PERFORMANCE
R U SS E L L J. YO U N G
REVIEW
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and
so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead.
Editor: SHANNON GORMLEY (sgormley@wweek.com).
TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in
advance to: sgormley@wweek.com.
THEATER
OPENINGS & PREVIEWS
Nesting: Vacancy
Actor and playwright Joel Patrick
Durham brings back his episodic
horror play for a second year. Like
the first season, season two is the
story of two friends navigating a
creepy house plagued by super-
natural forces. You can watch indi-
vidual episodes or “binge watch” all
four. Last year’s was seriously spine
tingling and full of cliff hangers,
so binge watching is advised. The
Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave.
See nestingpdx.com for episode
schedule. 8 pm-10 pm Thursday-
Sunday, Oct. 13-Nov. 4. $25.
The Turn of the Screw
When the plot revolves around two
eerie orphaned children who live in
an isolated English estate, you know
things are going to get scary. In
honor of Friday the 13th, Reader’s
Theatre Repertory is staging Henry
James’ classic psychological thriller.
Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th
Ave., readerstheatrerep.com. 8 pm
Friday-Saturday, Oct. 13-14. $10.
Insignificance
Defunkt Theatre opens their season
with Terry Johnson’s satire of celeb-
rity culture in which Marilyn Monroe
explains relativity to Albert Einstein.
In a hotel room, we meet thinly dis-
guised versions of four pop culture
icons, who are referred to only as
the Actress, the Scientist and the
Senator and the Ballplayer. The play
(which inspired the 1985 movie of
the same name) first premiered in
1982, but only made its stateside
premiere last year. Defunkt Theatre,
4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., defunk-
theatre.com. 7:30 pm Thursday-
Sunday, Oct. 13-Nov. 18. Pay what
you will, $20 suggested.
ALSO PLAYING
Fun Home
Adapted from Alison Bechdel’s
graphical memoir, the musical
tries to make sense of the car-
toonist’s complicated relationship
with her closeted gay father, Bruce
(Robert Mammana). Propelled by
goofy, singalong anthems, Fun
Home switches between three dif-
ferent stages of Bechdel’s life.
There’s Alison (Aida Valentine)
growing up in the funeral home
where her father enforced het-
eronormativism on his daugh-
ter. There’s Alison at college (Sara
Masterson), who transforms from
nervous and slumped shouldered,
to belting out love songs as she dis-
covers her sexuality and falls for
a classmate named Joan (Kristen
DiMercurio). Then there’s Alison
the narrator (Allison Mickelson),
the successful cartoonist behind
Dykes to Watch Out For, and who’s
attempting to understand her father
through jumbled memories. The
show premiered on Broadway in
2015 and won multiple Tony awards
that same year. It went on tour
for the first time last October, but
Portland Center Stage is staging
its own production. PCS’ produc-
tion is so intimate and charming,
it’s hard to imagine Fun Home on
a giant Broadway stage. At the
end of the play, Bruce remains a
mystery to Alison. But Through
Alison’s self-discovery, we can see
38
Bruce’s misguided hope of sparing
his daughter from the pain he
feels, while he remains deprived of
the freedom she eventually finds.
SHANNON GORMLEY. Portland
Center Stage, 128 NW 11th Ave.,
pcs.org. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Sunday,
noon Thursday, 2 pm Saturday and
Sunday, Sept. 22-Oct. 22. $25-$70.
Every Brilliant Thing
Every Brilliant Thing is the story of
a man and his mother, and how her
attempt to kill herself when he was
a child shaped the rest of his life.
It’s why the narrator began craft-
ing a running list of small and large
life-affirming pleasures—ice cream
and roller coasters when he started
the list at the age of seven, sex
and meaningful conversations as
he entered adulthood. Written by
Duncan Macmillan, the play pre-
miered at England’s Ludlow Fringe
Festival in 2013. It started its suc-
cessful off-Broadway run a year
later, and last fall, a film of a New
York performance made its way to
HBO. Though the one-man show is
about living in the shadow cast by
the attempted suicide of a loved
one, it’s playful, unconventionally
structured and unapologetically
sentimental. It’s more like group
therapy than a traditional play.
