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DramaWatch Weekly: Bedsheets and Bongos

By A.L. Adams
September 26, 2017
News & Notes, Theater

You play, I play, we all on-the-sly play …The YouTube Theater Research Game!

A.L. Adams

Admit it, Kids: When you see that a show is starring So-and-So, or that it’s from Such-and-Such company, you probably can’t slap those names in a search window fast enough. What comes up may or may not be relevant to their latest work. It may or may not be what their PR people would prefer to show you. But it comes up in a flash, and it at least answers a few who-and-whats, and soon you’re making a slightly more informed showgoing decision.

Shall we?

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Rose City Shakespeare actors append “Lysistrata” in rehearsal. Photo: Jeremy Gardels

The Rose City Shakespeare Company’s current offering at Alberta Rose promises “burlesque, aerial dance and giant paper maché dongs,” but all they brought to this rehearsal video were some bedsheets and bongos. Is Lysistrata holding out on us? Ah. Right. I see what they did there.

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I thought maybe serial theater had died off with Action/Adventure…but no [cue Frankenstein organ music]…IT’S ALIIIIVE! In this video, it sounds like Theatre Vertigo is reanimating the form for its October offering, Joel Patrick Durham’s Nesting: Vacancy. Three things I like about this: 1) Joel Patrick Durham’s been acting-about-town and seems to have a steady hand. 2) Watching several episodes of a play is the perfect TV/theater hybrid. 3) The cast has some strong players and seems gung-ho. One caution: Vertigo does not mess around when they cry “horror.” They’ve mounted some horror there before (in their tiny Shoebox Theatre space) that legit made me want to kill or die. Hopefully in this series, the horror will be cut with the hint of comedy that Durham’s general demeanor suggests.

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Triangle’s “Pageant” crowd at Darcelle XV Showplace

Triangle Productions, in cooperation with Darcelle XV, has uploaded a glittering preview video of their current drag-stravagant audience-interactive musical, Pageant. Going a little off-script, here’s a profile of one of the show’s most charismatic queens, Poison Waters.

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Finally, let’s misbehave and watch a video that PR people would deem flagrantly off-topic, but I’d say permanently pertains to the career of Portland actor Isaac Lamb. Lamb stars in Every Brilliant Thing, which opens at The Armory this Friday, but never mind that. He also perma-stars on the internet as a trailblazer of The Lip Sync Performance Proposal. Enjoy.

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Oh! And ICYMI:

Barry Johnson caught Imago’s take on Raymond Carver, Human Noise, which runs one more weekend, and Brett Campbell got the last word on Bag&Baggage’s Spinning Into Butter, which just closed.

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