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Super Bowl Sunday arts: ArtsWatch week in review

By Barry Johnson
February 1, 2015
Culture, Theater

Let’s just say that your appetite for Super Bowl pre-game chatter isn’t truly boundless. Just for the record we favor the Seahawks because their logo was derived from a carving in the Burke Museum. From those two sentences alone, you may be able to predict where this going: A deep dive into ArtsWatch stories from the week, our Sunday arts section.

Ted with Vana O'Brien and Keith Scales in Cygnet's "Faith Healer."

Ted with Vana O’Brien and Keith Scales in Cygnet’s “Faith Healer.”

Bob Hicks remembers the great actor Ted Roisum: The possessor of the single most recognizable vocal instrument in Portland theater, Roisum also had a lively intelligence and generous spirit, and his passing has rocked the city’s theater community. “The voice, it seemed to me, was a magnificent instrument, but only the doorway to an even more remarkable revelation of the soul. Almost always there was something haunting in a Roisum performance, a sense in his interpretations of a character who has seen more deeply into the mysteries of the universe than he might rationally be expected to withstand. He took his audiences to dark and dangerous places.”

In The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents“Dunno,” is a pretty good answer: The “doleful, squicky, thought-provoking, poignant and pathetic” play at Vertigo features a fine performance by Shawna Nordman as Dora in Lukas Barfüs’s juicy satire.

Mellon Foundation gift establishes Creative Exchange Lab at PICA: Thanks to a $500,000 grant, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art will get to curate some creativity experiments in a new residency program.

Eric Isaacson conducts a meeting of music and film: The Mississippi Studios founder has begun his second annual series of movies with strong musical content at the Hollywood Theatre, and Lily Hudson talked to him about the first and future installments.

From Toronto, a preview of the Portland International Film Festival: Erik McClanahan predicts that the best of the Toronto Film Festival will be hits in Portland, too.

Amber Whitehall, Jacob Coleman and Cristi Miles in "Enter the Night"/Photo Owen Carey

Amber Whitehall, Jacob Coleman and Cristi Miles in “Enter the Night”/Photo Owen Carey

“Enter the Night” and the dream world of Maria Irene Fornes: Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble’s encounter with Fornes and “Enter the Night” is richly textured and detailed, episode by episode.

Happy reading, and enjoy the game!

 

Oregon ArtsWatch Archives