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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2017)
DEXTER LAKE CLUB Acoustic night w/Brian Chevalier—6pm; acoustic jam, open mic, n/c THE EMBERS DJ Victor—8pm; Current hits, standards, requests, n/c HI-FI LOUNGE Reggae Night ft. El Dub w/DJ Xacto—9pm; reg- gae jam, n/c LEVEL UP Karaoke w/Kade— 9pm; n/c LUCKEY'S Amusedays w/Chaz Logan Hyde—10pm; comedy, open mic, n/c MAC'S Roosters Blues Jam w/ Skip Jones & Byron Case— 7pm; blues jam, n/c MULLIGAN'S PUB Steve Ibach—8pm; acoustic, n/c O BAR Karaoke w/Jared—9pm; n/c OLD NICK'S Open Mic—9pm; n/c SAM BOND'S FOUNDRY Amy Obenski—6pm; n/c SAM BOND'S GARAGE Bluegrass Jam—9pm; n/c WHITE HORSE SALOON Karaoke w/Slick Nick—9pm; n/c WEDNESDAY 6/21 5TH ST CORNUCOPIA Karaoke w/Slick Nick—9pm; n/c BLACK FOREST Karaoke w/KJ Powers—9pm; n/c BREW & CUE Crystal Harmony Karaoke—9pm; n/c THE COOLER Karaoke w/Caught in the Act—9pm; n/c COWFISH DJ Smuve—9pm; hip- hop, n/c HAPPY HOURS Mama Jan’s Blues Jam w/Brian Chevalier— 8pm; n/c HI-FI LOUNGE Funk Night— 10pm; funk jam, n/c ISLAND HUT Karaoke w/Jared— 5pm; n/c T H E AT E R JERSEY'S Karaoke w/Sassy Patty—8pm; n/c LUCKEY'S Wednesday Night Groove Sessions w/The Sunday Bump—10pm; funk, jazz, open jam, $3 MAC'S Gus Russell & Paul Biondi—6pm; jazz, variety, n/c MOHAWK TAVERN Karaoke w/ Caught in the Act—9pm; n/c MULLIGAN'S Open Mic— 8:30pm; variety, n/c OLD NICK'S Faith Eliott—8pm; indie folk, n/c. Abrams, An Empty Room, Ü—9pm; hard rock, doom, math rock, $5 SIDELINES SPORTS BAR Karaoke w/Mike—9pm; n/c VANILLA JILL'S Open mic— 8pm; poetry, music, n/c WAYWARD LAMB Lipsync Battle—9:30pm; n/c WEST END TAVERN BTM Karaoke—9pm; n/c WHIRLED PIES DOWNTOWN Amy Obenski—6pm; n/c CORVALLIS & THE REGION THE DAM — Corvallis TH Mr. Elevator, Wooden Indian Burial Ground, OLD AGE, Drag Rag—8pm; rock, $7 THE STILL — Albany SA Rock 'n Rewind—8:30pm; n/c BRITT PAVILION — Jacksonville SA TajMo: The Taj Mahal & Keb' Mo' Band—7:30pm; $29-$224 SU Dustin Lynch—7:30pm; $29-$53 TU Jurassic 5—7:30pm; $25- $48 THE SUTTLE LODGE — Sisters WE Heater Allen—5pm; $5-$15 SEX-POSITIVE SOCK HOP Eugene musician Katelynn Erb wants you to attend the event she’s helped plan, produce and promote. The event is The Joy of Sex: A Celebration of Positive Sexuality & Art, a mix of live music, dance and performance art happening at Hi-Fi Music Hall in downtown Eugene. Erb wants you to come to the event, but she just can’t tell you much about it. “We’re trying to keep what’s going on in the main hall sort of a mystery,” Erb teases. “I’m trying to figure out what to say without saying much.” What she can tell us is the event is a fundraiser for MASV (Musicians Against Sexual Violence). MASV helps build awareness of sexual violence and safety among bar and venue staff as well as music audiences in Lane County and beyond. Erb says funds raised will go toward providing extra signage at local bars and venues. Signage, Erb says, explaining “if you feel uncomfortable please let the bar staff know.” As well as test strips, Erb adds, “so if people feel like they’re suspicious about their drinks, they can use a test strip.” Hi-Fi will be decorated in a ’50s sock-hop theme, Erb says, with live music from Eugene bands like Holler House and LeRev and many more, as well as dance performances from Pop Up Dance Boutique and an appearance from The Farce Family, Eugene’s premier queer performance collective. So what exactly will be happening in Hi-Fi’s Music Hall? After all, not much is sexier than a little mystery. “We want to have an element of surprise,” Erb admits, adding: “I can give you one word to describe it: scandalous.” The Joy of Sex: A Celebration of Positive Sexuality & Art is 9 pm Saturday, June 17, at Hi-Fi Music Hall; $10, 21-plus. — Will Kennedy BY RICK LEVIN KORY WEIMER AND JENNIFER APPLEBY A CLEAR CASE OF BUNBURYISM Cottage Theatre plays it straight with Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest