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Performance
Recreating a Life:
Two one-act world premieres open.
Tough Questions: UO offers monolithic work; the Rep kicks into gear.
Books
The Gift Travels:
Two poets honor their mentor. PLUS: Booknotes.
Gardening
Modest Moosewoods:
Plant vibrant viburnums for groundcover and fall color.
Morsels
Day by Delectable Day:
Mini-reviews of area restaurants.
Recreating
a Life
Two one-act world premieres
open.
By Aria
Seligmann
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Sparky Roberts
directs Nancy Hopps in Raw Canvas.
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Two world premieres by internationally acclaimed playwright Barratt
Walton, Raw Canvas and The Price of Admission, grace the Lord
Leebrick stage beginning Thursday, Nov. 8. The double bill of one-person shows, dubbed
Deux Femmes, stars Sparky Roberts and Nancy Hopps.
Walton is known locally for Buddha's Aunt, which premiered
at the Women in Theatre Festival a few years ago and later played at Lord Leebrick,
and most recently for Shakespeare's Dog, which premiered at the famous Edinburgh
Fringe Festival. Walton has worked extensively with Roberts and Hopps. Roberts directed
Buddha's Aunt and Shakespeare's Dog, and worked with Hopps in Eugene
Chamber Theatre's Descent of Inanna.
Raw Canvas is based on the life of the late Irish-Australian
painter, Helen Marshall, who was also Walton's mother-in-law. Marshall left Ireland
at age 16, traveled to Australia, got married and had children. Years later, she
moved to Europe to further her painting career. Raw Canvas explores the moment
at which she must make a crucial decision: to stay in Europe, where she can feed
her creative life as a painter and further her relationship with a younger lover,
or return to her husband and children in Australia. Either choice has its benefits
and its drawbacks.
Walton had Hopps in mind from the start. "Nancy and I had
worked together on the Inanna project and she liked [Buddha's Aunt]. So, we
decided it would be fun to write a monologue for her." Walton says that Hopps
was "a natural for the role." Though her personality is very different
from that of Helen Marshall, she resembles her in being "tiny, energetic, and
filled with artistry" and could related to the "difficult balancing act
of being a mother, companion and creative artist," says Walton. Further, says
Walton, the script makes use of Hopps's "many talents -- her comic timing, her
sensitivity, and her wonderful singing voice."
To train for the role that keeps her onstage for an hour by herself,
Hopps worked with painter Peg Coe, who taught her how to hold a paintbrush and look
at a canvas, and with a choreographer who taught her how to dance an Irish jig. Roberts
directs.
Hopps also collaborated with Walton on the development of the script.
Rosalyn is different from real-life Helen -- the character and incidents have been
fictionalized and the decision Rosalyn makes is different from Helen's. Hopps had
"strong feelings" about Rosalyn's ultimate decision "being more about
her life than which guy she was going to end up with -- it's about her own fulfillment
and passions. Men are merely the mirrors of what's going on within her," Hopps
says.
The second Walton work is The Price of Admission, starring
Sparky Roberts, directed by Mark Siegel. While Roberts was visiting Walton in Holland,
working as director and consultant on Shakespeare's Dog, the two went to Amsterdam
and saw a "Christmas Cabaret" produced by Xaviera Hollander (of Happy
Hooker fame.) At one point, Hollander got up during the show and started performing,
and handed the microphone to Roberts, who rose to the occasion. "I remember
whispering to Sparky that I should write a performance piece for her, inspired by
our hostess," recalls Walton.
Deciding it would be a good companion piece to the more serious
Raw Canvas, Walton pulled it together. "The theme is a woman with a shady
past going full speed ahead into what she hopes is a classier future," says
Walton.
The character is Ruthie Jacobs, or "Tosca della Rothenburg."
She has left behind her past as cook and minor porn actress and is now the proprietess
of an inherited property in rural Oregon that she is converting into a romantic dining
spot, complete with entertainment.
"I aimed for Sparky's high-energy physical comedy and lots
of action," says Walton.
"It's fun because Barratt incorporated certain of my own affectations
and idiosyncracies into the character," says Roberts. "What a hoot, to
parody myself while playing someone else." Roberts also adds that the 35-minute
piece is "is strictly for adults -- too risqué for people under 16."
Deux Femmes opens at 8 pm Thursday, Nov. 8 at Lord Leebrick
and runs for two weekends only.
Tough
Questions
UO offers monolith work;
the Rep kicks into gear.
