The 39 Steps on OPB

First it was a novel, by John Buchan (aka the First Baron Tweedsmuir). Then it was a film classic, by Alfred Hitchcock (made in 1935, in 1999 it came in 4th in a BFI poll of British films, while in 2004 Total Film named it the 21st greatest British movie of all time).  It was remade in 1959 and 1978  (and those film versions seem to have faded into relative obscurity).

Now The 39 Steps is a delicious comic masterpiece, in a stage version adapted by Patrick Barlow ( from the  novel by the aforementioned Tweedsmuir), and playing at Portland Center Stage through March 21. Part tribute, part spoof, and all hilarity,  The 39 Steps at PCS can be enjoyed on its own merits.

But, if you have a hankering to know something more about the original source material, Oregon Public Broadcasting is your friend. Just in time to complement our stage production is yet another filmed version of The 39 Steps, this one from the BBC, and airing locally on Sunday, February 28, at 9:00 pm.

Remember, once you know what the 39 Steps are, keep the secret!

Every once in a while, a production’s needs spur our artistic staff to fascinating creative solutions to the problems of staging a show. For Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, the challenge has been how to navigate 4 actors through all the different scenes and characters of the film while keeping things moving FAST.

I happened across one of the solutions to that problem in our canteen this morning. It looks like this:

I want to crawl inside and live there. But what IS it? Here’s a hint.

This beautiful, elaborate construct of wire hangers, craft paper and foam core will be lit by cunningly hidden lights, throwing larger than life shadows onto various parts of the stage scenery and thereby helping our Puppet Designer Sarah Freschette to bring one of the many chase scenes in the show to life.

What I love about it is the way this solution references the long shadow of, well LONG SHADOWs in Hitchcock-ian suspense movies while solving a very practical production problem- how to stage a chase scene when you’ve run out of actors to chase/be chased.

The 39 Steps opens next Friday. Until then, you will find me sneaking into the cantina, staring for long hours like a transfixed five year old with a new toy, imagining my own shadow play Hitchcock movie, with me as the Hitchcock blonde.

I was in NY week before last to cast The Chosen.  This was just before the big snows hit, and while I only saw a few flakes, it was cold as the dickens.  I’ve grown fond of The Belvedere Hotel, which is on W. 48th between 8th and 9th Avenues.  It’s close enough to the theater district, but just far enough off the beaten track to be quiet.  And most important:  they have good mattresses.  You’d be surprised how hard that is to find on our budget!

We saw many beautiful actors for each of the roles.  Harriett, our casting director, was nervous that she wouldn’t be in the room for the callbacks (as she and her husband had a long-planned trip to the Galapogos Islands scheduled), and so brought in more choices than she might ordinarily.

I saw Fela! the new musical created by legendary choreographer Bill T. Jones from the music and life of the African singer and political agitator.  As one might expect, the dancing was extraordinary, and the energy of the cast was awe inspiring (it’s basically non stop movement for two hours).  The music is energized and rousing, and at times it’s hard to wipe the smile off your face.  That said, I confess that I found it hard to connect to the story.  The African accents made it nearly impossible to understand the lyrics (they had subtitles projected on a screen at the rear of the stage), and thus trying to piece the story together was tough.  Even so – the audience in the room seemed to have a wonderful time. 

Also saw Richard Greenspan’s new piece The Myopia, produced by the Foundry Theater.  He is a brilliant performer, but I found the play baffling.  Ah well.

The most satisfying evening for me was Donald Margulies’ new play Time Stands Still at Manhattan Theatre Club (well actually at their Broadway theater the Friedman on 47th).  For a Broadway house the theater is remarkably intimate.  Margulies won the Pulitzer for Dinner with Friends, which I liked but didn’t love.  Time Stands Still was equally well crafted in naturalistic tones, but the stakes and politics were so keenly observed that I thought it made for a riveting evening.  Didn’t hurt to have Laura Linney, Eric Bogosian, Brian Darcy James and Alicia Silverstone in the cast.  They were all fantastic, and at times the tension seemed palpable.  A gorgeous new play.

According to our friends at CNRG, the nonprofit clearinghouse for news and information in Portland, this Saturday, February 13 is “Spread the Love PDX” day.

