A Surreal Christmas: "Reckless" at Visual Arts Collective

Sweet and bubbly Rachel hums along to a picture perfect Christmas Eve in her cozy suburban home, stringing up a few more trimmings as sugarplums dance in her head. As she snuggles into bed with her husband Tom to watch some holiday news, he snaps into tears. She has to leave, he says. It’s not safe to be here, he says. Tom has taken a contract out on Rachel’s life. He’s very sorry but the killer is on his way. This astonishing interruption of holiday cheer hurdles the bewildered housewife from her house, husband, two boys and sparkling neighborhood to a gas station for a ride from a friendly stranger, Lloyd, and to start a new life in Springfield.

So begins Reckless, Craig Lucas’ incredible tragicomedy directed by Larry Dennis in the third show of Alley Repertory Theater’s inaugural season. With symphonic language as hot as two champion boxers in a title fight, Lucas crafts an extraordinary story about a woman running from her past who makes a home with two people who have also changed their names and live a lie. It is a happy, delusional fantasy for all three, but fate will haunt them relentlessly. The past is impossible to escape.

Thanks to her countless supply of hopeful enthusiasm and a hard-hitting performance by Buffie Main, little housewife Rachel takes on every obstacle pitched her way head on. Each episodic scene becomes a transformation for her. By facing each new direction and every fork in the road head on, shift after shift Rachel continually makes her life brand new. She embraces each thrilling moment, arguing with a calm and stoic Lloyd (Alex Robertson), “The past is irrelevant. It’s what we wake up from.”

Yet even though Rachel rises to a brand new city, new name and family with Lloyd—and, of course, his angelic-but-shrewd, paraplegic wife Pooty (played by Christen Atwood)—, her past finds her and keeps up steadily. Again and again, it returns with regularity as persistent as Christmas. Fate is patient and, at first, Rachel’s past only visits as reminders. It is coaxed from her by a therapist, her first of a string of outrageous doctors in a marathon counseling performance from Katie Preston. But when Tom finds her, pleading her to come back to him, the lies become a hellish reality. She runs again and again, always to another Springfield where there is yet another doctor and it is always Christmas. As Lloyd knew, “The past is something you wake up to. A nightmare you wake up to everyday.”

The Larry Dennis production is captivating and makes the decentralized theatricality inherent in Reckless a comic kick-in-the-pants and easy to swallow. This play is contemporary Epic-Theatre-plus-heart. It marks Craig Lucas’ disjointed reality, which is often one as perplexing as the social, political and human dilemmas he investigates in his work. At the Visual Arts Collective, the dark comedy plays in a fun and touching way, which works when stressing the Christmas setting in the world of the play. But much of the story is made up of gruesome events: attempted assassination, three murders (at least), a handicapped woman feigning deafness and muteness for her husband’s love, lies, doctors who always look the same and are never any help, embezzlement, a man killing himself on a strict champagne-only diet, homelessness, fear and loneliness. As one of the doctors observes, “Life’s been reckless with these people.”

This is more than a feel-good, holiday story. Investing in naturalism, bright charm and touching, winter cheer blurs the demented conflict that drives the action. The potential for collision in Reckless is something fierce. Its tension could reach more brilliant heights and nasty depths; the world around Rachel could be more harsh and brisk. Until she finally makes herself a legitimate new life, she keeps running, always to a Springfield, each one as foreign as the last. If everything in the production is ruthless and unyielding to her, both in terms of performance and design, then by the time Rachel does reach stability in a relaxed lifestyle, the satisfaction could be undeniable and stay simmering in the audience far beyond the 2008 holiday season. By the time she is herself a doctor with a name for herself and a chance to reconnect with her son, anyone to see that journey would have to thank their lucky stars for all their life and good fortune and right away make phone calls to loved ones. The Alley Repertory production is a certain success, but by pursuing the play’s inherent conflict just a little further, it could be an overwhelming triumph.

Reckless finished its run on November 29. Cheers to an excellent inaugural season at Alley Repertory Theater and many more to come.

"A Dream Play" at Danny Peterson Theatre

If a glorious and foreign being were to plunge into a daily routine all too familiar from our human perspective, what would she see? Would she like our world? If she were an angel, just as pure and sweet as we humans can imagine, could she even survive?

August Strindberg’s bizarre dramatic tale, A Dream Play, investigates this query using surrealist language and absurdist characters so exquisite that Lewis Carroll would shudder. Caryl Churchill brings the 1902 play to a ripping speed in her captivating translation, a momentum that director Kyle Barrow jolts into a warped vaudevillian waltz for Boise State’s Theatre Arts production. This play is an elegant sideshow, a dazzling wreck just as brilliant as seeing a house on fire through a kaleidoscope.

In this Victorian dreamscape on earth, harsh disconnect is the absolute norm, especially between people. Thanks to a flurry of dynamic and stylized production choices, acting and design alike, these detached relationships are playfully fierce at the Danny Peterson Theatre.

This is the earth where the hopeful Agnes arrives--though truthfully, Strindberg’s world may only be “a bad copy” of what we see everyday—wanting to discover what it is like to be human. It is a makeshift world, where characters give their possessions and environments the meaning they choose. Found objects morph into prized treasures and the unknown destination beyond a locked fridge door is forbidden territory.

Barrow creates a tormented universe in a black box; even the passionate tango is jerky and painful, something to fight through. While Agnes, in an ideally bright-eyed performance by Jamie Nebeker, is only after a little joy and love, she is instead welcomed by complaint after pitiful complaint that add up at an alarming rate. Agnes herself notes, “Everyone’s complaining. If it’s not what they say it’s how they look”.

Shadow dancing, video projections, line-dancing to Gogol Bordello, live saxophone performance, puppets, stilts and automated lighting are only some of the enormous theatrical elements orchestrated throughout the production. Barrow’s lovely and demented circus act Dream Play invests in a severely fractured climate. Any simple truths--like Agnes’ joy and love--are the only things worth the yearning.

