Eugene weekly., January 13, 2011, Page 13, Image 13

WINTER BRAVO! 2011
E U G E N E W E E K LY ’ S G U I D E T O T H E P E R F O R M I N G A R T S
ALISA WEILERSTEIN
Hit Play
Everything’s happening. What do you choose? BY SUZI STEFFEN
F
ormer Oregonian arts
editor Barry Johnson
says that performing
arts previews do the
arts a disservice. Why?
Because they (that is, we) “provide one-
stop culture shopping” (read his essay
for Oregon Humanities magazine here:
http://wkly.ws/10h) and, in addition, it’s
impossible for critics/reviewers/reporters
to predict “when and where magic is going
to show up in the next three months or so.”
Exactly. I’ve been to plays that I thought,
based on experience with the actors, director
and script, would be superb — but didn’t
gel with that particular combination. I’ve
been surprised by the Eugene Symphony’s
performances of small pieces I didn’t know
well and underwhelmed by visiting soloists,
no matter how famous (though I did enjoy
Alisa Weilerstein, who’s performing
Dvorák’s Cello Concerto Jan. 20, last time
she was here).
Last year the experience of watching
rehearsal after rehearsal of Upstart Crow’s
Annie, a show that causes most experienced
theater folk to roll their eyes, forced me to
rethink the origins of that particular musical
and its confl icting political messages —
how the comic strip was virulently anti-
government but the musical celebrated
FDR and all of his safety net policies.
Art’s about the performance, but art’s also
about how the performance connects to
everything else we know and feel.
Sometimes. Sometimes the moments of
emotion that swell during concerts, plays,
dance performances, operas, arise only
at that specifi c time and place. Johnson
argues in his essay that arts previews pick
and choose from the arts listings as if the
arts were a glittery row of mall stores; the
shiniest get the most attention (I’m going
to call Cirque de la Symphonie the shiniest
in terms of cool pictures, and I do expect
that to be a display of kinetic joy and
enjoyable music).
I don’t think Eugene audiences should
or ever could be passive consumers, in
general, despite our absolute enthusiasm
for just about anything, our willingness
to stand at the conclusion of any concert
or opera and applaud like mad. We’re
generous to musical performers in that
February 5
Hult Center
way, with whoops and fl owers and a lot
of applause. The only problem with that is
that we don’t differentiate, at least in our
approval just at the end of shows, between
the acceptable and the great.
Still, Eugene’s full of passionate,
knowledgeable fans of many different arts,
and we’re entirely spoiled for our size of
town with everything from the symphony
to chamber music groups to a ton of
American songbook and jazz concerts to
ballets both familiar and sparklingly new.
Then we also have Portland to our
north (with the extremely cool Oregon
playwrights Fertile Ground Festival, not
in our listings, running Jan. 20-30; more
details at http://wkly.ws/10i — I saw some
truly wonderful, and some truly bizarre,
and some beautifully experimental, works
last year) and Ashland to our south, which
EW does tend to write about since we’re
the closest sizeable city to the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival. From Portland,
we get groups like Portland Baroque
Orchestra, here for the so-far always
excellent Chamber Music@Beall series on
the UO campus.
EXPERIENCE THE ORIGINAL!
I do worry about the Hult Center, one of
the reasons Eugene’s so spoiled for what are
often called the fi ne arts. How is the Hult,
both an amazing space to have in a city this
size and an albatross of expense for a city
this size, going to survive this recession?
Various of the resident companies seem
to be doing well. The Symphony’s in the
black, thanks to its good management and
a carefully cultivated support network; the
Oregon Bach Festival had one of its best
years ever last year; the Mozart Players
just keep on selling out their performances.
Still, the Hult needs to book a lot more acts.
Luckily, this year, we’ve got Wicked to
fi ll, and overfi ll, the Silva, and a few other
Broadway in Eugene events as well — I’m
looking forward to Spring Awakening in
particular.
Meanwhile, though I also worry about
the wonderful Wildish Theater, Chamber
Music Amici also keeps selling out (this
is such a classical music town, y’all!), and
I’ve been charmed by almost everything
Fred Crafts’ Radio Redux performers have
put on in that solidly enjoyable space.
In the ballet world, the Eugene Ballet
continues to work its (their?) collective
ass off, bringing new choreography to the
Silva stage. I enjoy the times when I get
to watch them rehearse and interview the
dancers or artistic director Toni Pimble.
The dancers, like many artists, work a
bunch of jobs, and it’s a miracle that they
can keep doing what they’re doing with
love, devotion, passion and energy.
Meanwhile, the “chamber ballet”
group Ballet Fantastique keeps plugging
away, its pretty new rehearsal space in
the old Tiffany’s store a testament to the
elbow grease of its executive director and
her army of volunteers, its aspirations
different from those of the Eugene Ballet
but complementary (yes! Audiences can
attend and support both).
But anyway, that’s just me. When I look
at the performing arts calendar, a frisson of
joy runs up my spine. So much to do, to
see, to hear. What do you choose?
ew
Feel free to email or Tweet or Facebook your choices
to us: suzi at eugeneweekly dot com; http://twitter.com/
eugeneweekly (or @eugeneweekly); http://www.facebook.
com/eugeneweekly
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EUGENE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2011 13