Audience members are called on
stage to play a vet that euthanizes
the main character’s childhood dog,
or our narrator at seven years old
who can only respond “why?” as his
father struggles to explains that his
mother tried to kill herself. Often
cloyingly sentimental, Every Brilliant
Thing is not for even the mildly
cynical, or those who are unwill-
ing to put aside the fact that a list
of “brilliant things” is a simplistic
response to a complicated issue.
Still, Every Brilliant Thing succeeds
thanks to Lamb’s everyman affabil-
ity as well as its communal spirit.
More than anything, it’s an exercise
in empathy. R MITCHELL MILLER.
Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th
Ave., pcs.org. 7:30 pm Tuesday-
Saturday, 2 pm Saturday-Sunday,
noon Thursday, through Nov. 5.
No 7:30 pm show on Sunday, Oct.
8.$25-$55.
DANCE
Portland Tango Festival
The longest-running tango festival
in America returns with four nights
of sultry Argentinian dancing,
including all-night milongas every
damn night. Norse Hall, 111 NE 11th
Ave, 503-972-3329, portlandtan-
gofest.com. $10-$35 for individual
dances through Sunday.
COMEDY
All Jane Comedy Festival
This year, Portland’s all woman
comedy festival will become the
first comedy festival to live stream
its sets. But you can see it IRL,
starting with a taping of Deanne
Smith’s new standup special. Smith
is best known for her bit about
dating women who’ve decided it’s
easier to pretend to be a lesbian
than deal with straight dudes.
Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE
Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Oct.
11-15. See alljanecomedy.com for full
schedule.
Willamette Week OCTOBER 11, 2017 wweek.com
REAL HUMAN BEING: Greg Watanabe.
Into the Labyrinth
CAUGHT IS A SHAPE-SHIFTING PLAY THAT BLURS FACT AND FICTION.
BY BENNET T CAMP BELL FERG USON
When you arrive at Artists Repertory Theatre
for its production of Qín (Caught), Mao Zedong
greets you in the lobby. Actor Larry Toda, play-
ing the infamous Chinese dictator, stands at the
entrance to the fi rst phase of the show: a crowded
art exhibit fi lled with everything from meditation
alters to chubby model cats.
It’s a dizzying display that leaves you over-
whelmed before you even take your seat, and
that feeling of instability continues to grow once
the theatrical portion of Caught begins. Armed
with Christopher Chen’s brilliant and bizarre
script, director Shawn Lee has staged a show
that defies description.
Caught tells the story of Lin Bo, the artist cred-
ited with creating the show’s art installation and
who was imprisoned by the Chinese government
for political activism.
It’s far from a traditional play. The fi rst scene
is a PowerPoint presentation hosted by Bo.
Dressed in a dark jacket, he recalls his imprison-
ment after he protested against the Tiananmen
Square massacre. As he describes the details of his
incarceration—the abysmal food, the toilet fi lled
with rats—he becomes so emotional that you can
see sweat glistening on his forehead.
Emotions run ever higher in the following
scene, which appears to be a strange mix of fi ction
and reality. A reporter for The New Yorker (Sarah
Hennessy) and her editor (Chris Harder) ruth-
lessly grill Bo about his experiences in captivity.
As they harp on seemingly insignificant details—
does it matter whether or not Bo was served cab-
bage soup?—the racism-tinged spectacle of two
white Americans denying the legitimacy of Bo’s
torment becomes almost unbearable to watch.
But what exactly are we watching ? Caught
works with revelatory, insidious force as it
mutates from one kind of a show into another
and into yet another after that. To reveal much
more than that would ruin its slippery spell.
Lee and Chen challenge your perception of
both Bo and yourself. When Bo laments that he
is viewed as a “symbol of all Chinese suffering,”
it’s easy to pity him as a tragic icon. Yet as Caught
gradually reveals Bo to be a flawed and multi-
faceted human being, you’re forced to recognize
that to merely pity him is to deny his humanity.
The cast navigate Bo’s story with grace,
and reveal new dimensions of their charac-
ters with every scene. Actor Greg Watanabe’s
performance is both fluid and shape-shifting.
Like most of Caught, it’s hard to explain the
full extent of Watanabe’s work without spoiling
the whole play. But for all its deception, Caught
is wildly entertaining. Its hairpin narrative
turns may be unsettling, but they’re the reason
the entire experience is a giddy thrill. Caught
rewrites beliefs about what theater can and
should be in real time.
SEE IT: Caught plays at Artists Repertory
Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., artistsrep.org.
Through Oct. 29.