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These two characters complement each other nicely, and their chemistry becomes one of the best elements of Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men, showing at Actor's Cabaret through this weekend. Both Kaffee (Adam Fitzhugh) and Galloway (Mindy Beth Nirenstein) are somewhat naïve, and in each of their different ways, they need to win this case: Kaffee to prove that he can step out of the lingering shadow left by his father's legacy; Galloway to prove her own integrity. As the investigation gradually climbs higher and higher into the military's ranks, things become exceedingly complex. First, Kaffee, Galloway, and associate Sam Weinberg (Ben Newman) must wrestle statements from their clients Dawson and Downey, who refuse to incriminate anyone in regard to the death of Pfc. Santiago. Next, they must question their commanding officer, the unnerving Lieutenant Kendrick (Bruce McArthur), whose enraged dominance of his troops and blatant arrogance makes the investigation team suspicious. Finally, the trio encounters Colonel Nathan Jessep (Mark Wm. Garner) who is diabolic, manipulative, and cruel, but also completely untouchable. Galloway wants to go after him, but Kaffee holds her back. The trial begins and pressure intensifies as nothing goes the way the defense team would like. There are unanswered questions, unfollowed leads and unsolved mysteries tripping them up at every turn. The three associates, who have now become friends, squabble among themselves as they try to find a way to save their clients from spending decades in prison. As new clues present themselves, Kaffee, Galloway and Weinberg realize this case goes far beyond an accident resulting in an unintentional death. The early '90s stereotyped blueprints drawn up for each character by popular TV writer Aaron Sorkin ("The West Wing") are deepened and colored by the talented cast. Adam Fitzhugh is brilliantly nuanced as Daniel Kaffee, often displaying profound tenderness and boyish nonchalance side-by-side. Mindy Beth Nirenstein holds her own as the only woman in an otherwise all-male cast. Her neurotic, lonely Joanne Galloway is magnificent. Ben Newman brings incredible charisma and spirit to his portrayal of Sam Weinberg in the role that is probably the most human in the script. The supporting cast is also delightful: Mark Wm. Garner is fabulously sleazy in the role of Nathan Jessep; Bruce McArthur is terrifying in his portrayal of the insane Lieutenant Kendrick; Kevin Dills is exuberant and funny as a young Corporal; Devin Vega is heart-wrenching as William Santiago; Brandon Burkeen brings wit and personality to his portrayal of government prosecutor Jack Ross; and Jesse Lally is perfect in the role of Dawson, a man trained to hardheartedness. The rest of the cast (H. Thomas Anderson, Matt Bonham, William Campbell, Jason Darcy, Autumn Omogrosso, Jed H. Shapiro, Travis Suggs, and Steve Yates) provides strong performances that hold the story up from under. Yet even with so many talented actors and Joe Zingo's obvious directorial experience at the helm, A Few Good Men repeatedly misses its mark. The transitions and scene changes are difficult, and though Zingo handles them with grace and skill, the seams are still visible. The script is pedestrian, even hokey, and the story failed to hold my interest and seemed somewhat pointless. Although there were, in the end, moral lessons learned and bonds built, the outcome did not satisfy me. Nevertheless, A Few Good Men is well acted and well directed. The final performances are this weekend at Actor's Cabaret.
An agreement of subject, form and palette unites these paintings, which were all made within the last 11 months. Cruson said he likes to work in series, a habit from his printmaker days. An Asian influence present in his earlier abstract paintings and prints carries over in the borders that set off these new, reality-based paintings. A "quietness of colors" characterized his earlier palette, he said, but here he uses bolder colors -- light blues, greens, low intensity sienna, pale yellows, a rich, red earth color and the blue-violet of long evening shadows. Common features include a horizon line with sky above, and a highway, road or trail that connects the scene to the outside world. The color of the sky changes from painting to painting, sometimes brilliant blue, other times yellow or pale blue-gray. The road might be a two-lane blacktop with a broken-line dividing strip or a barely discernible line that cuts through adjacent hills.
Moving toward greater abstraction, Blue Sky Horizon presents an enigmatic landscape. Cutting across the bottom of the painting is a curving blacktop, while contoured fields occupy the middle ground. The plowed fields curve around a mysterious, sand-colored region that can be seen variously as a concave bowl dotted with scrub, a flat wetlands or a convex hill. Puzzle it out for yourself, because this is a stunning piece any way you look at it. "There's a certain amount of design in my work," Cruson said, "but this is so exciting. I've worked with images before, but this is different. The way the materials are handled is different." The completed picture is not what brings him pleasure, he said, but "delight in the process of discovery." He finds "satisfaction in the doing," doesn't feel ownership of his work once it's done, and doesn't keep his paintings. "If something happened in the material of a specific piece, I might hold on to that painting," he said, contemplatively. Elegance and clarity imbue Cruson's work, and this show may be as simple as "Following the Road" suggests -- just driving through Eastern Oregon and really looking at the space and texture of its flat, rolling hills. Or it may be as complicated as a mature artist -- whose work at any stage of his career stands out for its beauty -- following a new path, an intuitive act of circling around a creative center that is both ambiguous and unknowable. Dr. Mats and Nonie Fish present this exhibit with the gallery, and it's a show not to be missed.