By Aria
Seligmann
University Theatre opens this season with Tony Kushner's Angels
in America, Part 2: Perestroika, the second part of a monolith work, in terms
of length and significance, that opened with part one last spring. Part One: Millenium
Approaches, chronicled the lives of two couples trying to cope with the disintegration
of their relationships. AIDS and its impact on the homosexual community is the crux,
but the themes of emotional pain and human interaction in difficult times transcends
the lives of individuals into a broader context that incorporates wider social and
political concerns.
The setting is New York, and even though the play takes place during
the Reagan years and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, director John Schmor points
out that not only is the play still compelling, but some of the lines are eerily
poignant today.
Part Two: Perestroika is the culmination of events.
It is highly theatrical, mixing fantasy and realism, humor and pathos. Part one was
technically difficult, but part two is still wilder and crazier, with even more technical
challenges than part one. The UO theater department also hired a professional stage
company to come in to up the ante in effects.
If the challenging script and staging weren't enough, the students
get even more of a workout. The theater is also reviving part one for those who missed
it last spring, and will be performing it in tandem with part two. "It's very
challenging and intense to rehearse two three-hour shows, with actors playing many
roles," says Schmor.
Oh, and there's one more thing: the show has three new actors this
year. Whew.
But Schmor adds that because production elements were already in
place from last year: lights, sound, costumes; the increase in technical difficulty
and the acting challenge isn't as overwhelming as it could be.
Can people see the second part without having seen the first? Schmor
says absolutely, it stands alone, and it would even work to see the two parts in
reverse order, starting with the chaos, then going back to see what led up to it.
What's satisfying and significant about part two is that it "really
takes to task political positions that aren't critically examined, including knee-jerk
patriotism," says Schmor. "So yeah, some people who were OK with it last
spring may not be OK with it this fall."
But, he's quick to add, "that's what theater does best it
unsettles how you think and how you view your relationships." Ultimately, the
play is affirming. "The ending is a blessing on life and moving forward despite
great loss or fear."
No, that doesn't give it away. It just gets you through it, as
you ponder such questions as, says Schmor, "how we wrestle with our angels and
what we think of heaven when it calls."
Angels in America: Part Two: Perestroika opens Nov. 2.
Part One: Millenium Approaches opens the following weekend at Robinson Theatre,
UO campus. Check calendar for details.
Back to Top
The Gift Travels
Two poets honor their
mentor.
By Lois Wadsworth
 HOLDING OUR OWN: The Selected Poems of Ann Stanford. Edited by Maxine
Scates and David Trinidad. Copper Canyon Press, 2001. Paperback, $16.
When you discover a poet whose profound work touches you deeply,
you want to tell everyone you know. If she was also your teacher, mentor and the
inspiration for your decision to become a poet, you feel called to celebrate her
work. And if her poetry is no longer in print, you act. Maxine Scates and David Trinidad
decided to bring Ann Stanford's poetry back, and they found in Copper Canyon Press
a prestigious small press eager to publish 187 poems by a poet described by The
Los Angeles Times as "a brilliant poet -- one of the important writers of
our time."
Scates and Trinidad both attended California State University,
Northridge in the early 1970s and studied with Stanford. "She raised four kids,
got her Ph.D. in the early 1960s and taught at Northridge for 25 years," Scates
said. "She was the first woman named Teacher of the Year in the California system."
Trinidad and Scates did not meet at Northridge, but each experienced being praised
by Stanford for their first poems, and both have made poetry their life's work.
"She knew she had touched me because I told her," Scates
said, "but she couldn't have known she affected us the way she did. ... The
gift travels." Trinidad agreed. "In both of our cases she saw evidence
of her impact. Max and I have talked about how the encouragement she gave was so
minimal. 'I like this,' she might say. It took so little to encourage me," Trinidad
said. "We realized we could give her poetry back to the world so people can
hear her again," Scates said. "Maybe there's someone in Southern
California who will see this world she described."
Stanford was prolific, producing eight books of poetry over five
decades as well as other work, but her poems were out of print when she died in 1987
at age 70. "It's almost inexplicable how this happened to her work," Scates
said. "She had won every prestigious award, including being the chair of the
Pulitzer committee for poetry in 1984."
Trinidad echoed Scates' dismay. "She was very present, in
print, and then gone," he said. "Her canonization in California was away
from the literary power of the East, but Ann's is one of the voices that will stay."
Also, he noted, she believed that her work would last.
Both editors hold this certainty that Stanford's work will endure.
