“Amor Añejo”: Into the Beyond, With Pain and Laughter
October 24, 2019
The fullness of spirit in Milagro’s Día de Muertos-inspired tale makes it unmissable.
The fullness of spirit in Milagro’s Día de Muertos-inspired tale makes it unmissable.
Stumptown Stages’ energetic production of “West Side Story” makes some missteps but still has the moves.
Wondrous music tempers an overstuffed story in Broadway Rose’s “Once.”
What if the prince who Cinderella married turned out to be a philanderer? What if Jack’s war on giants didn’t end after he came down the beanstalk? What if Rapunzel suffered from PTSD and couldn’t enjoy her happily ever after? Those are
Imagine that you’ve just moved to a new home. It has multiple floors, a formidable tree, and a garden that could really be something with a few more blossoms and shrubs. There’s just one problem—the couple in the house next door has
Somewhere in Alaska, a woman knocks on a door. It isn’t a polite, casual knock—it’s a thunderous banging that reverberates through your body like the pounding of a war drum. Whoever this woman is, she has channeled all of her fear and
“So a writer, a soon-to-be assassin, an activist and a deposed queen walk into a play. …” That’s the premise of Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists, a cheeky blast of historical fiction onstage at Artists Rep. Essentially an Avengers for fans of iconic
The life story of Judge Xiomara Torres—who journeyed from El Salvador to California as a nine-year-old undocumented immigrant in 1980 and was appointed to the Multnomah County Circuit Court by Gov. Kate Brown in 2017—seems too vast and inspiring to be contained
What terrifies you the most? Ghosts? Snakes? Serial killers? Whatever your answer, I guarantee that if you go see Theatre Vertigo‘s profoundly disturbing new production of Erin Courtney’s A Map of Virtue, the image of a new monster will be carved into
One of the more contentious topics in art history is how the Mexican artist Pedro Linares dreamed up the sculptures of mythical creatures known as alebrijes. The most likely version of the story is that Linares was commissioned to create alebrijes for
When Dylan Hillerman and Julia Reodica were performers at the legendary Portland haunted house FrightTown, they specialized in subjecting people to fantastical terror. Yet in 2013, Reodica discovered a more mundane horror. “I told her, ‘I had to walk six miles to
Two men meet in a cafe. One is dressed in a stylish overcoat, the other is wearing a baggy sweatshirt. Much time has passed since they last saw each other and while their mutual adoration is clear, a cloud of awkwardness and
A few weeks ago, I met and interviewed an actor at a coffee shop near Waterfront Park. They were charismatic, stylish and radiated supreme confidence and generosity. I would have relished the chance to find the right words to capture their personality,
I was eating a veggie burger and chatting with two fellow journalists when the subject of guilty-pleasure music came up. This was a few weeks ago and for a moment, I debated whether I should reveal the truth. But eventually, I summoned
When actor Blake Wales first watched a performance by the improv comedy group J Names, he was deeply impressed. There was just one problem. He wished that his father, who is deaf, could have the opportunity to enjoy the show. “I remember
How about that gong? This year’s Drammy Awards ceremony Monday night at The Armory may have been an epic affair packed with tearful acceptance speeches, technical difficulties and even bingo, but the unofficial star of the night was the golden, disc-shaped gong
What is Fallout? I suppose the term “end-of-days comedy” fits. Yet that seems too narrow for a play about war, friendship, sexual awakening and the adverse effects of nuclear ash on human hair. Written and directed by Imago Theatre’s renowned absurdist Carol
“The party is over.” Those words burst out of a character’s mouth near the end of Fuse Theatre Ensemble’s new production of Cabaret, striking an ironic chord. What, you may ask, is Cabaret if not a party? Isn’t it all about cheery
You know an actor means business when he refers to the 2014 movie Whiplash (about a face-slapping, chair-throwing jazz conductor) as a model of a tough but successful learning experience. That’s what Hank Sanders, 17-year-old member of Oregon Children’s Theatre‘s improv team
There’s a moment in Staged!’s new musical John Hughes High when a teenage girl realizes she’s falling in love. Yet the object of her affection is not one person—it’s a school packed with loners, leaders, artists, athletes, and plenty of kids who
“I want to fight someone so bad!” That’s what I heard one audience member say after the end of defunkt theatre’s fearsome production of Girl in the Red Corner, Stephen Spotswood’s play about the rise of a rookie mixed-martial-arts fighter. I felt
There is a moment in CoHo’s astounding new production of Rebecca Gilman’s Luna Gale when a mother learns a stomach-churning secret about her daughter. Yet she doesn’t scream, shake her first or exclaim that it can’t be true. She simply freezes as
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