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
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