Why limit Valentines Day to one person and one day? Why not spread that love
(beyond a Hallmark card) and share it with all your friends, your community, or
with a random stranger on the street…who think[s] Valentine’s could be better done if
done “Portland” style: random, hopeful and thoughtful.

What we’re doing: Giving you the excuse to do the random acts of kindess you
always wanted to do.

That’s why as a random act of love and hope, we’re offering  our gift of Sounds.Like.Portland to you.

Sounds. Like. Portland:
Jim Brunberg with special guest Jonathan Newsome

Jim Brunberg (a Portland-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who hails from Coralville, Iowa) honed his rich talent in the coffee houses and taverns of San Francisco. Jim loves “heckling from the crowd, broken strings, and dressing rooms without ventilation.”  PCS regulars will recognize him as the guy with the bass  who sang with Storm Large during last summer’s hit, Crazy Enough.   A vital member of the Portland music community, Brunberg istechnical director for LiveWire Radio and the man behind Mississippi Studios .   A master craftsman of a songwriter, Brunberg is a musical charmer with a warm voice, an irreverent wit and versatile musical chops.  Don’t just ask me, ask some of the folks he’s toured with over the years, strummers, pickers, thumpers and shouters as diverse as Greg Brown, Tracy Grammer, Hot Tuna, Willie Nelson, The Indigo Girls, Huey Lewis, and Rat Dog.

He’ll be joined by Miraflores’ Jonathan Newsome and invite a friend or two to open through out this month of Saturdays (including one Matt Schulte on Feb. 27—watch for it!).

Saturdays in February from 5-7 pm, Lobby (Gerding Theater)

Cosponsored by Music Millennium

PCS’s Community Programs made possible in part by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation.

Mark Appelbaum’s The Metaphysics of Notation

This Friday, February 12, we continue our  month-long series of weekly noon-time performances with Third Angle New Music Ensemble .  On Friday, encounter the wild and wooly sound poetry of  Blum Blum Shub Sound Poetry Coincidence (featuring David Abel, Leo Daedalus, and mARK oWEns, a trio of local performer poets).

For these free performances, 3A and PCS invited a bevy of artists to interpret and respond to Mark Applebaum’s dazzling, epic graphic score “The Metaphysics of Notation” –currently installed on the Mezzanine–animating the public spaces of the Gerding Theater’s lobby with all manner of sound, sight and movement. Applebaum’s score, a stunning, 72-foot-long work of visual art teeming with fantastical musical glyphs where the meaning is deliberately left undefined by the composer, was tackled last week by 8th grade drama students from Catlin Gabel School.

Blum Blum Shub, named for a random number generator, said this about their impending performance:

“The Metaphysics of Notation” score comprises three sets of graphic expression:

1) structural marks; 2) marks that are proxies for other marks; 3) indecisive marks

Applying to those sets the methodologies advanced in E. S. Segrob’s Handbook of Unforeseen Categories (El manual de las categorías imprevistas, Naguara, 1936) I will construct a vocal body of filler concepts (see Wirklichstein, Der Füllselbegriff) in blind concordance with the blackbox predicates (Bazzutti, Gli sguardi incombenti; Jäänenä, Miksi kuka?) of my colleagues, Messrs. Abel, Owens, and Nenhum (in absentia).

As deadpan as they are somewhat dada-ist/Fluxus-inspired in their humor, this could very well be either a post-doctoral  theorem for a Martin-Lewis routine  or a recipe for manifesto and revolution.  You’ll need to stop by at High Noon to find out though.

Featuring:
February 12: Blum Blum Shub Sound Poetry Coincidence
February 19: Quadrophonnes Saxophone Quartet
February 26: Dance Artist Linda Austin

“How do these images make you feel? If you were a poet, what words come to mind? A dancer, how would you move? A musician, what notes would you play?”

Fridays in February at noon
Portland Center Stage
Mezzanine, Gerding Theater at the Armory

This creative exploration is in anticipation of Third Angle’s innovative concert “Chance/Perchance: A Musical Happening,” on Friday, March 5 — featuring work by David Schiff, Terry Riley and Mark Applebaum — at the Hollywood Theatre. For more information on Third Angle and their upcoming performance Click Here

Next Friday: Fierce women with saxophones—The Quadrophonnes vs. Mark Applebaum