Five talented writers will read on the UO campus this week. Kicking things off, nonfiction writer Debra Gwartney and poet Shelly Withrow read at 8 pm, April 26, at Gerlinger Hall. Gwartney will read from an unfinished manuscript, some of which has been published in the journal, 4th Genre. "Tenderloin: A Memoir" was published in Creative Nonfiction journal, Number 16. Gwartney teaches undergrad courses in fiction and nonfiction. She won Oregon Quarterly magazine's 2000 Northwest Perspectives Essay contest, judged by Kim Stafford, as well as the 2000 Washington Square Review fiction contest, judged by E.L. Doctorow. Withrow, who teaches advanced poetry at the UO Creative Writing Program, has been published in such journals as Black Warrior Review, Hubbub and Orion Afield. She has received an individual artist grant form the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and has had residencies at the Hedgebrook and Djerassi writing colonies. On April 30, Richard Gordon reads at 7:30 pm in the Knight Library Browsing Room. Gordon will read from his recently published Gospel of the Open Road : According to Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau (iUniversity Press, 2001). Roy Parvin, author of In the Snow Forest: Three Novellas (Norton, 2000), will read at 7:30 pm May 1 in the Knight Library Browsing Room. The audience will get "the world debut" of the first chapter of a novel in-progress that's contracted to Norton. I reviewed Parvin's collection of novellas in EW's Winter 2000 Reading Issue. They are lean, unpretentious but emotionally satisfying tales of complex characters whose lives are shaped in part by the wild nature around them. Surprising, indelible images remain from these stories. The first novella, "Betty Hutton," has been selected for Best American Short Stories 2001 by guest editor Barbara Kingsolver. Parvin said its inclusion is "sort of like winning an Oscar or a Grammy in writer circles." All three stories are nominated for Pushcart Awards. James Houston, author of Snow Mountain Passage (Knopf, 2001), reads at 7:30 pm on May 2 in the Knight Library Browsing Room. This terrific new novel tells the story of one family that was part of the ill-fated attempt to reach California in the terrible winter of 1846-47. The story is told through two voices: the diary of an 80-year-old woman, Patty Reed, who was a child at the time, and a third-person narrative that follows the actions and choices of her father, James Frazier Reed, the de facto leader of a group of settlers trying to reach the fabled land. The story of the Donner Party has been told numerous times, but Houston's ability to share with readers not only the horrifying aspects of the stormy winter spent on the wrong side of the pass but also the trials awaiting emigrants in the new country, California, that they had dreamed about. Reed, ejected from the wagon train after an accident in which a man was killed, goes ahead, crossing the pass just days before his wife and four children were to follow. But the party arrives at the pass a scant 24 hours too late. Caught in a bitter storm at the summit, they are forced to retreat to flat land, where they remained for four desperate months. Splitting the family but retaining these two voices speaking of their radically different experiences of the time is a brilliant literary device, and Houston takes full writerly pleasure in it, using it to express the human emotions flooding the characters as the ordeal goes on. Those on both sides of the mountain examine what went wrong. Forgiveness and compassion come from their suffering, just as yearning for California's garden led them to sacrifice the safety and comfort of home for life on the trail. Book Notes: UO graduate
Joe Sutton reads from Morning Pages (Creative Arts, 2001) at 7:30 pm
in the UO Knight Library Browsing Room. At 4pm on May 7 in Gerlinger Lounge, Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Nicholas D. Kristof delivers the 2001 Ruhl Lecture
on ethical dilemmas faced by foreign correspondents. Kristof, a native Oregonian,
is associate managing editor for The New York Times and has written, with
his wife Sheryl WuDunn, a novel to be published by Knopf this fall, Thunder from
the East. On May 8 at 7:30 pm in the UO Knight Library Browsing Room, Rick
Williams will show slides from his book, Working Hands.
The two works that preceded 2001 in some respects did that, too. Paul Vasterling's The Seasons, danced to portions of Antonio Vivaldi's score (orchestrated by the choreographer), featured humorous manipulations of ballet technique, among them "he-man" gestures and squared off port-de-bras for the men, particularly well executed by the departing Matthew Christensen. The choreography for the finale, which featured the entire ensemble of 12 dancers, was as intricately designed as the music -- simultaneously formal and spontaneous, the way Vivaldi's score sounds. Pimble's Slip Stream, to a score by Michael Nyland this listener wanted to slap at as she would a marauding mosquito, takes these dancers to the ground, the women performing in soft slippers on half toe, the men in acrobatic floor rolls. Like The Seasons, it loosens up the classical line and spinal placement of these impeccably schooled dancers. It also prepares the eye for the evening's centerpiece. 2001 is an extraordinary display of Pimble's sure, experienced choreographic hand as well as her risk-taking intellectual approach to her work. But the six-section piece still needed some fine-tuning on Saturday night, particularly in the second movement where the design concept of costumes and lights representing shooting stars made the shape of the dancing invisible to the audience. Nevertheless, it's a smashing piece, filled with energy and a unique blend of classical ballet, modern movement, gymnastics and visual design. The mobile at the end of the third movement with the dancers swinging through space, the Mars section with its martial arts movement and thundering rhythms from composer Gustav Holst, and the finale with Amy Panganiban's fantastic costumes all come together in a work that shows Pimble at her peak. As is Jennifer McNamara, who is leaving the company after 11 years of providing considerable inspiration for Pimble, with whom she has collaborated in The Skinwalkers and other contemporary works. Her solo on a plexiglass disc in 2001, her long, flexible body slicing the air, can be added to a collection of unforgettable images that among others includes her roasting swan in Carmina Burana.
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