Just out., August 15, 2003, Page 47, Image 47

august 15. 2003 •
M C .47
Hedwig star
sa^ys his peace in
new rock opera
by
T imothy K rause
A
T h e m an y b eco m e th e O n e th ro u g h A u g . 2 3 at S y lv an ia P erfo rm an c e A r ts C e n te r
W
ade McCollum is either one trippin’
hippie or some sort of modem prophet.
And his new original musical, One, is
either a groovin’ 1960s throwback or
zen theater tiptoeing toward nirvana.
Either way, this charismatic queer and his far-
out musical enlightened the audience to the
point of standing ovation when Insight Out The­
atre Collective opened its three-week run Aug. 8
at the Performing Arts Center on the Sylvania
Campus of Portland Community College.
While starring in the triangle productions!
Drammy Award winner Hedwig and the Angry Inch,
McCollum teamed up with Eric Nordin to realize
a modem rock-opera retelling of Herman Hesse’s
Buddhistic Siddhartha. Think Hair and G odspell
meet Alice in Wonderland with a dose of The Ceies-
tine Prophecy thrown in for synchronicity.
That said, put all preconceptions aside and go.
Because although One sounds a little (OK,
a lot) like an earthy-crunchy, drug-induced,
woo-woo, love-and-peace, screw-the-man-and-
light-a-candle vigil, it’s exactly this anachronis­
tic sensibility that makes the production a hell
of a lot of fun. And not in the way you might
expect.
One is trippy without being weighed down
by the facade of nostalgia. One is spiritual with­
out New Age hucksterism. And, over the
course o f the evening, an intimate and honest
(even naive) idealism takes center stage as One
offers peace in testament rather than rebellion.
Both as director and as protagonist Sid
Arthur, McCollum leads an able and energetic
company— including a five-piece band— on a
personal pilgrimage. With gender-bending best
bud, he leaves his two lesbian moms and a
future of everyday dreary in search of a way to
make peace in the world. Bur love and happi­
ness remain evasive until Arthur learns the
revolution for peace begins within oneself, sim­
ply by being at peace.
“Finding peace seems to be at the forefront
of many minds these days, and many are capi­
talizing on that fact,” remarks McCollum in an
e-mail from Ashland, where he is involved in
yet another staging of Hedwig. “More and
more, l will open a magazine and see the face
of someone meditating or someone ‘enlight­
ened’ and beautiful— and it’s an ad for a car or
an energy bar or a yoga mat. My yoga mat pro­
vides temporary inspiration to practice yoga....
The yoga mat gets stashed in the comer as my
life becomes permeated with hreath, alignment
and presence. These things can provide inspi­
ration to live more fully, but, ultimately, no
yoga mat will bring me closer to truth.”
Which is the lesson his character learns as
well. Whether through money, power, sex or
drugs, Western culture encourages many like
Arthur to look outside themselves for peace, love
and even God— so much that looking within
becomes a challenge. But, says McCollum,
“when we do, we see there really is no search. It
is all right here, right now. The challenge for me
is to maintain that knowingness amidst a traffic
jam when I have to pee really badly or I am late
for something very important.”
Like the original Siddhartha, McCollum’s
modern-day parable flows as a dreamy river,
undulating between the illusion of reality and
the reality of illusion.
“Sid finds stillness among the maelstrom of
modem society,” explains McCollum, who
began writing the musical when he was 13. “Sid
goes through the world of senses and desire—
learning from the world of flesh and suffering
and eventually ceasing the search for truth and
discovering what has been inside all along.”
Conceptually, the play may suffer from its
abstract philosophy, but, fortunately, the expe­
rience isn’t alienating. “Oneness is a very slip­
pery sybject to write about because of the
nature of words,” admits McCollum. “It is hard
to contain such ideas in language.... Through­
out One, we explore separation, duality, class,
corporate rule, love, loss, consumer culture and
the capitalization of spirituality.. .the idea that
we can buy t<xrls for enlightenment.”
The plot of One drags in a few minor spots,
hut the book is smart without being too clever.
And while a few performers reach a little
beyond their means, both score and ensemble
are appealing and fulfilling without being cute
or cloying. In fact, the most notable disap­
pointment was the lack of an encore to send
the audience out humming.
The message, however, could be heard loud
and clear: We are the message, we are the story
and, as McCollum puts it, “One drop in the
(Kean changes the whole.” J H
O ne plays 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday through
Aug. 23 at Portland Community College’s Sylvania
Performance Arts Center, 12000 S.W. 49th Ave.
Tickets are $ 10~$ 15 sliding scale from 503-234-0973
HALF-PRICED LOCKER & TWO HOUR LIMIT,
Any day 11am - Bpm.
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