Clackamas Print
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Artistntertainment 5
Idiots’ serve smart humor
Polendey, Heather Ovalle and
Peter Schweitzer. Also featured
are veteran actors Jake Dannen,
Daphne Starling, Matt Strong
and Seth Wruble^fi. The cast is
well suited to act’on a slapstick
comedy because while they are
very over-the-top characters,
they are still believable and
most importantly, likeable.
During the performance, the
audience could do very little to
hold back their laughs. “Flaming
Idiots” is a very funny play
where everyone will find some
thing to enjoy. This is the kind
of play that even non-theater
and theater people alike can go
to and walk away satisfied.
The play is directed by art
ist-in-residence John Renner
¡le Steele
¡Clackamas Print
jst week the Osterman
itre in Niemeyer hosted
“Flaming Idiots,” writ-
by Tom Rooney and star-
Robert Alsman and Matt
lison.
lsman and Morrison are
fill entrepreneurs who quit
jobs at the post office
purchase a restaurant with-
any business knowledge
pt high hopes and dreams,
¡ther, they form an eccen-
ctew to work at the restau-
he play features CCC
t performances by Mark
Con tn bu ted photo
Mark Polendey, Robert Alsman and Matt Morrison star in “Flaming
Idiots,” a play about two entrepreneurs who aren’t business savvy.
and runs for two hours with a
15 minute intermission after the
first of the two acts. The play
runs June 1 - 3 at 7 p.m. and
the final performance is June 4
at 2:30 p.m. The cost is $10 for
general admission and $8 for
students and senior citizens.
inng one act plays bring big laughs, absurdity
¡jo Stalnaker
I Editor
adience members will find
selves laughing and scratch-
heir heads after witnessing
Free one act plays being per-
¡d this week.
ie first performance is “In
lain Air.” Written by play-
it Ian Frazier and directed
arah Griswold, this comedy
famous impressionist artists
¡-Auguste Renoir, Claude
t and Edouard Manet in a
of wits as they paint each
other, Madame Monet and a roost
er in a garden. The play is inspired
by Manet’s famous work “Monet
Family in Their Garden.”
Mike Ryan, playing the self
centered Monet, works very well
and he is especially effective dur
ing his closing monologue. The
chemistry between Matt Morrison
(Renoir) and Nick Komafel
(Manet) is brilliant as they throw
insults back and forth to each
other.
Next up is “Fight Dreams”
by playwright Alison Weiss and
directed by Deidra MacKimmie.
The play is both a comedy and
social commentary on female
sexuality.
Daphne Starling stars as Dinah,
a sexually frustrated woman that
can only fantasize about having
a dysfunctional relationship with
her imaginary boyfriend Bradley
(Robert Alsman). Starling and
Alsman are great together as
they provide the audience with
big laughs. I must say, however,
that Alsman really steals the show
with his performance.
The final one act is playwright
John Glore’s “The Morpheus
Quartet.” The play, directed by
Mark Polendey, is a 10 minute
dialogue between a First Violin
(Deidra MacKimmie), a Second
Violin (Robert Alsman), a Cello
(Jake Dannen) and a Viola (Kelly
Renee Miller).
“The Morpheus Quartet” seems
to be more like a piece of confus
ing performance art then a one act
play, yet it’s still enjoyable. The
dialogue is very well paced and is
humorous at times. I recommend
paying close attention to this play
to be able to catch everything
that’s being said.
The one act plays can be
seen in the Niemeyer Center’s
Osterman Theatre today at
noon, this evening at 7 p.m. and
Thursday at noon and are admis
sion free.
‘Minds': must-read novel
Lara Hedbar
The Clackamas Print
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This is not an optimistic, heart
wanning comedy about a girl who
has imaginary friends. And there are
no happy endings, nor is there a pleas
ant resolution.
Devastatingly honest, ‘Divided
Minds,” by Pamela Spiro Wagner
and Carolyn S. Spiro, MD, is the true
life account of the ravages of schizo
phrenia, but with a twist it is written
from fee perspective of twins.
Pamela Spiro Wagner is the
“smart” twin, the “talented” twin, the
twin who was going to make the
most impact on fee world. Carolyn,
or Lynnie, is merely fee disappointing
afterthought They struggle through
out their childhood, each vying to
break out in her own fashion, but it
is only while they are both attending
Brown University that their differ
ences become blindingly obvious.