"She is a poet of the natural world and of California," Scates said. "She
wrote about the changes in that world -- the unnatural changes. In her work, change
is always on the horizon. She wrote about the steady erosion of place." But
Stanford's poetry also "tells you how to resist the destruction of the environment,
how to live a balanced life," Scates said. "Her larger theme is: 'Nothing
is changeless.'"
"This is a poet who tells us what is coming by reporting what
is being lost," Trinidad writes in his foreword. She wrote about "the cost
of progress, the vanishing wildness" of Southern California," and also
about contemporary events in poems such as "The Death of the President."
Trinidad said Stanford was "very in-tune with the world. She was keenly aware
of the troubles of the world but doesn't let it completely color her work. She's
watching." Scates read "Our Town," Stanford's response to Kent State,
in spring 1990 at a gathering of poets on the 25th anniversary of the shootings.
"Her poems told me what growing old would be like," Trinidad
said, "and how discipline and ethics are the basis of a clear existence."
Scates said, "She once said to me that poetry isn't going to give you
a lot. ...There's a kind of transparency to her work, but it's wonderfully subversive.
Her last poems are about a poet's life. The work is stripped bare, prismatic, refracting
light from every angle."
Both agreed that selecting the poems for the collection and writing
about Stanford's work was a positive process, a way to reciprocate what she has meant
to them. Trinidad said it took him a month to write his foreword. "It was a
coming-of-age time for me," he said. "I put it all in there." Scates
described the "very strange" experience of finding letters she had written
to Stanford among the 87 uncatalogued boxes of her papers in the Huntington Museum
in Los Angeles.
The Stanford poems selected by these devoted poets are presented
in chronological order. Trinidad and Scates made their choices, and there was no
overlap in their selections. Read their forewords, and see if you can tell who selected
the poems you like best. I couldn't.
Trinidad's most recent collection is Plasticville (Turtle
Point Press, 2000). He lives in New York City and teaches poetry at Rutgers and the
New School. In October, he read from Stanford's book at the New School.
Scates lives in Eugene and won the 1990 Oregon Book Award in poetry
for her collection, Toluca Street (University of Pittsburg Press, 1989). She
will read twice this month -- Stanford's poems at 7:30 pm on Nov. 13 at the UO in
the Browsing Room, Knight Library, and her own new work at 7 pm on Nov. 20, upstairs
at the Eugene Public Library.
Book Notes:
Eugene poet and editor Eric Muller receives the
Stewart H. Holbrook Award for Outstanding Contributions to Oregon's Literary Life
at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony at 7:30 pm, Nov. 8, at the Scottish Rite center
in Portland.(503) 227-2583. ...James Welch reads from The Heartsong of
Charging Elk at 7:30 pm Nov. 8, upstairs at the UO Bookstore. ...Jonathan
Neske is a featured reader at 5 pm Nov. 10 at Tsunami Books' Poetry in the Round.
...Maxine Scates reads from Holding Our Own: The Selected Poetry of Ann
Stanford at 7:30 pm Nov. 13, UO Knight Library Browsing Room. ...Portland poet
Willa Schenberg reads from her second collection, The Margins of the World,
at 7 pm Nov. 13 at Mother Kali's Books. ...Author of A People's History of the
United States, historian and professor emeritus at Boston University Howard
Zinn will speak on "The Uses of History" at 7:30 pm on Nov. 13 in OSU's
LaSells Stewart Center. ...33rd Annual Book Browse and Tea 10am-5pm Nov. 14 at 4903
Blanton Rd. $3 donation. Award-winning writer John Daniel reads from a work
in progress at 7:30 pm Nov. 15 in the UO Knight Library Browsing Room. ...Noted primatologist
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mother Nature, will present the Cressman
Lecture in the Humanities at 4 pm on Nov. 16 in 177 Lawrence Hall, UO. A reception
and book signing will follow. ...Jesse Reeder reads from Black Holes and
Energy Pirates at 7:30 pm, Nov. 15 at UO Bookstore, upstairs. ...G.L. Morrison
is the featured reader at 5 pm Nov. 17 Tsunami Books' Poetry in the Round series.