But since little things do add up and make a difference, for better or worse, even Agnes’ hope gets trampled. It is not a wonder with the rough, otherworldly parades she finds here, there and everywhere. Though even the angel despairs, “It’s worse than the worst I’ve imagine”; we the audience might be able to shift our predictably destructive melancholy into an encouraging and childlike attitude. For now, still, if an angel were to plunge into our hateful and brutish earthly routine, she would be “sorry for them” as Agnes is.

Don’t miss the spectacular production, A Dream Play, at The Danny Peterson Theatre in the Morrison Center.

November 13th thru the 15th, and the 19th thru the 22nd at 7:30 pm.

And November 16th and the 23rd at 2:00 pm.

Tickets are free for BSU students with ID, $15 General Admission and $12 for non-BSU students, Boise State Alumni and Seniors. $9 each for groups of 10+.

Burlesque in Boise, Part II: The Red Light Variety Show at Bouquet

9:00 PM As promised, on my way to the stunning and sensational Red Light Variety Show, I am greeted by the shuffle-bang-ding-bop sounds of Mr. Maid Rite and his washboard device. Classy, lanky stilt walkers also make their way up and down sidewalks; the striped big friendly giants are not to be missed. These unusual performance sights on Main Street usher an eager crowd to bask in Burlesque at the Bouquet.

9:05 Volunteers for A.L.P.H.A. (Allies Linked for the Prevention of HIV and AIDS) welcome the excited incomers, collecting donations and selling raffle tickets to benefit their worthwhile organization. On stage, Alejandro Anastasio readies the house, setting an appropriately oddball soundscape with his Theremin. A busy crowd gets in the mood for exhilarating dance, music and art with a drink or three from a hardworking bar staff. Yes, the Bouquet’s liquor license was renewed in time for the Variety Show.

9:20 And here come the Brass Knuckles Burlesque Troop, introduced by the beautiful M.C. Minerva Jayne. Brass Knuckles principle dancers, Erynn Leonardson and Anne McDonald, accompanied by a hearty swing number, use comic grace and posh to dress down from 30s housewife apparel to red and black panache in fishnets and heels. If the Fanny Brice wit still exists in gorgeous dance numbers, these two have certainly got it; Brass Knuckles owns as much fun-spirited theatrics as spicy charm, steamy elegance and silken threads.

9:30 Lynn Fischer as Hoopla manipulates her L.E.D. lit Hula Hoop remarkably, with a particular few moves that transcend my understanding of physics and anatomic possibilities. It is a belly dance for the circus; Hoopla’s hoop is a tamed python friend that brought life to perform in the ring.

9:40 Speaking of belly dancers, Kristin Hill skillfully shakes her hips, rolls her stomach and ripples her shoulder blades with the natural, lovely power of a river’s undercurrent nearing a waterfall. Her “exotic undulations,” as Minerva Jayne describes Kristin’s routine, are pure finesse displayed alluringly in her tangerine lace and jewels.

9:45 In her pole dancing routine, Allison Holley has the extraordinary acrobatics of a lemur. Holding herself steadily upside down or perpendicular to the pole and making elaborate flips and turns as if it is the easiest thing in the world, Allison appears more comfortable on the vertical axis than on the ground. Her strength and agility seems beyond human.

9:50 The astounding Alejandro Anastasio now offers us comedy in a monologue, “The Pros and Cons of Having Only One Hand,” before playing the accordion. Two of Alejandro’s pros give the Bouquet particularly riotous hysterics: “I get 50% off all manicures” and “When I’m cuddling, I never have that pesky arm that falls asleep or gets in the way.”

10:00 And now to delight in the magnificent Brass Knuckles again, dancing to hard and pulsing beats, sleek their in black silks, masks, sparkles and show tune canes. How feisty they are.

10:10 The two dancers in Eclectica create an authoritative and animalistic act. Dressed in emerald green, they spin their shoulders and slide their feet, jerk their ribcages and wave their hips. So sharp and strong, they have a primal force greater than human.

10:15 Twenty minute intermission. The house and performers all take a break, sip on a beverage and buy a few more raffle tickets. The raffle is next, resulting in happy patrons and prizes.

10:45 Now here we go again with Alejandro Anastasio, joined by Cynthia Barrett to create a circus ballet. A purple tutu, stripes and suit tails make robotic repetition in stylized movement even more compelling, as does their enticing use of an umbrella and a golden key the size of an Australian shepherd.

10:50 Kristin Hill’s second act is well loved, as it should be: her belly dance as commanding as an electric storm, just as enchanting as lightning and ferocious as thunder.

11:00 Minerva Jayne’s fun and fiery drag routine features Ruth Wallis’ stirring and classy jazz number “You Gotta Have Boobs.” The Bouquet crowd, high on energized satisfaction, goes nuts for this one, and understandingly so.

11:10 Eclectica also continues with a second act—oh-so elegant and iridescent. When the audience roars in applause, Minerva Jayne remarks, “My goodness, I didn’t have to ask you to give them a hand. You already did!”

11:20 Alejandro returns to the stage once again on Theremin, an instrument that produces high tones and pitches that it senses from vibrations. It is definitively eerie and haunting.

11:35 With her “two biggest fans,” Cynthia Barrett, who has apparently been featured on Ace Magazine and Bad Cat Magazine, returns to the stage. Sweet and saucy, she turns the enormous white feathery fans into wings, tail feathers, clam shells—the props themselves are dazzling dance partners.

11:50 For the third time, the Brass Knuckles Burlesque make the crowd melt, this time to an electrifying rendition of “Putting on the Ritz,” complete with canes, top hats and—as a final smash hit—pasties. Brass Knuckles is theatre with sexy style.

