July 22,2014
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Page 9
photo by
J enny G raham /O regon S hakespeare F estival
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival s premiere production o f ‘Famly Album, ’ a rock musical that tackles the struggles for authentic expression in art and relationships.
Pictured, from left, are Luqman Brown, Christian Gibbs, Vinnie Sperrazza, Lawrence Stallings, and Casey Scott.
Family Album
Rock musical brings
outsider voices to
art and relationships
by
D arleen O rtega
If you like your musicals upbeat and
buoyant, with a linear plot trajectory, the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival's world pre
miere production of "Family Album" may
be a stretch. It's messy, feels a little rough
in spots, and grapples with some big
themes in a very nonlinear way. But if you
can set aside your typical expectations
and simply go on the ride where this pro
duction takes you, it is a ride worth taking.
OSF commissioned this work from Stew
and Heidi Rodewald, whose prior musical,
"Passing Strange," garnered critical ac
claim. They are rock musicians with an ear
for popular culture and outsider voices,
and theater could use a lot more attention
to voices that don't enjoy dominant cul
ture privilege.
One thing I have learned to love about
people who feel themselves to be outsid
ers (having regular occasions to walk in
those shoes myself), they often don't feel
constrained to follow the unwritten rules
for whatever setting or genre they have
landed in. Perhaps those rules don't fit the
stories they want to tell — or perhaps they
don't know they are violating any rules. I
make a practice of listening to the stories
of people who feel themselves to be out
siders and sometimes it can be disorient
ing and challenging. What are they trying
to say? Is there a point here somewhere?
Often there is a period of confusion or
even irritation before I realize — surpris
ingly often — that this person has some
thing to teach me, and the circuitous jour
ney may well have been as important as
the destination.
I thought of such conversations while
experiencing "Family Album." It takes a
while to wind-up. The cast members are all
stretching beyond their comfort zones,
either because they are musicians with
little theater experience or actors with some
uneasiness about performing in this rock-
musical setting. No one is exactly in his or
her wheelhouse. The story isn't overly
complex — a band led by aging rockers is
about to play a major gig as the opening
act to a popular young group in Madison
Square Garden and stops in to crash at the
posh Brooklyn home o f two former
bandmates who have found more conven
tional financial success, which rekindles
old loves and old rivalries and big ques
tions about the trade-offs of different kinds
of success. But though the music is crisp
and the cast is talented, the plot meanders
and I occasionally wondered what edges
we were walking and why.
But the payoffs did come. I found my-
cfintinued
on page 16