...Bob Kono reads from his military novel, The Last Fox, at 7:30 pm,
Nov. 20, UO Knight Library. ...Maxine Scates reads new poems, and Molly
Gloss reads from Wild Life at 7 pm Nov. 20 upstairs at the Eugene Public
Library. ...Nancy Hopps will speak on "Now More Than Ever, Peace Must
Begin Within," based on her relaxation and stress management audio titles, at
7:30 pm Nov. 27 in UO Knight Library Browsing Room. ...Irish novelist, playwright,
biographer and essayist Edna O'Brien reads at 7:30 pm Nov. 28 in Arlene Schnitzer
Concert Hall for Portland Arts and Lectures series. (503) 227-2583. ...Altogether
some 70 writers, artists and musicians will take part in this year's free Authors
and Artists Fair. Refreshments will be available, and a portion of sales at the
events benefits the Eugene Library Foundation. Some 28 authors will sign books from
7-10 pm on Dec. 8 at the Eugene Public Library downtown. From 7-10 pm Dec. 1 the
Sheldon branch library will feature science fiction and fantasy authors. From 1-3
pm on Dec. 2 at the Bethel branch library, seven authors and illustrators will sign
their children's books. ...Leonard Cirino is the featured reader at 5 pm Dec.
8, Tsunami Books' Poetry in the Round
series.
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Modest Moosewoods
Plant vibrant viburnums
for groundcover and fall color.
By Rachel Foster
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Viburnum setigerum
(tea viburnum).
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Driving around Eugene in mid-October, when there was little fall foliage
color to see and not much sign there ever would be, I noticed a striking exception.
It was the recurring pinky-red of the common snowball viburnum, Viburnum opulus.
Two weeks later there was color in abundance and, remarkably, those viburnums were
still contributing. Even wind and rain hadn't bullied the leaves off them. I was
reminded of how much deciduous viburnums have to offer, and how under-appreciated
they are in this part of the world.
In the Pacific Northwest, the most commonly planted viburnum is
the evergreen V. davidii, a plant with glossy, heavily veined leaves and small
but vivid blue berries. This is a beautiful plant. It is also a unique and serviceable
groundcover, and in that role it has been used and over-used to such an extent that
many people won't have it in their gardens. Say the word viburnum to them and their
lips curl in contempt.
Deciduous viburnums, on the other hand, like deciduous shrubs in
general, are not used enough. With so many evergreens available in our benign climate
we tend to think evergreen first, forgetting that small-scale fall color and winter
twiggery are also valuable in home landscapes. In other parts of North America, where
deciduous shrubs are mainstays, viburnums rank first in useful and beautiful choices.
Viburnum species occur in Asia, Europe, and America. For the most
part, they come under the heading of large shrubs. They are a wonderful addition
to big mixed hedges designed as windbreaks or screening between neighboring properties.
Almost all are useful to wildlife, for nectar, shelter, or berries, or all three.
Old-world names for deciduous kinds include guelder rose and wayfaring tree.
In North America, where every region has at least a handful of
species, their names include squashberry, blackhaw and moosewood. Colorful as they
are, these names are virtually useless in identification, as they are applied to
different species in different areas of the country.
Of the many US natives, only three occur in the Pacific Northwest:
Viburnum trilobum (high-bush cranberry), V. edule (moosewood) and V.
ellipticum (Oregon viburnum). They are a little hard to find, but the last is
available from Doak Creek Native Plant Nursery (open by appointment, 541-484-9206)
and Wallace Hansen in Salem lists V. edule.
Viburnum trilobum is very similar to the European V.
opulus, an old-fashioned favorite with showy flowers and that distinctive fall
color. It is large and upright, reaching the dimensions of a small tree in time but
always multi-stemmed.
Utterly different and almost as popular is V. plicatum tomentosum
(doublefile viburnum). The variety 'Mariesii' can grow 10 feet high and a huge, ground-hugging
15 feet in width. Though large, both these viburnums are worth planting in gardens
provided you recognize they will be big and give them room to develop into fine specimens.
Most deciduous viburnums have good fall color. Not the most fiery
of shades, perhaps, but sometimes it's gorgeous. I recently visited Gossler Farms
nursery, where there are several varieties growing in and around the display garden,
and asked Roger Gossler to point out a few of his favorites. We first looked at Viburnum
'Winterthur', a selection of the US native V. nudum. His plant was a fabulous
melange of purple-red and lighter shades with blue-black fruit. (It had first been
white, then pink before it turned.)
Impressed with "Winterthur' I asked Roger if it was the best
for fall color. "Well, one of the best," he said, and took me off to see
'Onondaga', resplendant in soft, deep scarlet. Along the way we stopped by V.
opulus 'Xanthocarpum', a dense, leafy bush with golden fruit. The leaves were
turning a luminous yellow. Roger said "People seem to think fall color has to
be red, but look at this!" Variety is certainly the spice of autumn.
Tea viburnum (V. setigerum) was a complete contrast in form.