Midnight Applause, bows and celebration. If you were not fortunate enough to see the exhilarating Red Light Variety Show, don’t weep too long. There is serious talk of a New Year’s Eve performance, location TBA. Don’t you dare miss out.

Burlesque in Boise, Part I: The Red Light Variety Show at Bouquet

Next Saturday evening, when you perchance are shuffling down Main Street, frustrated with your usual weekend routine, brooding about your unresolved Halloween costume idea and considering joining an East European circus instead of settling into a mind-numbing nine-to-five lifestyle, keep your eyes open for Mr. Maid Rite striking rhythms with his wash-board “device” and stilt walkers pointing out the newly reopened, recently remodeled Bouquet. These chic and kooky artists will direct you out of your bored doldrums and into an electrifying Red Light Variety Show. I was lucky enough to see a dress rehearsal and could not get enough of the irresistible performances. The show features fifteen performing artists—give or take—who put on a rousing theatre experience not to be missed.

Look forward to the phenomenal Minerva Jayne as M.C. for ferocious dance numbers from the Brass Knuckles Burlesque Troupe, Alejandro Anastasio’s music and monologues, reptilian dance styles from the Eclectica Dance Troup, and powerful shakes and delicate tiptoes from belly dancer Kristin Hill. Minerva will perform her stellar drag routine and Allison Holley will rival acrobats with her impressive pole dancing techniques. It will be a full night of black corsets, fishnet stockings, magnificent hula hoops, bright colors, bold stripes, jewels and feathery fans that carry the diameter of monster truck wheels. There will be red fabric draped throughout the Bouquet, from velour to drops to red curtains. Says Anne MacDonald from Brass Knuckles, “We’ll just have loads of fabric.” There will be classy swing tunes, umbrellas, trampolines and absurdist ballet that Edward Gorey might have conducted.

True, the Bouquet’s suspended liquor license prevents alcohol from being served at the Red Light show. But since the burlesque show is equitable to a dramatic event, the bar will be set up like a theater space. So come for imaginative performances, wild steps, creative music and uproarious laughter. If you need booze to get out of your dreary monotony, make sure to fill up beforehand. There is talk of a possible journey to a nearby bar, to be organized before the show.

Ticket proceeds for the Variety Show will benefit A.L.P.H.A. (Allies Linked for the Prevention of HIV and AIDS). After the phenomenal burlesque event ends and you dread a forever return to mind-numbing suburbia, you need not fear the same tedium for long. The Red Light Variety Show’s New Year’s party is in the works and already sounds spellbinding.

The Red Light Variety Show: Saturday, October 25, 9 PM @ Bouquet, $7

Rehearsal...

Antigone Recharged: The Burial At Thebes at Visual Arts Collective

With the subject of topical theatre still well in mind, the Alley Repertory Theater and their production of Seamus Heaney’s The Burial At Thebes is a sound example. Here is another new company, neck-deep in the second show of its first season. Alley Repertory Theater (ART) describes itself as “a professional, community-driven theater” whose explicit vision is “To be a flagship theater in the Treasure Valley, producing professional and relevant works that engage and entertain audiences, encourage lively dialogues and critical reflection on current events, and elevate community creativity and innovation through the ART of theater.”

ART’s strong mission and vision indicates a need for smart and significant theatre and intention to fill that need in Boise. By producing a contemporary translation of Sophocles’ already relevant Antigone, they are off to a good start. It is the story of a young woman (Antigone, played by Hollis Welsh) who defies her king to observe the law of the gods; it is the story of a leader too bent on protecting his kingdom and too dependent on his royal word (Creon, played by Arthur Glen Hughes); it is the story of that king being so secure in his wisdom that Fate must deal him fitting punishment for his hubris.

Seamus Heaney’s new translation of the Greek tragedy, The Burial At Thebes, was motivated in part by George W. Bush when the Nobel Laureate heard the United States President warn nations, “You’re either with us, or you’re against us.” The production, beyond being one that “encapsulates part of Alley Repertory Theater’s vision,” as Co-Artistic Director Buffie Main notes, is also the company’s first opportunity to bring in guest artists. ART was able to pool money for AEA (Actors’ Equity Association) actor Arthur Glen Hughes and guest director Traven Rice.

From a subtle red, white and blue color scheme in Burial scenic elements, to Creon waving to his chorus as a president would to his press conference, to the four chorus members as journalists armed with notepads, voice recorders and laptops, the Theban environment takes on a clear image of a dignified Oval Office. It is a place of formal and elegant celebration where appearance is everything, from the crisp suit jackets to an impressive black globe that could be a priceless family heirloom. And that is the place where tragedy strikes again and again, one after another, until the majesty spoils to pathetic gloom and blood.

Both Heaney’s translation and the performances promise definite accessibility to the Greek tragedy. Arthur Glen Hughes as Creon gives a healthy dose of charisma to a tyrant, making the king’s ferocious rants even more victorious by mesmerizing appeal. The journalist chorus was a slick source of unlikely wisdom, as was Jesse Bastian as a sweetly nervous guard forced to bear Creon bad news about the disobedient Antigone, an honorable character given a commanding performance by Hollis Welsh.

A noteworthy production, The Burial At Thebes is still playing through Saturday at Visual Arts Collective @ 3638 Osage, Garden City.

It's located in Garden City's new Alley Arts District, just off Chinden Boulevard, behind the Woman of Steel Gallery.

October 10, 11, 16, 17, 18 -- Plus a Special Performance Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 3 weeks out from the Presidential Election.

Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 pm. $15 advanced tickets, $18 at the door.

TICKETS: Individual tickets: $18. Season tickets: $48, or $90 for two.

To order tickets: Please email your ticket request to alleyreptheater@clamcity.com or call them @ (208) 388-4ART [4278].

