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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2011)
WINTER BRAVO! 2011 Ask for the “Amadeus” discount and save $10 on select seats! VLT’S AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE Witchy Appeal and Local Substance Theater of the winter and spring BY SUZI STEFFEN S Mozart Grand Mass in C Minor Presented by The Eugene Concert Choir This magnificent great mass is second to none in soaring and exquisite melody. Composed in honor of his wife Constanze, this grand mass is the most ambitious and elaborate of Mozart’s choral works. Majestic, sublime and theatrical. Eugene Concert Choir Eugene Symphony Stellar Quartet of Soloists: Elizabeth Racheva, soprano Margaret Lattimore, mezzo-soprano Jonathan Blalock, tenor Neil Wilson, bass-baritone Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 8:00 p.m. Silva Concert Hall, Hult Center Diane Retallack Artistic Director & Conductor Tickets $15-$36. Call Hult Center 541-682-5000 or order online at www.eugeneconcertchoir.org CONDUCTOR SPONSOR 14 JANUARY 13, 2011 EUGENE WEEKLY GUEST ARTIST SPONSOR SEASON SPONSOR omething Wicked (and replete with merchandising opportunities) this way comes in April, but what about local entertainment? As I said in the big BRAVO story, I don’t have any desire to tell you about the shiniest things on the horizon — and Wicked, which runs at the Hult for 16 performances between April 20 & May 1, casts such bright green rays that one could be blinded to anything else. Luckily, Eugeneans like to buy local. First up should be the Lord Leebrick’s gentle, poignant, funny Circle Mirror Transformation (review this issue). In his curtain speech for opening night, Leebrick artistic director Craig Willis urged the audience to attend the Very Little Theatre’s An Enemy of the People, opening Jan. 14, the second updated Ibsen play (this one set in the ’70s, as the male actors’ sideburns reveal) to hit Eugene stages within a few months. Just a week after that, the UO opens Tom Stoppard’s historically and linguistically rich Rock ’n’ Roll, an ambitious undertaking directed by Joseph Gilg. Ben Brantley called the play “triumphantly sentimental” in The New York Times a few years ago, and its mix of 20th century history, personal relationships and the erotic force of expressive art should be just about perfect for a university performance. Not to go all UO here, but its next play, bobrauschenbergamerica, should also prove richly textured, full of play and seriousness and modern/post-modern fl irtations with images, words and more. I’m trying to tamp down my expectations, but the combo of artist Robert Rauschenberg (and love, and the entire U.S.A.) as the subject with playwright Charles Mee, directed by über-creative force of nature John Schmor, sounds like a possibility for explosively good theater. On a much more serious note, the Leebrick’s staging My Name Is Rachel Corrie starting Feb. 18. The play, pieced together from Evergreen College student Corrie’s journals after she was killed while trying to stop Israeli bulldozers from destroying Palestinian houses, usually runs to protest and much anguished discussion in the community. Though it’s been almost eight years since Corrie died, it’s not as if the issues are gone — nor has anything been changed about the ways young passionate activists come of age as they learn more and more about the causes they embrace. Corrie’s passion branded her as crazy according to some equally passionate defenders of the Israeli government. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey memorably asked about the structures of power that designated certain people as insane — and LCC’s tackling the famous play in mid-January. Though I haven’t been to many, and certainly none since newspapers everywhere began cutting back arts (and news) coverage during the Great Recession, plays in Corvallis at OSU or Corvallis Community Theatre always seemed enjoyably worth the trip. Glengarry Glen Ross’ script exerts such a magnetic pull that I might head to OSU for one of the short-run performances in early February. Cottage Grove’s not nearly so far, and April’s production of Sweeney Todd should bring Sondheim fans from far and near to the well-appointed Cottage Theatre. So, yes, go crazy for Elphaba and the tale of emotional intensity, magic, competition, betrayal and love at the Hult in April (and go crazy for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s opening weekend in February), but don’t let the shiniest thing to hit Eugene in years distract you from the many solid, decent, occasionally magical local productions on tap. ew WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
