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PREVIEWS
Show Time
Upcoming Performing Arts Events | by Natasha Chilingerian, Suzanne Hamlin & Heather Wisner
Private Eyes
2Boards Productions – Private
Eyes
Theater! Theatre!
Thru Aug 12, Thurs–Sat 8pm & Sun 4pm
Theater should always be somewhat suspect, said
David Mamet, and with Private Eyes, it seems playwright
Steven Dietz took that suggestion to heart.
In this comedic relationship thriller, deception is
the name of the game, and what you think you know
will likely be proved wrong again and again. The
problem is this: The plot turns on actors rehearsing
a drama. There are relationships between husband
and wife, between woman and man, and between
actor and director, so it’s not always clear to the
characters—and by extension, the viewers—what’s
real life and what’s just theater. Additional characters
include a therapist treating one of the men,
which expands the possibilities that the relationship
tension is all in his head, and maybe in ours. And
then there’s a private investigator who lurks about
the periphery, a kind of dramatic device ostensibly
meant to reveal the truth, although whether she
actually does remains subject to debate. “Simply
designed and richly performed” works are 2Boards
artistic director and president Jamie Lynne Powell-
Hervold’s vision for the seven-member company,
now entering its second season. Meanwhile, Dietz,
a Denver native and award-winning playwright,
seems to have an affinity for emotional arguments;
his best-known works include the fundamentalistcentered
drama God’s Country and Fiction, a drama
about married writers who swap journals. If his
artistic temperament takes some cues from his
immediate surroundings (i.e. gloomy weather),
Portland viewers will surely understand. He’s lately
been working out of Seattle: “If you can’t write a
play in Seattle in the winter,” he once told St. Louis
Dispatch critic Judith Newmark, “you can’t do it at
all.” —HW
photo: Jeff Forbes
Portland Festival Symphony
Various Portland parks
August 2, 5, 6, 12 & 13, 6pm
Free classical concerts in Portland are few and far
between. And outdoor concerts are usually summer
fare. Here’s a chance to get outside, enjoy some
music and not spend a dime. Dare we say it? That’s
music to our ears! The Portland Festival Symphony
has been presenting free concerts in neighborhood
parks around the city for 26 summers. Lajos Balogh,
founder and music director (and also conductor of
the Metropolitan Youth Symphony), wanted to bring
Portland some European flavor (ourdoor concerts
are common across the Atlantic) and so founded
the Symphony, which is made up of musicians
from the Oregon Symphony and the Portland Opera
Orchestra. It began with the idea to celebrate his
European citizenship and has turned into a local
summer tradition. The Symphony highlights a
variety of performers playing alongside the orchestra
in music ranging from classical favorites, pop
arrangements and works by local composers to new
twists like this year’s jazzy take on Scheherezade.
August finds trombonist Kevin Allen, the MYSfits
String Ensemble (from the Metropolitan Youth Symphony),
vocalist Julianne R. Johnson and violinist
Esther Shim performing. The last concert features
chamber group 3 Leg Torso and the Scheherjazz Big
Band Symphony. Bring a picnic and the whole family—children
are welcome. The tradition of inviting
kids to play toy instruments with the orchestra in
Haydn’s “Toy” Symphony will once again happen
every night. —SH
Fourth Annual Richard Foreman
Mini-Festival
Performance Works NorthWest
August 11 & 12, 8:30pm
If you attend the Fourth Annual Richard Foreman
Mini-Festival, you’re in for a unique slant on play
production. In Performance Works NorthWest’s
annual fundraiser, all sorts of performers are given
ten days, and a four- to eight-minute time slot,
to create a play out of an excerpt from Foreman’s
online notebooks. Playwright Foreman, founder and
artistic director of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater,
placed the notebooks online, which are free to use.
They contain his own raw material from the past
fifteen years—bits and pieces of dialogue not linked
to specific characters. He draws from them himself
when creating a new play. This year, Linda Austin,
who founded of Performance Works NorthWest in
1999 with Jeff Forbes, has instructed the performers
to draw from an assigned text and incorporate a
“mystery suitcase” of objects. Each night will feature
different performances, so both nights hold more
than a few suitcases worth of surprises. —SH
PWNW’s Mini-Fest
Northwest Professional
Dance Project
Northwest Professional Dance
Project – Gala Show & Backstage
Soirée / Showing By Dance Makers
Lincoln Hall, Portland State University
August 11, 7pm & August 12, 8pm
Blossoming talent and legendary choreography
will take the stage at the Northwest Professional
Dance Project’s (NWPDP) two-show summer event,
where you can watch cutting-edge works and then
meet the people behind them. The NWPDP has
been giving aspiring professional dancers the tools
they need to pursue successful dance careers since
2004, and these two shows are sure to showcase the
motivation, natural talent and enthusiasm of young
ballet and modern dancers eager to “make it.” The
Gala Show and Backstage Soirée (Fri 7pm, $45, $8
Gala Show only) begins with new works by local
choreographers Mary Oslund, Josie Moseley and
NWPDP Co-Director Steve Gonzales, followed by a
showing of NWPDP Co-Director Sarah Slipper’s “A
Fine Balance,” which was recently nominated for an
international choreography award and performed
in Moscow. After the performance, hop on stage
for appetizers, cocktails and live cello music by
Skip vonKuske with the show’s young dancers and
established choreographers. Showing By Dance Makers
(Sat 8pm, $17-$20) then premieres new works by
internationally-acclaimed choreographers: Oregon
Ballet Theatre founding Director James Canfield,
Nashville Ballet Director Paul Vasterling, Ballet
Austin Director Stephen Mills, Hubbard Street
Dance Chicago’s Lucas Crandall, and more. NWPDP
prepares selected professional dancers-in-training
for the real world through a three-week summer
intensive program, company performance opportunities,
an apprentice program and scholarships; the
organization’s two August shows are truly presentations
of legends in the making. —NC
photo: Blaine Truitt Covert
40 PDXmagazine.com / August 2006