Peanuts, Live in 2-D: Dog Sees God at Boise State University SUB

Here we have the third production by Daisy’s Madhouse, a theater company that took shape just over a year ago.

Many of the company’s core members, including John Gibbons, Aimee Nell Smith and Jennifer Dunn, were key players in The New Heritage Theatre. After New Heritage shut down in 2007, they formed Daisy’s Madhouse, opening with Reefer Madness in September 2007. Psycho Beach Party was next in line, playing in June. The productions typically perform at Neurolux; Dog Sees God is no different; but also received this special showing at Boise State University, sponsored by The BSU Cultural Center.

Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead is an “unauthorized parody” of the Charles Shultz comic, which ages Charlie Brown and friends into adolescence. The Peanuts cast is thrust into a modern public high school environment and must chew on all the agonizing issues teenagers face. Snoopy dies; CB (Charlie Brown) copes with his grief by pursuing an unrequited attraction for outcast Beethoven (Schroeder); CB gets romantic advice from pothead Van (Linus) and Van’s Sister (Lucy), currently institutionalized for pyromania. The labels continue from there, dressed as CB’s Sister, Matt, Tricia, and Marcy (Sally, Pigpen, Peppermint Patty and Marcie, respectively).

Dog Sees God wants to be a charming account of everyday teenage life in the style of Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It wants to win over its audience so honestly that each ticket holder will go on an immediate mission to empathetically hug five seventeen-year-old friends, as we might after a particularly poignant episode of Wonder Years. Instead, the production digs too far past dramatic circumstances and wades too long in issues, therapy and education. The evening compares better to an after school special or a church skit than a dramatic experience.

These days are loaded with rich, substantial material for artists, performers and writers. Internationally, front-page news’ headlines print daily titles about a global economic crisis, political radicals, suicide bombers, religious radicals, melting habitats, extinct species; worldwide war and terror and death and hatred abound. Artists have more to talk about everyday, a deeper plunge to take through the profane, a higher aim to reach toward the sacred. There is serious motivation to make theatre that strives to generate action in community or even create one performance that resonates so much with an individual that he will closer inspect his personal actions. In times so ripe for topical theatre, why choose a script that ignores this unique opportunity?

Everybody hurts. We have all toiled over awkwardness, teasing, guilt, judgment and more. For many, myself included, high school shoots this personal angst up to a tortured degree. Stereotypical issues cannot help us understand this explosion, however. These hyper-simplified techniques, like labeling, are only used to disassociate people from people by boxing their differences into thoughtless classification systems. After being categorized, the people can be dealt with easily—not as human beings, mind you, but problems to be solved.

Please do not mistake me: Dog Sees God does not openly support stereotypes, nor does Daisy’s Madhouse. After all, this special showing at BSU was sponsored for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual) Diversity Week. On the other hand, it does stress teenage issues with unfair importance. I say unfair because underlining two-dimensional labels only covers up the real, deeper struggle that lasts long after high school graduation when maturing foresight adds complexity to the issues.

Living is hard in all cases. Adolescent turmoil can age into bitter frustration or worse. Hatred survives outside the false social construct of public high school. But why doe we care? It is how we live with and respond to the hurt that makes it interesting. Turmoil, bitterness, frustration and hatred are obviously not included in the highlights that keep us human beings going strong. We instead keep fighting for the more extraordinary things, for each other, for the unknown adventure, or even just to smell sweet air after a torrential downpour.

The mutual understanding of life’s hardships provides enormous potential in art—and theatre especially. This potential must be tapped. Drama is not rooted in issues, but reaches beyond those surface problems to a heightened conflict. Charles Shultz himself made his Peanuts gallery much smarter and more mature than the usual grade school crowd. Though Linus needed his blanket for security, if Charlie Brown needed a wise word, he could spin a philosophic tale without batting an eye for all his timely genius. Schroeder had a better grip on Beethoven’s sonatas than the classical anthologies where he read the notes. So why must a play featuring these characters ignore the kids’ brilliance and only endow them with generalities? None of Schultz’s characters are generic. Let the stage equivalent aim just as high as the comic strip.

As a new company, it is prime time for Daisy’s Madhouse to take a worthwhile risk and create topical theatre. It may be fun to “put silliness and laughter at High Tide,” as John Gibbons describes the pattern in their productions thus far. But why not insert a meatier reward as the target? This new company can push its pattern in a new direction, investing its artists’ talent and energies into much more significant work. Daisy’s Madhouse has the chance to challenge its audience with its dark comedies, making their already absurd subjects much more riotous, provocative and effective.

Basement Season: With Child, Cat Crap and Awesome Color at Area Code House

Basement shows (or house shows) are wonderful displays of community and truly independent rock. They transform old cellars into all-ages havens that celebrate definitively underground music. Local musicians, young bands and excited touring groups arrive at a house where they may expect little or no money in return, only the satisfaction of playing good sounds for people who really want it. Covers are rarely charged at the door, but expect to donate a dollar or five to help touring bands with expensive gas bills on their way to Portland, Seattle or Salt Lake City.

Though performance skill can certainly be hit or miss from one set to the next, suffering an occasional stifled groan is always worth the effort to support neighborhood art in action and learn the newest beat on the street. I find the trip particularly worthwhile when a band or musician with astonishing talent is booked for a North End basement: I imagine how in ten or twenty years, when the artist is internationally adored, I will boast about seeing him, her or them play at a friend’s house in my neighborhood. I will certainly relish those unique bragging rights if and when I get the chance, however selfish the perspective.

Autumn and spring are sweet seasons for basement shows. Temperatures are cool enough to seek comfy indoor weather, not too chilly to avoid leaving home and the school semester is a great excuse for a music break. Some breathtaking house show surprises have popped up recently in fall or spring (such as Paleo and Johanna Kunin). Be on the look out for crude promos on black-and-white coffee card flyers, for they may offer artistic gold.