Pamela, or Pammy, suffers from
paranoid schizophrenia, and has heard
voices throughout her early teens.
These voices lead her to believe that
she is actually fee root of all evil,
proved by her belief that she was
fee one who killed John F. Kennedy
- despite fee fact that she was a sixth
grader in art class at fee time of fee
shooting.
Her disease, however, is hidden
by her overwhelming shyness, and
no one realizes until much later that
Pammy has been experiencing severe
auditory hallucinations for much of
her life.
Things only spiral downward
from there. In and out of mental hos
pitals and halfway homes, Pammy
struggles just to survive from day to
day, hearing hidden messages in fee
radio ads and suffering from fee dead
ening effects of her medication.
Carolyn, however, suffers from
her own set of challenges and has
hardly enough time for her difficul-
Divided Minds
Twin Sister« and Their
Jour ney Through
Schizophrenia
Internet Photo
ties, let alone Pammy’s inopportune
psychotic episodes. She balances her
work as a psychiatrist, her marriage to
a man she doesn’t love, and her house
and two children, alongside frequent
hysterical phone calls from Pammy
wife her looming threats of suicide,
and occasional drives to bring Pammy
to fee next mental hospital
Written in an engaging and fas
cinating manner, it is difficult not to
lose oneself in fee captivating side
by side accounts of fee events that
composed the sisters’ lives. Pamela,
despite her illness, is an award win
ning poet and author who speaks for
fee rights of fee mentally ill in terms
of humane treatment and insurance
coverage. Pamela’s literary voice is
ruthlessly revealing of herself, and
Carolyn, while not a writer by profes
sion, speaks wife compassion and
honesty that tempers Pamela’s occa
sionally disturbing recollections of
feeir lives.
‘Divided Minds” is a book well
worth reading, and provides insight
into fee minds of fee chronically
schizophrenic in a way that no one
who has not suffered fee disease could
do. Surprisingly coherent, fee book is
difficult to put down. For anyone who
is or was close to someone who has a
mental disorder, Divided Minds” is
a must-read.
‘Made'
series
puts hit
out on
HBO
“The Sopranos”
looks to end season
on violent note
N.P. Delzell
The Clackamas Print
Wife one episode left in an
already up-and-down in-and-
out “Sopranos” half season,
who knows who’s next to get
whacked, jacked or thrown
out of fee family.
Wife mad rumors floating
around, this has been slated
to be fee last season of fee
“Sopranos,” so every episode
counts ... or at least that’s
what the television people say
anyway. I believe they will
come back for at least two
more seasons of G’d-up mob
stories to appease fee view
ers.
A lot has gone down in fee
world of mob syndicate boss
Tony Soprano’s life while my
“Sopranos” column was on
hiatus. Regular characters are
either being set up for slayings
or being shipped out to make
room for guest appearances,
as well as sub-plots that fell
out of fee “Soprano’s” style
feat most are accustomed to.
During episodes 74-76
a lot happens, so get up on
feangs and make fee most
of your cable system. ‘The
Sopranos” is on HBO Sunday
night at 9 p.m. eastern, 6 p.m.
western standard time.
Meadow Soprano, Tony’s
daughter who has been a
regular character for most of
fee last four seasons, has now
flown off to California. The
homosexual Capo was bru
tally murdered for leaving fee
family, Bobby Bacala (Steven
R. Schirripa) was jacked for
$3,000 while picking up fee
vig for a certain loan sharking
operation. During fee robbery
Bobby barely missed a bullet
and ended up wife cement
fragments in his eye, sidelin
ing him as a show regular for
awhile.
During episode 74, “The
Ride,” things get back to nor
mal as Tony and Christopher
Moltisanti (Michael frnperioli)
rob a group of bikers for a few
hundred bottles of fine wine.
The robbery ends wife fee men
in an old-school “Sopranos”
street shootout, wife Tony
and Christopher mocking fee
injured bikers as they roll off
wife feeir unplanned score.
These are fee moments when
I get up, take a swing in fee air
and do a little Soprano shake.
Wife all this in mind, most
people who have followed
fee show for fee last eight
years are now left wondering
what will happen next. The
cliffhangers that David Chase,
writer/producer, is setting up
are stellar but annoying at fee
same time.
This week is fee last
in fee half season, so who
knows what type of G-isms
to expect?