Eugene weekly., April 13, 2017, Page 33, Image 33

T H E AT E R
JANE VANBOSKIRK AS
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT:
ACROSS A BARRIER OF FEAR
Jane VanBoskirk returns to Eugene to play the first lady in a benefit for Planned
Parenthood one night only at the Wildish
“E
leanor Roosevelt is someone who has really in-
filtrated my life,” Jane VanBoskirk says. “It’s
helping me deal with Trump, hearing what she
went through and all the troubles she had.”
On Thursday, April 20, the Portland actor,
who has made a career of one-woman shows about strong
women, comes back to town for a single performance of
Eleanor Roosevelt: Across a Barrier of Fear at Spring-
field’s Wildish Theater.
All proceeds from the one-woman production, which is
sponsored by Eugene Weekly, go to Planned Parenthood of
Southwestern Oregon.
VanBoskirk, 69, jokes that her resume is a “suitcase
of dead women,” having done shows on such figures as
Oregon suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway, labor organizer
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Catholic missionary Mother
Cabrini, pioneering woman physician Bethenia Owens-
Adair and Florence Reece, the miner’s wife who penned
“Which Side Are You On?”
Eleanor Roosevelt was perhaps the strongest-minded of
any of the women on VanBoskirk’s list. The wife of Presi-
dent Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she was an outspoken first
lady who advocated for human rights and racial equality.
After Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945, she was named a
delegate to the United Nations, where she had a key role in
drafting the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
VanBoskirk has long been a fan of the Roosevelts.
“When I was a child, my parents were Roosevelt freaks,”
she says. “We listened to her on the radio. So I have the
dialect down.”
The physical presence is more challenging. Eleanor
Roosevelt was a bit stiff in real life. “I am a looser person
than Eleanor was, physically,” the actor says. “You know,
her mannerisms — she spoke with her hands, and then kept
them clasped at times. And she had so much dignity and
integrity!”
VanBoskirk has studied films of Roosevelt speaking to
be able to portray her presence accurately on stage.
While researching Eleanor Roosevelt for the show, Van-
Boskirk also paid attention to contemporary strong women
here in Oregon, from former Portland police chief Penny
Harrington to former Gov. Barbara Roberts.
One thing the play doesn’t touch on is Roosevelt’s sex-
uality. She and her husband were romantically estranged
early in their marriage because of his affair with Lucy Mer-
cer, Eleanor’s social secretary, but remained friends and
political allies throughout their lives.
For her part, Eleanor had intense personal relationships
with a number of women — including aviator Amelia Ear-
hart and Lorena Hickok, a reporter who covered her for the
Associated Press — but kept that part of her life out of the
public eye.
“I don’t bring up the lesbian aspects at all,” VanBoskirk
says. “You want to keep private things private.”
The play, which runs for just an hour, was written by
Portland playwright Sharon Whitney. She is also the author
of a 1986 biography of Eleanor Roosevelt for young adults
as well as an ensemble play about the young Eleanor.
Though she’s spent her life as an actor, VanBoskirk is
no stranger to politics. Before moving to Portland in the
early 1990s, she lived in Eugene with her husband, Tim
Sercombe, then city attorney for Eugene and, since 2007, a
judge of the Oregon Court of Appeals. They remain active
in civic affairs.
While living here, VanBoskirk was a co-founder of
Oregon Repertory Theatre. She also has performed with
IT’S CURTAINS FOR YOU
Northwest Children’s Theatre, New Rose Theatre, Artists
Repertory Theatre in Portland and the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival in Ashland.
VanBoskirk has performed Eleanor Roosevelt about a
dozen times around the country in the past year after taking
a five-year hiatus from acting.
So how, we asked, would the former first lady have
dealt with someone like Donald Trump?
“She would be appalled, just appalled,” VanBoskirk
says. “There was so much dignity for her in the office of
the president.”
And what would Roosevelt suggest we do?
“Eleanor would say, ‘Get active in small places. Start in
your own community. If you want to make a difference, you
have to make a difference where you live.’” — Bob Keefer
Eleanor Roosevelt: Across a Barrier of Fear begins at 7:30 pm Thursday,
April 20, at the Wildish Theater in Springfield. Tickets are $20 at
WildishTheater.com, with all proceeds going to Planned Parenthood of
Southwestern Oregon.
CURTAINS AT COTTAGE THEATRE
Cottage Theatre scores a big hit with Kander and Ebb’s musical murder mystery
here’s always something a bit queasy about the
prospect of a community theater taking on a big
and bouncy Broadway musical: Despite the best
intentions, the inherent limitations of local theater,
compounded by the complex requirements of such
shows, often lead to a production that is uneven at best,
disastrous at worst. Fiasco is forever waiting around the
corner.
This, delightfully, is not the case with Cottage Theatre’s
current production of Curtains, a John Kander and Fred
Ebb musical with book by Rupert Holmes (yes, the “Piña
Colada Song” guy). Featuring strong leads, a lavish set and
song-and-dance numbers that exceed all expectations —
not to mention a live orchestra — this is one of the most
solid, and solidly fun, shows of the year.
Written by the same team that created Chicago and
Cabaret, Curtains is Kander and Ebb’s love letter to musi-
cal theater itself, a show that exuberantly celebrates (and
sometimes thumbs its nose at) the hard-earned flamboy-
ance of a fantasized lyrical life. Using the classic “show
within a show” trope, this musical farce centers on a se-
ries of stage-bound murders that threaten to halt an already
doomed production of a ridiculous musical based on the
Robin Hood tale.
T
Director and choreographer Janet Rust takes hold of
this wild and somewhat ridiculous whodunit, with its huge
cast and elaborate numbers, and shapes it into something
pretty remarkable. It all works. From the chorus-line rou-
tines to the slapstick comedy to the difficult musical transi-
tions, everything flows smoothly in a show that is at once
endearing, diverting and tartly funny.
Merely holding the reins on such an abundant produc-
tion would be impressive enough, but Rust and her produc-
tion crew have assembled an exceptional cast here, espe-
cially in Curtain’ key roles. As Lieutenant Frank Cioffi,
the theater-loving detective tasked with solving the string
of murders, Joel Ibanez is appropriately charming and
abashed; Ibanez brings old-fashioned noir smarts to the
role, sly but slightly bemused — a starstruck Philip Mar-
lowe enthralled by the enticing understudy (and murder
suspect) Niki Harris, well-played by Sophie Blades.
Unfortunately, all of the strong performances are too
numerous to mention here among such a large and talented
cast, though a handful really stand out: Larry Brown as
the snobby, put-upon British director Christopher Belling;
Kim Fairbairn as the tough-love co-producer Carmen Ber-
nstein; Tracy Nygard and Mark VanBeever as the divorced
songwriting team of Georgia Hendricks and Aaron Fox.
VanBeever, who seems to make magic wherever he
goes, also deserves a nod as the production’s vocal director.
Curtains is full of great songs (standouts are “The Wom-
an’s Dead,” “He Did It” and “It’s a Business”), and each
is performed with uncommon zeal and precision. And, as
mentioned, Rust’s choreography is fluid and engaging, a
spectacle to match the show’s sonic prowess.
Any way you cut it, Cottage Theatre’s production of
Curtains is a success — an eye-popping bit of controlled
chaos that delivers on every difficult front. As the second-
act song says, this one’s going to be a tough act to follow.
— Rick Levin
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