With Child

One delightful quality about With Child is how frequently they go out of their way to encourage audience participation. Tonight, amongst high school students and equally insecure, bar-aged folk, Elijah (on classical Spanish guitar) immediately puts everyone on the same level by inviting us to stand closer to the band. The argument “I just think it would be really cool to feel your guys’ breath,” is too convincing to refuse, so we all shuffle up inches away from his and Andrew’s frets and feet.

Their experimental-grunge-folk sound has wild energy tonight, creating a fireplace and hot cocoa that sparks the dark basement in perfect timing for a drizzly night. Otis shoots a few clickity-clack-joyful-train beats into the initial measures, making the set decidedly beaming from that moment on. As always, their impressive lyrics are childlike in the best meaning of the word. Added reverb and rock helps With Child aim higher and deeper, so even embittered adults can appreciate their great wisdom. “Unbound and unbridled, eternally lightly moving along” and “No song of mine can change the world but it can surely change me” are two of my favorite With Child poetry tidbits. The lyrics are voracious and hungry for a better world. The band focuses their appetite with practical insight usually seen at playgrounds, not political demonstrations. With Child is the J.M. Barrie of contemporary music and the band’s potential for influence is just that strong.

Cat Crap

Unfortunately, Cat Crap’s musical value does not yet reach beyond the polluted substance that shares their name. This guitar and drums duo is heavily clad in a skull-patch-on-black-leather dress code, industrial distortion and ordinary repetition. As soon as the first few notes blare, the basement’s anger level already meters past red and Cat Crap slips blood lust into the crowd.

With songs like Teriyaki Butt Lady, this band is thirsty for violence with no cause to justify and leaves little space for humanity. Their hostile, primal screams may satisfy the younger Lost Boy Generation in Boise, all hunting for shocked reactions to their savage appearances bought with hard-earned allowance money. Though I can appreciate revolutions, cause-less rebellion is counter-intuitive. So I am just disappointed. Patience is a hard pursuit in a crowd that chooses nasty, unnecessary rowdiness when meaningful music is on the line.

Awesome Color

From Michigan, this three set of guitar, drums and base make their instrumentals thick and raw enough to get soothed by their guitarist’s deep, friendly vocals. Awesome Color sounds like a gentle giant taming a ferocious dragon into domestication. The crowd gets offered a blitzkrieg of riffs picked strong and heavy with an essential dose of sensitivity at the core and soon is done with needless violence for the night.

Bubbly feelings reborn in this crowded basement, the audience gratefully receives these three musicians who know their craft. In moments like this especially, I wonder about the house show artists’ futures. In early underground shows years and years ago, did certain audience imagine fame possible for The Cure, Sonic Youth or Joy Division in a similar fashion? Could Awesome Color have potential realized to that degree?

Whatever the answer, just the question is a nice bit of inspiration easily found at basement shows that keeps me returning every chance I get. Keep listening for the next house show; they are special events.

Tragedy: A Tragedy

Opening night in the theatre is always special. A thrill for actors, a rush for backstage technicians, it is the big night after an exhausting week of technical rehearsals. Just when all the production elements have barely come together, it is the exciting event where months of hard work can pay off in front of that first, eager audience.

The opening performance for Will Eno’s Tragedy: A Tragedy, directed by Ann Klautsch adds a unique honor to an already special night. Stage II, the Boise State Theatre Arts Department’s performance space, is renamed tonight.

It is now officially christened the Danny Peterson Theatre in memory of the great actor, friend and human being, one that Boise’s theatre community lost unexpectedly in July.

Richard Klautsch writes:

"Danny Peterson was one of the most loved and revered theatre artists throughout the entire state of Idaho.


He was a brilliant comedian, a character actor of the highest order, and a lifelong student of theatre.


He loved doing theatre more than anyone I have ever met…and no matter how we nickname the space (the “Peterson”, the “Danny P”, the “Danny”), our days in here will always be a little brighter knowing that his spirit, and our memory of him, will never fade."

The audience for this unique performance is primarily Danny’s friends, family and colleagues who can spend an evening remembering him in a theatre that now shares his name. It is an understatement to say that we will miss this inspirational actor and jovial person who helped start the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Though naming a theatre after Danny P. cannot ease the blow for those who love him, celebrating his life this way might help us forever remember him for all the sweetness and artistry Danny Peterson stood for. And it may help us keep aiming for the same.

As for the performance itself, Tragedy: A Tragedy is in fact a hysterically absurd comedy, one where the sun has set for good and set for good. In this perpetual state of night, only the end of the world is in clear view. Even worse than this imminent apocalypse, we learn about it from a painfully verbose and scholarly news team who only use their immense vocabulary to effectively avoid reporting what is going on.

Will Eno offers a slick satire about how worthless multiple-syllabic words and problematic language can be. News-less news from media anchors and analysts is worse than futile; it does drastic harm when key information studiously gets turned into misinformation. Tragedy clips along in the spirit of a Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. short story as if Mel Brooks and Saturday Night Live also got to collaborate.

Boise State Theatre Arts’ production compares to a live action political cartoon, especially thanks to W.J. Langley scenic design that could have been pulled right off an New Yorker illustration or Peanuts comic strip. The performances fall right in that two-dimensional line, leaning toward stereotypical with over-the-top acting choices that help make the play a riot. Ann Klautsch’s Tragedy turns subversive politics into great fun, so we can exhaust ourselves laughing about how poorly this news team deals with corruption, a tyrannical governor and the end of days itself. Before we know it, the issues sink in deep and we are ready to take action. Seems like good theatre tactics to me.

Tragedy: A Tragedy is still running through next weekend at the Danny Peterson Theatre in the Morrison Center.

You can catch it October 8-11 at 7:30 pm and October 12 at 2:00 pm. Tickets are free for BSU students with ID, $15 General Admission and $12 for non-BSU students.