Slow-growing and sparsely tree-like, with a few upright stems reaching up from lower
shrubbery, it was hung with jewel-like, orange berries so striking that I scarcely
remember the color of the leaves. I've since read that fall color is inconsistent
on this one, but what an elegant, interesting plant.
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Day by Delectable
Day
Mini-reviews of area
dining spots.
 Beppe & Gianni's Trattoria
1646 E. 19th Ave. 683-6661
5-10 pm daily. $$.
What a blessed location! Gazebo closed, only to be replaced by another fantastic
gourmet eatery. The place welcomes you in, warm walls, sated customers, dark wood.
Not to mention the fabulous food, which scores every time. They've been open just
a few years, and already are an institution for the discerning palate. After sweeping
the Eugene Weekly poles in the last years, and winning best Italian this year,
and third place for Dinner and Appetizers, they've settled into a comfortable stride
of fresh food and delectable drinks. They do wonderful things with gorgonzola, and
the caprese is worth looking into. It's a symphony of tomatoes, basil and
fresh mozzarella that begins any meal in style. -- MT
Hana's Restaurant
1219 Alder St. 343-2932
10 am to 7:30 pm M-F, noon-8 pm Sun. Some cards. $
Bang through the light wooden door of this Japanese-Korean hot spot and a waft
of low-fat Asian cuisine, MSG-free, pleasantly invades your nostrils. Cell phones
chirp and students talk in different languages around the restaurant's horseshoe
form. Salivating down the thin hallway you stop at the counter. Shaken woks sizzle
noisily. Steam rises. Mia greets you; she named the restaurant after her daughter.
The char-broiled chicken Teriyaki's a big seller, along with the Korean soups. The
fried tofu's my favorite, and cheap, though nothing's very costly here. Fish sauce
abounds, though strictly vegetarian dishes are available upon polite request. Rapid
delivery of a hot, full plate soothes your stomach. Great for on the go or for a
sit-down. -- BF
New Day Bakery & Cafe
345 Van Buren Ave., 345-1695
6 am-7 pm Mon.-Sat., 6 am-3 pm Sun., $
Pretensions, no. Inflated prices, no. Waiter at your table filling your water
glass, no. Good food and lots of it, yes. The New Day Café, deli style, is
well known to the breakfast and lunch crowd, and offers a couple of fine dinner options
as well (Poached Salmon with rice and salad, $6.50.) The bakery sits in Whiteaker,
our most colorful neighborhood by far. The patrons are quite a mix of businesswomen,
men in cowboy hats, raggedy moms and chatty kids in karate gees. Specialties? Vegans
will find a welcoming home here, vegetarians too. Baked sweets and breads, Mexican
specials, and the prices cannot be beaten. --MT
Los Jarritos
Mexican and Salvadorian Restaurant
764 Blair Blvd. 344-0650
11 am-9 pm M-Sat., 3 pm-9 pm Sun. $$
If I could sing it to you, I would. Mole. A seemingly primordial sauce born of
chocolate. Mole. Darker than a burnt walnut, sensually ladled on chicken, tamales,
and burritos as if each drop were precious. Mole. A Eugene diamond imbedded in the
menu of this warm Mexican restaurant. A sister-gem is the ultra-kind patroness, who
smiles from her soul as if she's welcoming you home from a long trip. Find a full
bar and beers from both sides of the border, chips on arrival and salsa to match.
Nightly specials are dry-inked on a board. A small store takes up one wall, offering
piñatas, blankets, sauces, and of course, chili-pepper lights. --BF
Bene Gourmet Pizza
225 W. Broadway. 284-2700 -- #4 Oakway Center. 284-2701.
11 am-10 pm F, 1-10 pm SA, 4-9 pm SU. $-$$
Something strange has happened to pizza in the last decade. A sect has broken
away and left the greasy box behind. Is it really still pizza? Who cares, it tastes
fabulous. Bene has joined the ranks of Eugene's gourmet pizzerias: Pizza Research
Institute, Cozmic Pizza, and Pegasus. Except now with the opening of their new place
out in the oh-so-fashionable Oakway Center, they're a chain!
The restaurant design, both furniture and flavor, is post-modern,
with an eco-urban twist. They indulge in the rich greasy meats and cheeses of a traditional
pizza, and venture into veganism as well. Try a half Quattro Formaggi, half vegan
Pomadoro Bianci for a flavor excursion into the next pizza generation. --
MT
Morsels tries to capture the atmosphere as well as the cuisine
of some of our favorite places to eat in and around Eugene, all in 100 or so words.
Suggestions? Call Ben or Marina at 484-0519.
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