Artists Repertory Theatre is welcoming audiences back into its still-evolving home space for the first full production there since 2019 with The Event!, which opened last weekend and plays through November 10.
In more ways than one, this production feels like that of a theater in flux — not sure where it’s going, or perhaps not clear on what it wants to tell you about the destination, relying on your good will and enthusiasm to supply the rest. If the show is not wholly successful, one nevertheless can’t fault a cast full of pros who commit fully to extending audiences a playful invitation to experiment and inquire.
The story, set in a fictional small Oregon town that has experienced many of the setbacks familiar to small Oregon towns, is focused on investigating a mystery. Misty (an ebullient Ashlee M Radney) is a college freshman with an interest in history. She decides to apply that interest to assuming the more exciting role of an investigative journalist so that she can solve a quandary that has caught her attention — a 100-year-old play with a pattern of production interruptions prompted by unexplained disappearances.
The most recent disappearance is of Rudy, a queer teenager, and the explanations that surface all veer toward the fantastical — that he may have flown off on a magical ostrich, or been kidnapped by aliens. Misty sets out to apply her bright-eyed determination to solve what others lacked the persistence to uncover.
Persistence is required, in part because she is buffeted between such an oddly buoyant set of characters whose contributions don’t illuminate so much as entertain. Bobby Bermea, Kailey Rhodes, and Anthony Green Caloca, all familiar and loved by Portland theater audiences, join several other actors less familiar but just as game to assume a variety of quirky characters, each with pieces of the puzzle.
Audience members are enlisted too, deftly guided by the cast members to read a line, interact with a prop or costume piece, or join in a dance. It’s all pulled off in a way that makes participation fully voluntary, though I can imagine it will be most fun to see the show with an audience as game as the cast members are.
Some fun stagecraft is at work here. The play is performed in what will ultimately be the theater’s lobby space, which offers lots of room for movement that includes some audience members, and the interactive elements are deftly managed. Approached with a playful spirit, especially younger audience members will appreciate the show’s whimsical elements.
The story, though, feels disjointed. Created in collaboration with an array of seasoned Portland artists — Lava Alapai, Linda Alper, Anthony Hudson, Daniel Kitrosser, Susannah Mars, Jodie Seid, and Luan Schooler, who also directs — the play is burdened by elements that don’t all cohere.
It may be that not all of the elements belong in one play. Or perhaps in this time in which regional theater in general, and Artists Repertory Theatre in particular, is shifting, it’s too early for a fully coherent storyline, and it’s best to stay engaged with the creative process. Then again, maybe the play is reflecting back to us how badly we fumble to understand a story when it involves a person who doesn’t fit, like Rudy, the missing teenager.
Even in times that are challenging and often confusing, Portland is blessed with an abundance of artists who show up and experiment and create. At the very least, this show invites audiences to join in an ongoing process of reinvention.
Darleen Ortega has been a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals since 2003 and is the first woman of color and the only Latina to serve in that capacity. She has been writing about theater and films as an “opinionated judge” for many years out of pure love for both.