december 3 , 2QQ4
THEATER
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Pageant
ageants abound during Christmastime, but
only Triangle Productions could drag out
this beauty— a musical comedy in which six
queens compete for one crown, and judges from
the audience pick a new winner each night.
Pageant spoofs classic beauty contests right
down to a cheesy host named Frankie (Rick
Lewis) who parades frocked-up fellas through
evening gown introductions, spokesmodel
pitches and even a swimsuit production num
ber in which they don’t just lip-synch, hut
actually sing. The “talent” showcase, however,
proves the most entertaining with a lineup of
vaudeville acts that range from a tap-dancing
cowgirl to Southern Belle ventriloquist.
It’s all in gcxxl fun to play dress-up, hut this
send-up of an American institution is too tame.
It makes one wonder if the country’s conserva
tive Republicans (or maybe just family-friendly
Disney executives) have infiltrated Stump-
town’s last stronghold of outlandishness. This is
Portland, after all; leave the Miss Congeniality
award for Peoria.
— Timothy Krause
P
In this Artists Repertory Theatre produc
tion, Scrooge’s “hah, humbug” gets derailed
when the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and
Future (now embodied by one big, beautiful
black woman) accidentally spirits them away to
the wrong place and time. Instead of the happy
Fezziwigs or Scrooge’s lonely grave, they repeat
edly catch off-guard a desperate Cratchit matri
arch sick of her ever-effusive hut always poor
husband, crippled gcxxly-two-shoes son and 20
other children who live in her root cellar.
Mrs. Cratchit sets out on a rollicking ben
der, searching for a little holiday cheer of her
own while planning a leap from London Bridge.
Here Durang’s revisionist tale of redemption
collides head-on with another holiday war-horse,
as newly winged Clarence unintentionally
convinces Mrs. Cratchit what It’s a Wonderful
Life it would have been had she never existed.
Only when Scrcxige and Mrs. Cratchit are
Touched by an Angel d(X.\s this delightfully
gauche, surprisingly jovial ride arrive at its
happy holiday.
While not achieving a perfect pitch, gay
director Jon Kretzu has his cast tilting with wild
abandon. Among them, Duffy Epstein steadies
the sweet spot between classic and comic
Scrooge even as Sarah Lucht’s drunken Mrs.
Cratchit tips the show forward. To their credit,
David Sikking’s Bob Cratchit is a saccharin
simp personified and Mark Schwahn is a Tiny
Tim poster boy, while all around the energy and
excitement is sheer Christmas morning.
God bless them, every one.
— TK
Keep Tightly Closed
in a Cool Dry Place
owelu Theater Ensemble’s current produc
tion is of two minds, so to speak, offering
an intriguing theater experience that takes
its audiences in strikingly different directions
by presenting the same one-act play twice in
the same evening— once with a cast of all
women and then again with a cast of all men.
The road map to these strangely similar yet
altogether different places is feminist playwright
Megan Terry’s Keep Tightly Closed in a C ool Dry
Place, a peculiar short play in which three men
share cell time for a bungled murder of one’s
wife, reviving the event and re-enacting related
historical atrocities.
S
Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s
Wild Christmas Binge
hat a holiday hoot!
Gay satirist Christopher Durang
(Beyond Therapy and The Marriage o f
Bette and Boo) has gifted a twisted farce that
cleverly skewers Charles Dickens’ A Christmas
C arol to present a gtxxl dose of laughter for
both those who love and revile the original
holiday chestnut.
W
e a tin g o u t
Val Landrum stars in Keep Tightly Closed
in a Cool Dry Place
e a tin g o u t
e a tin g o u t
e a tin g o u t
e a tin g o u t
e a tin g o u t
Gladys Cratchit flips her Fezziwig in the latest
from gay satirist Christopher Durang
Under Julie Akers’ intense staging, the all
female cast heavily engages military lockdown
to wrestle with gender issues, brandishing a
dark power in their tightly closed, testosterone-
driven performances. In the second half, direc
tor Barry Hunt puts up an equally imaginative
and much more buoyant male cast that charm
ingly finds asylum in a delicate dance of schizo
phrenia— sort of a cool, dry choreography of
mental mining.
Individually, these interpretations are a lit
tle thin. W hen played hack to hack, however,
the pair offers an explicit showcase of two
directors’ conceptual inventions. It’s a rare
opportunity to see so immediately such con
trasting variations on a theme. More impor
tantly, however, Sowelu’s dichotomy allows its
audience some elbowrixim in sorting through
the aftermath, some leniency in interpretation
of what it all could mean and space in which
to find truth.
— TK JH
e a tin g o u t
e a tin g o u t
______________________
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