Revolt Revolt, Notes to Myself and Juntura at the Visual Arts Collective

Revolt Revolt

Tones this deep, this haunting and a vocal range so ominously low should make me want to cry, but Revolt Revolt takes generous advantage of an undeniably rapid pace and successfully shifts such a reaction. This local two-piece group skips past misery as guitarist and drummer push into an addictively upbeat melancholia. Impeccably controlled, fast rhythm and progressive chords clipping along so relentlessly do well to keep my tears in check. Yes, the sound inside this energy bellows heartbreaking and tender. But dancing is the impulse Revolt Revolt stirs up.

Shy folk be warned, the urge to rock your feet can only be restrained for so long. Even the Revolt Revolt facial expressions, so joyfully exaggerated (occasionally to an outrageous degree) will call you from your seat to appreciate them up close on the dance floor. The sound is altogether juicy and electrifying. The soft, enchanting vocals offset such hard and raw instrumentals just enough for a listener to contemplate the Revolt Revolt genre. After much thought and the definition still undecided, the listener will assuredly give up on deciding and go back to absolute enjoyment.

Notes To Myself

I have never seen a sound check performed in Spanish before. As these four gentlemen hail from Spain, it makes for an excellent introduction to Notes To Myself (though I still wonder how much the Visual Art Collective’s house sound technician appreciates working through a translator). Audience attention thus grabbed, these polite European musicians proceed to shake the concrete room with two guitars, one base guitar and a drum set spilling out massive quantities of well-timed math rock. Their opening is hot enough to evaporate milk on a stovetop in under three seconds. With the enormous, cataclysmic instrumentals, the guitarists’ voices are deliciously muffled with added reverb as if lost children are running through underground caverns searching for home.

These men know their instruments. At times the guitarists strum their jolting chords at a pace so incredible that their hand-picking-motion reads as a visual blur. Those moments punch the Notes To Myself sound into a more digitized melody than I have seen human mechanics create. With furious fullness it is raw organic but the perfect speed should come out of prerecorded feeds, not human hands. It is stunning.

Juntura

Yet another set carrying a brilliant time scheme and grossly impressive musicality, local three-man Juntura throw lyrically driven moments into streams where excellently syncopated sounds take over. It is certainly no unhappy accident that they are the third band scheduled tonight who rocks using gorgeous time structure, if accident at all.

Their lyrics haunting and stinging, Juntura points to distressed youth, bored intellectuals and all the disappointment that comes with industrial wealth. Their compositions build a landscape harsh and elegant, a world so desirable, a world soon gruesome. It is a place we all know too well. One that we pine for at the top of twilight and wish we never had seen by 3:00 AM. One lovely and charming lit by gentle neon, soon cold and stinking in an alley by a dumpster. Here is the environment Juntura recreates in sound. The effect it is rich and stunning, a thrilling balance between alluringly pure heights and profane depths.

Perhaps the most delightful quality about Juntura is their definitive adaptability, the sort that is impossible to miss. Following every song or so, the musicians swop positions. The guitarist and bass guitarist switch regularly (as the latter also adds a trumpet now and then while the drummer adds keys) and the drums are seized by the former guitarist for a climactic note near the end of set. Before the night is through, each instrument is traded at least once and Juntura flawlessly maintains their captivating, unified sound throughout a constant merry-go-round of players.

You can listen to their music @ The Boise Picayune's MySpace Page.

For the Sake of the Whole: With Child at Neurolux

When he played solo and called himself Unicorn Feather, Elijah Jensen might begin an evening picking out playful acoustic melodies to complete his bubbly, captivating lyrics. His songs could create better human beings out of his audience if their ears were at all focused. Then he could make the night really interesting with help from a fart-sound-making keychain funneled through distortion equipment. No matter what, Elijah would eventually supplement his music with dance steps or even call the crowd to join him in a dance party—especially on the eve of a rarely celebrated holiday like Leap Year.

By verse as well as attitude, the ever-adaptable Unicorn Feather could easily be confused with Shel Silverstein. Had the famous children’s poet been a regular sight at underground music events in Boise’s North End basements, he and Elijah would at least have plenty of important and highly creative ideas to discuss.

In early spring, Elijah’s friends Andrew and Otis joined him with base guitar and drums to form With Child. The new collaboration brings even more dynamism and edge to the stage and a greater neighborhood sense of camaraderie to this dark, smoky and often gloomy Neurolux.

It is always a joy to see friends working together for the sake of good music. It is a marvel more rare when—for the sake of good music—those individual musicians take care of each other with a constant dose of consideration. I have huge hope for a band when an individual artist’s potential for lasting significance multiplies upon adding collaborators. This not usually the case; adding more people does not always produce a greater influence. When artists go on to show how their delight in each other and their music reaches far beyond reasons of a growing fan base, then I have huge hope for music as a whole.

Now to apply the general statement above to this specific show. For some reason unexplained and possibly still unknown, Elijah’s electric guitar would not cooperate with his amp and thereby could not stay in tune. As this point of frustration continued on for some time (frustrating for the band, I imagine, though hardly to the audience. I hardly realized anything was at all problematic, assuming this was yet another eccentricity true to Unicorn Feather), his strings then proceeded to break. One by one, they snapped off. After losing the fifth string, Elijah put down his guitar. With Child would play their last song using only Andrew’s base, Otis’ drums and Elijah’s voice. In terms of impact, this change of plans was the best moment of the night.

