Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre (Summer Festival)
July 11 - August 2, 2009
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Focusing on the Portland, Oregon theatre scene in precisely 50-word increments. followspot@hotmail.com
15 comments:
Great show! Saw the preview. Simple set, but great scenery gags and very well acted. One actor plays like six characters(all very different and funny). Excellent staging especially a behind the wall character change gag and a voice impersonation bit. Great spoof on the old time serials and not overdone. Believable zany characters. Anything I could say bad would just be nit picky. Got exactly what me & my wife expected and then some and this was a preview. I would definately go see this show.
Have to disagree--I think MHRT tries valiantly, but can't overcome the completely lame writing of this piece. This reminded me of some horrible skit you see in the last half hour of SNL--completely unfunny, obvious, flat out stupid at times. I think I have an excellent sense of humor, love parody and satire, but this is so stale it's emitting a foul odor.
Some of the best cheeses smell the worst... and get better with age. This show requires an audience with a modicum of familiarity with the material it is satirizing... as noted in Mr. Shearman's talkback on Sunday, much of the dialogue is taken from the original McNeil "Bulldog Drummond" novels, and is intentionally lame.
The piece should be regarded as high camp, not high art, and it's rare to see a cast work as hard as these guys seem to be. All the performances were excellent, and 4/5 of them had a spectacular grasp on their accents.
A very entertaining evening.
Cheers, Mr. Anderson.
-Addison Dewitt
Well, how's this for having a "modicum of familiarity with the material" Mr. DeWitt (whom I greatly suspect of in fact being Mr. Shearman himself): I happen to be of Irish-English heritage and my mother's maiden name was McNeile. I love good parody and/or satire, this simply isn't it. It may have at least seemed funny 30 years or so ago, to people herbally or chemically enhanced, unfortunately, unlike cheese, it hasn't aged well, though I guess we can agree it is at least extremely cheesy. Or, to be more a propos, Cheez Whiz-y. To bring this all around to your "nom de film,": All About Eve, classic. Applause (the musical version), tragic. Bulldog Drummond, classic, now verging on camp. Bullshot Crummond, pure crap.
Just for general info re mt hood rep.
it is only 7 mins farther from portland than is b'way rose.
it is not at the end of the earth.
Regarding a "modicum of familiarity":
"Some people can read "War and Peace" and come away thinking its a simple adventure story. Others read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and to them the secrets of the universe are revealed."
Familiarity means more than having heard or seen something. It implies an understanding of it. Maybe the show sucks or maybe its great, but claiming familiarity with source material based on your ethnic background is...well, it makes no sense. And I'm not sure what yours mother's maiden name has to do with it either. Unless your point is that as a person of Irish-English descent you have no sense of humor.
Lex, you might want to spend a moment or two researchng the original Bulldog Drummond and its author. That might help dispel some of your confusion. Google is your friend.
I think MHRT should give it up.
In response to "I think MHRT should give it up.", how could having one less theater company be a good thing?
I am aware of Bulldog's authorship, and I stand by my comment. Does having a mother with the same last name as an author makes you an expert on that person's work? That's like saying my mother's maiden name was Wright, therefore I am an expert on architecture. If the poster meant that her mother is actually RELATED to the author or that she was constantly around it growing up then she could have said that. Otherwise, call it what it is: your opinion. Nothing wrong with that.
In response to "I think MHRT should give it up.", how could having one less theater company be a good thing?
Are you serious? You mean to say that you haven't noticed that Portland's theatre market is oversaturated? Or the fact that these days the already stretched-thin audiences have few disposable dollars for luxuries like like theatre? Or the fact that when an audience goes out to see a crap production, they're less likely to go out to see another one, even if it's being produced by an entirely different company? None of these things have occurred to you? Nothing personally against folks at Mt. Hood Rep at all, but Portland has far too many of these mediocre-to-not-very-good theatre companies. In a less saturated market, in better economic times, this wouldn't be a bad thing at all, but here and now it is destructive to the entire theatre community. I'm not advocating that they quit or anything, but I see where someone else can feel that way.
I think any reasonable reading of "Eve Harrington"'s comment would be to see she was obviously saying she was related to the author, hence her familiarity with the subject. I believe the literary term might be irony, or in fact subtlety. :)
Actually, Mt Hood does decent work, they pay their actors, directors and crew, and they fill a niche in the Eastern suburbs.
I challenge you to tell me who is doing better work east of 205?
And THEY PAY THEIR PEOPLE. So should they hang it up? Heck no.
And if you work in theater, you shouldn't be rooting for that - or it will be one less avenue of paid work for YOU.
I'm curious in our "oversaturated" theater market, Anonymous 5:29 just which theaters you think should give it up and who should stay? Who gets to decide this?
I mean you can't expect the companies drawing large audiences to pack it up just because some people think they may be doing consistently second rate work? It's been years since I've seen a decent show at PCS, Lakewood or NW Childrens Theater - I keep going to the latter two because of the whole "friends in the cast" thing; I don't go to PCS anymore - but they always have really huge audiences so they must be doing something right. Meanwhile I love the shows at defunct and Northwest Classical although I have never been there when they managed to fill even their tiny 30 seat theaters.
The night I saw Bullshot Crummond the show was sold out. I thought the show was fun but probably belonged in a different venue like a dinner theater or as a late night. It's basicaly a long skit and it's too paper thin to stand as a full evening of theater. It was fun however and the audience was enthusiastic. Best of all MHRT appears to be tapping into a local Gresham audience base that might otherwise be ignored.
I'm afraid the real saturation in Portland is not the companies like MHRT doing larger scale commercial plays. It's all the many small, artist driven companies doing unusual, often original works by emerging and lesser known playwrights. These are the companies that we like as artists - I know I do - but I think you are erronious in your assumption that if all the secind rate commercial theaters, the musical theaters and childrens theaters gave up and stopped producing plays that all the small edgy companies would finally start to get the audiences and funding that they deserve. Audiences would just stay home and watch TV and other large arts groups like OBT and the symphony would pick up the newly available funding.
I don't think too much commercial theater in Portland is really the problem.
This is not directed to any specific poster, so I hope this will make it by the filter.
On the whole, as a reader of this blog for a few years I have found that it is largely populated with petty and spiteful content, motivated by personal agenda and the desire to hear oneself talk.
Most of the folks don't seem to have even a pedestrian knowledge of what they are seeing.
If only they would keep some things in mind:
Mean begets mean.
Intelligent discourse begets same.
Don't try to act like a know-it-all.
If you didn't like something, don't go all Masters Thesis on us.
Just state the facts.
Then read your post and see how you would feel if you were the subject instead of the author.
Hurting people is not what this blog should be about.
Helping people understand how they are perceived and how to improve is.
And of course heaping tons of praise on those who have earned it.
Keep in mind your little toss off of devastatingly clever and cutting remarks can damage a company's bottom line. You might literally be taking money out of their pockets.
Think clearly and wisely before you do that.
If an average company employs at least 10 people, that's 10 more people on the dole.
If I had anything to do with that, I would not sleep well.
Play nice.
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