P erhaps it’s just fate, a roll of the dice, but in all the several years I’ve been reviewing the work of community theaters, I’ve seen two plays pop up over and over and over again, perennial blooms in the revolving seasons of repertory stagecraft. One of them is Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, which I really wouldn’t mind never seeing again. The other is Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, appro- priately referred to by its author as “a trivial comedy for serious people.” Ibsen is a great playwright, I suppose, though over time his tendentious, preachy qualities have come to gall me; I find him humorless to a fault. Wilde is Ibsen’s polar opposite: witty, waggish and hi- lariously passive-aggressive, a satirist who raises frivolity to a divine art. The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde’s 26 THE FARCE FAMILY June 15, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com crowning achievement, is a feast of clever repartee and glittering one-upmanship, all of it bandied about among well-heeled people behaving badly — sort of Seinfeld for the Victorian drawing room. Cottage Theatre’s current production of the play, direct- ed by Alan Beck, is a straightforward rendering of Wilde’s farce about two friends, John and Algernon, and the double lives they lead (being, after all, “Bunburyists”) as they woo, respectively, a pair of women, Gwendolen and Cecily. The playful, rapid-fire style of Wilde’s language would present difficulties for anyone, but the cast here does an ad- mirable job. As Algernon, Josh Carlton shows a knack for portraying the sniffy arrogance of upper-class snobbery, though at times there were more manners than comedy in his delivery. Kory Weimer, as always, is strong, giving a sort of metrosexual flair to the earnest endeavors of John. Jennifer Appleby, as the prim, proper and manipulative Gwendolyn, is good, as is Elizabeth Peterson in the role of her mother, the overbearing Lady Bracknell. As Cec- ily, Nicole Trobaugh, all sidelong glances and exaggerated erotic naiveté, is fantastic; more than anyone on stage, she seems to submerge herself in the charming insouciance that is Wilde’s forte. Rounding out the capable cast are Steve Mandell as the Reverend Chasuble, James Scoggins in the roles of Lane and Merriman, and Karen Snyder, who gives a good turn as Cecily’s governess, Miss Prism. The sets, designed by Beck, are lavish but not too lav- ish, and the late-Victorian costumes, designed by Ronda Turnquist, are just lovely. In all, the production is consis- tent and fairly orthodox, two words that, ironically, rarely come to mind when considering the life and work of Oscar Wilde, who once said that “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” Certainly, I don’t mean that in any vulgar or argumenta- tive sense. I enjoyed the play, which, granted, I’ve seen more times than I can count. If I have any criticism, it’s that the production takes itself a bit too seriously, creating at times a level of formality that felt a bit stiff. Among the cast, Tro- baugh seemed most at ease with the rambunctious nature of Wilde’s high-minded satire, and her energy and confidence might prove infectious as the play’s run continues. This is a minor criticism, to be sure. Overall, Cottage Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest offers a lovely reprieve from the weightier civic dread that seems to have laid hold of us during these dead-serious days. In this sense, the play is indeed timely. It makes fun of our pretentiousness, our politics and our proclivities with equal vigor, making us all look rather ridiculous. As Wilde said, “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.” Or, you know, throw you in Reading Gaol. The Importance of Being Earnest plays through June 25 at Cottage Theatre in Cottage Grove; $15-$25, tickets at cottagetheatre.org or 541-942-8001.