Based on ococcasionally bizarre evenings of Unicorn Feather and this supportive quality of With Child, as mentioned earlier, the last song’s amazing execution should be no surprise. It began with an eloquent stream-of-consciousness build up, grim and also lovely. Though Elijah compared himself to an uptight slam poet bothered after a very bad day, he articulated the intro with impressive narrative. It brought proper attention to the edgiest With Child song in this Friday night lineup. As often happens, Elijah helped the crowd participate by joining us on the dance floor. Still on microphone with trusted bass and drums carrying him along as we moved and jumped and swayed along with him. With Andrew and Otis in control of the instrumentals, a first-time listener could believe the song was written for only bass guitar and drums.

This With Child story tells me that as their songs spark ideas on worldwide betterment and all things higher and deeper that really are possible, so do they act upon these human possibilities. And, as already stated, this gives me great hope.

Loren Reed Draws on Post-It Notes

These colorful stickies carry no shopping lists. They hold no agenda and there are no organized bullet points to review near the end of a workday. Loren Reed stores his Post-It Notes in a personalized red shoebox, hidden from refrigerators, office boards and counter tops. Daily reminders would thereby provide little information anyway.

So what good are they? What use is a notepad without memos or phone numbers?

Plenty.

Loren knows they are good enough for art, at least. A sketched illustration befriends each little square of paper with wit more sweet than an itinerary could possibly offer. This is Post-It Note Art. A few of Loren's handheld drawings represent friendly personified characters with crisp lines and a few lines of text absurd enough to be existential.

For example, his disappointed teddy bear muttering "Hrumph" even though he lives in an eco-friendly home.

Or, Jesus Christ sitting on a felled tree wondering: "What would I do?"

Other Post-Its are more richly textured, surveying bizarre locomotive machines as they roam across dystopian landscapes, vast and frightening. Some seem satirical, some are funny and a little sad, some want to be entire philosophies within themselves (I have one hanging in my bedroom saluting the fox as the snake of the dogs. This drawing is one I can imagine in Antoine de Saint Exupéry's idealistic novella, "The Little Prince"). Loren has stacks of sticky artwork, all of which delightfully created from plenty of cunning care. They all surely help him bypass a little boredom here and there. Also, all of them are only halfway completed. After drawing on the Post-It Notes, Loren puts the tiny art into a copy machine for drafted ground plans and blows them up to the size of a blueprint drawing. These enormous pieces look gritty, rough, or "impressionistic", as he calls them, resembling charcoal drawings than pen and ink.

His work is fast, down and dirty and can be made anywhere. It is interesting, humorous, and highly cost-effective. Hey, with America's dwindling economy stripping the public demand for art, Loren?s Post-It Note Art makes sense.

Loren Reed can hear out your own ideas, ideologies and illusions and give them some character on a sticky note. If you would to commission him for a project or book his work for a show, you can contact him at: ilovethispart@gmail.com


Originally Posted to The Boise Picayune on Tuesday, September 9, 2008

What a Lineup: The universal, Le Fluer and Built to Spill at Knitting Factory

This is my first time visiting the Knitting Factory since its new incarnation. It may be a new paint job on the former Big Easy, the refreshing use of cool gels in the house lamps before show time or an upbeat mood from a public enjoying a Sunday evening on their Labor Day weekend; but this atmosphere is all clean and crisp, open and hopeful.

We launch into The Universal with enormous momentum. Their sound rolling smooth and deep, this "outer space band" is splendidly riveting as usual. The Universal uses time with a ferocious, mathematic intention to rival Rodan. Bright pinging tones and crunching bass reverberate the room. With such brilliant liveliness, no wonder they consider themselves so cosmic in nature.

They are a phenomenal force you might find surprising and certainly astonishing. You can see them next on Wednesday, September 3 at the Visual Arts Collective at 9pm. For a meager $5 cover, don’t you dare miss The Universal again. Their energy and musicality are out if this world. You may think I’m kidding, but why wonder? Go find out yourself.

Next, Le Fleur in such poised formation grace us with their presence. In visibly contained energy, their strong magnetic pull beckons us nearer and nearer. Once we trust out ears and eyes enough to believe that this breathtaking elegance is true (not just too good to be so), the juicy, lush dynamism accumulates into a shockwave electric and magnificent. Audience attention ensured, the grandly postured intelligentsia-powered-rock Le Fleur burst. Building intensity now sparks in glorious fury. Now unruly tigers without mercy, their claws pierce us as the victims of their smart poetry. Their letters burning from rich charismatic fuels of pumping chords and electronica, impassioned beats and surging melodies that burn imprints in our souls forever. We are theirs (You can also see Le Fleur at the VAC on September 3).

Crowd energy simmers. Cut to a wild cheer thrown quick and swallowed short, followed by the sure sound of a community listening.

Cue... Built to Spill.

The clusters of fans close in frenetically, packing tight on the Knitting Factory floor to allow more and more in. We are together all ears and eyes on deck in full focus on Perfect from Now On as Boise’s beloved success story perform the 1997 album in full. It’s hearty, throbbing and special. A Boise united here for independent music. For art beautiful and simply elegant. Rooted in things familiar aimed toward riotous depths and enormous heights. For sweet local things with global potential. Built to Spill is all that. And so are here for them now at yet another send-off for old friends preparing for a European tour. It is hope represented for every Boise artist, but most especially those independent, starving and hardworking.

In the thick of the album now, we are enthralled and cannot get enough. Anyone who sees performances regularly learns to sense an audience who is listening. This one is captivated, absorbing every note. Like hearing the sunrise bringing a new dawn, we listening through immersion, amongst dew drops on fresh blossoms opening in finch songs to each new golden ray multiplying in color and warmth. This is how to hear the sun rise and how we now dive into each bang-crash of drums and humming love-chords sweet and piercing. These sounds and words are from here, from the city where we live. All Boise (represented by a swarming Knitting Factory) is hanging on this Built to Spill. And so we cheer.

This is noise worth local pride. Of course we demand Built to Spill continue once Perfect from Now On concludes, and we are generously appeased with You Were Right from Keep It Like a Secret in return. How satisfying.

