - Sun. 4 Expanded breakfast menu Michael Teufel, Val Landrum and Gabe C arleton-B am es’ bum star in Shopping and Fucking 3024 NE Alberta + 503-335-8233 Hours: Lunch - M-F 11-5 Supper - Tue-Sat 5-2 Sun & Mon 5-10 Breakfast - Sat & Sun 8-3 FOR A GREAT STEAK, LOOK FOR THE REVOLVING STEAK SIGN EXCEPT IN BEAVERTON, WHERE THE CITY W OULDN’T LET US |K HAVE ONE kind ,n8 all °ffumili es since 1946. \ Our revolving steak sign has become a landmark in Portland. »il A sign o f quality. Where you know you can get a great steak dinner at a fair price. Unfortunately, we couldn) get that same sign in Beaverton. But honestly, we 're not that hard to find old c o u m mm home o f the 72 oz. steak 105th & SE Stark • 503-252-4171 - Beaver ton-Hillsdale Hwy at Griffith Dr. - 503-644-1492 ark Ravenhill doesn’t care much for other roomie (and Robbie’s boyfriend), Mark, the term "gay” or even “queer." He heads off to rehab to get over a smack addic prefers “post-gay” (as in post-feminist). tion. Their tenuous scene slides further toward The phrase makes sense for the British collapse when a stoned Robbie decides to give author of an aptxialyptic play that could rea away $6,000 worth of Ecstasy, and he and Lulu sonably he seen as "post-theater." are forced to do a week long marathon of phone RavenhilFs bibliography is short—just a sex to raise the money to pay back the dealer. handful of plays. Pre-eminent among them is Meanwhile, Mark, a combination em otion Shopping and Fucking, which made its debut in al zombie and emotional wreck, seeks solace front of an audience of a few dozen in 1996. with a 14-year-old rent boy, Gary, whose busi The venue was a throwaway com er of the pres ness keeps him flush even as he hurtles toward tigious Royal Court in London. self-destruction. Word that the play featured everything O n paper this sounds like a grinding grim from graphic gay sex and nudity to rape, all iest, but the often heavy action is leavened with wrapped in a black-humor package, spread absurd humor that connects audiences with the quickly. Shopping moved to a more lordly characters, even in their most extreme (and venue, the Gielgud Theatre in the West End, occasionally gag-inducing) moments. where it enthralled and repelled audiences in Ravenhill is especially adept with over-the-top about equal measure for six months. bits of business. There’s a hilarious running gag of Ravenhill became a cause cclebre, and his Lulu making a huge issue of refusing to share her most provocative play pathetic Top Ramen with has been seen around the her r<x>mmates, but, typi world, funded by a reluc cal of these scattered tant British Gxjncil lives, she later becomes Tour. Now Portland violent trying to force audiences get to see what said soup on Robbie. all the hiss was about, This gag also res courtesy of an excellent- onates one of the play’s all-round version by tri themes—desperate angle productions! clinging to consumerism by desperate people. he world of Shopping Lulu finds comfort in is populated by a her soup and defends it few desperate in a phrase that might denizens, a quartet of have come from a com —Michael Teufel London slackers in vari mercial: "You have all ous degrees of dysfunction who steal, deal, the taste in the world here!” enter and exit rehab, eat microwaved junk Mark gets some of the play’s most black- food, engage in rape and murder, and seem to comic rqoments. “1 have no definition of myself,” love and hate each other in equal proportion. he says, and proves it when he comes back from Lulu, the play’s lone female, is an aspiring rehab and talks in mindless therapy clichés alxxjt actress in red vinyl Dr. Martens and miniskirt the necessity to separate emotional involvement whose auditions for an alleged TV producer to from sex. “Just lick and go” is his self-prescription sell collectible plates turn into an opportunity to the hoy-whore he wants to rim. to sell drugs. A t the end of a powerful sequence in which O ne of her roommates is Robbie, a speedy Gary reveals he’s been raped repeatedly by his bisexual boy who joins her in dealing after their m other’s boyfriend, who doesn’t use a condom, M T “I get quite a lot of laughs at moments that are excruciating for me, personally. I wonder if i t ’s the script or is it me squirming—or a marriage of the two?”