Originally Posted to The Boise Picayune on Tuesday, September 2, 2008

These Boys Could Make me a Country Music Fan: Poke at Neurolux

With the distinct rip of a distortion peddle, Poke calls Wednesday night Neuroluxians away from nightcap table chats and into easy submission on the dance floor. Thus four local dudes start the room a-cookin’ so a midweek Boise crowd can handle a hot Slim Cessna’s Auto Club from Denver. Armed in Western apparel, rough n’ ready attitudes and Frontman Brad Deteau’s down-home-on-the-Texas-ranch dialect, Poke has some unmistakably country roots.

Another unmistakable root is the coarse, strained one that quickly forms a knot between my shoulder blades when I pass country rock stations during those rare occasions that I take a chance touring the radio waves. All right, all right. I admit that my aversion to country music is a biased, unfair opinion based on the stereotypes I eagerly attempt to break down everyday. So call me a hypocrite. True, not all contemporary country stars are well-dressed, pretty-boys who bemoan loss and luckless lives with flawless, toothy grins and, holding up an American apple pie as their one and only hope, wait patiently for a sweet check in the mail.

I can hear Poke wailing a different tune. They still have my attention twenty minutes into the set and my focus on them only grows. A gruff force and hard hitting beats, plenty of them, rip a more rebellious note than I have heard most contemporary country artists risk. This is the edge of old time rock stemming from backwoods, two-teeth, six-string jammers on a dilapidated family cabin porch at suppertime. Lead guitarist Bobby “Speedy” Gray (who handed out plenty of colorful wooden noisemakers after their sound check) even poses his guitar to his hip like a shotgun to prove his melodic point early on, and then draws it low and loose a few songs later like Buddy Holly would.

As they combine a warped chord sequence to rival Fugazi, a hammering tempo as scathing as The Pogues and throaty vocals echoing Ian Curtis of Joy Division, Poke has an attitude more punk rock than country western. Mixing that defiance with Dustin Sandmeyer’s playful shuffle on Doghouse Bass, a highly energized drum sequence from Jason Kappel and hearty portions of hootin’ and hollerin’ helps temper my rockabilly frustrations.

Just seeing foundations of rock and roll from a country band instead of whiney pseudo-rock stars pretending to play with passion while only fighting for fashion gives me hope.

While Poke offers one last tune with Speedy Gray again surprising me by needling a shrieking melody over his head with his ax up on his back, I am certain a few metal heroes would be proud to call him “son”. And before exiting the stage for Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Poke shouts out for the third time to adoring fans gathered below, “What’s that, country?” This welcomes another eager response of, “Fuck yeah, it’s country!” And with that, the rowdy-riffs from this country band give my spur-soured head something new to chew on. At least someone has some thick, juicy chords on their hands.

It may be time to give contemporary country music another chance.

Originally Posted to The Boise Picayune on Thursday, August 28, 2008

Music and Momosas: Thomas Paul at the red Feather Lounge Sunday Brunch

Songwriter and solo artist Thomas Paul keeps his proverbial deck of musical cards stacked with a wide variety of sounds and genres. A guitarist whose pipes pack an impressive punch, Thomas is always ready to deal out a phat beat, hit a blue note and a minor chord with his guitar pick, twang a sweet folk string or rock out with the best of ‘em. The style of choice depends where he’s playing that night and for whom. Keeping an ear to the audience, Thomas is not afraid to adjust his tempo, genre or sound altogether from one gig to another.

This past Sunday afternoon at Red Feather, he picks his deck of cover songs from a sleeve tailored especially for these brunch performances. This intimate, posh lounge environment calls for an atmospheric soundtrack as patrons sip on mimosas over eggs Benedict, and covers filtered through Mr. Paul’s haunting voice fit the location beautifully.

Regarding his repertoire of covers: as a songwriter himself, Thomas goes far beyond racking up a list of Lite FM or Classic Rock top hits, picking out a basic chord structure and repeating note for note what I could hear off my buddy’s iTunes account. He rearranges each one and makes it his own. Hearing “Toxic” through Thomas’ sleek finger picking and melancholic voice, I was impressed-as-usual by his brilliant writing. After two or three more listens, I remembered the song from a Brittany Spears music video I had seen years before—not a viewing experience I’m proud to admit. This new piercing arrangement let me appreciate the stinging melody and driving lyrics for what they’re worth. No longer the original dance-beat landscape where a busty Spears can shake her tailfeather, I can see how worthwhile “Toxic” can be.

Even the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” is reborn in Thomas Paul’s hands as he changes its tempo with a new strum pattern resembling an impatient toe-tap. It’s up and down like clockwork from a grandfather clock on speed. Or a ticking time bomb. Thomas’ simple rhythmic choice nicely suits Lennon and McCartney’s classic and takes it to a different level. The song’s thematic elements centering on the everyday life (and death) of hardworking people caught in a lower class struggle get new found strength when Thomas hits a new audience hard with the original message.

Thomas continues with “Subterranean Homesick Alien” by Radiohead, and though he’s only one guitar and one voice in a crowded brunch time venue, his sound still carries the visceral orchestral authority to make Thom Yorke proud.

When not playing solo, Thomas joins a long line of excellent talent at shows inside Boise and out. A great leader and sideman, he frequents Penguilly’s, Neurolux, Terrapin Station, Moon’s Kitchen and more with full bands varying in sound and genre as much as Thomas does from place to place and crowd to crowd. It’s all a choice in the cards he plays that night. Thomas Paul’s adaptability, witty banter between sets and ever-evolving style can keep anyone guessing about which deck he pulls out at a particular show, but rest assured it will be a solid performance every night. We’re lucky to have him in Boise.

For upcoming shows, visit Thomas Paul’s MySpace Page

Originally Posted to The Boise Picayune on Tuesday, August 26, 2008