Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)   (1988-Current)
NewsBank Inc.
SEARCHING: OREGONIAN, THE
for:  Advanced Search | New Search 
return:
Search Hints:
To find an exact name or phrase, use quotes.
Custom date example: Jan 1, 2000 - Feb 3, 2000.
timeframe:     
custom date:
Record 14 of 18
 Save this Article 
Email this Article To:
DEEMER'S EXTREMES PLAYED TO FULLEST EFFECT
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
January 30, 1989
Author: BOB HICKS - of the Oregonian Staff
Estimated printed pages: 2


``Reason,'' declares one of playwright Charles Deemer's characters, ``isn't calling the shots out there.''

Yet in his rude and funny drama ``The Half-Life Conspiracy,'' Deemer tries to reason out an astonishing number of things: cold and hot war, cold and hot love, theatrical fashion, nuclear brinksmanship, the male and female psyches, the appeal of soap opera, the vagaries of sex, the possibility that we're living in the dying light of a universe that's already disappeared.

More astonishing, he brings all those elements into an unlikely but workable synthesis, creating a two-hour political comedy that constantly engages the mind on its way to significant matters of the heart.

Firehouse Theater, under the perceptive and lively direction of Julie Akers, has just opened a fresh and reckless revival of Deemer's 1983 play that reminds us what a good playwright this Portland writer can be. ``The Half-Life Conspiracy'' has a tightly coiled structure, a rough wit, and an economy of words that's gone slack in his more recent excursions into grand-scale ``simultaneous action'' theater.

Deemer proposes an intimate connection between the private confusions of everyday life and the great events that alter global destiny: a psychic terrain where the unthinkable and the humdrum intersect.

Comically, his serious reflections on the world's male malady (``extinction is consistent with the male way of doing things'') are told through the slightly tawdry conventions of soap opera, or a subversive aping of them.

The play takes place in a single evening and early morning. The ragingly conventional Portland Community Players uncharacteristically have decided to produce a controversial one-act by a Hollywood soap writer, Robert (David Heath).

Robert -- a nom de plume -- comes to town for the play's premiere and discovers -- shock! -- that the director, Cynthia (Patricia Blem), is his former wife, who jilted him for another woman, Ann (Mary Jo AbiNader). The strain is evident, and made worse by the fact that Ann desperately wants to come out of the closet and Cynthia desperately wants to stay in.

Meanwhile, theater president Joe Barge (Gary Powell) is having an affair with sexy and impressionable Willow (Mary Kadderly), who's married to Joe's best friend, Bill (Mel Fletcher), who thinks Willow's been playing around with the local theater critic. Willow and Robert also immediately start casting meaningful glances: ah, the intricacies of flirtation, seduction and love!

Robert's seething play is about a personal tragedy in the wake of a Soviet nuking of Seattle. It's really quite awful, which provides much mirth, especially as everyone's taking it seriously. But its connections to the characters' ``real lives'' are -- well -- explosive.

Director Akers does a fine job of playing Deemer's extremes for all they're worth without making things seem ridiculous. Her actors are beautifully tuned to one another -- there's some excellent, well-balanced work here -- and Heath seems born to the role of the outrageous, ironic, tersely romantic goader-hero, Robert. He's like a comic burr under everyone's saddle: It makes for a wild and provocative ride.

THEATER REVIEW The Half-Life Conspiracy Where: Firehouse Theater, 1436 S.W. Montgomery When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Feb. 25 Tickets: $6-$8.50 (280-6592).

Photo By MARC VISNICK.
Edition: Fourth
Section: Arts And Entertainment
Page: C05
Index Terms: Theater Review
Copyright (c) 1989 Oregonian Publishing Co.
Record Number: 8901300082

OpenURL Article Bookmark (right click, and copy the link location):
http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.new
sbank.com:ORGB:ORGB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0EB0855
8F6A8DD20&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=0D0CB55EC55440C0
Record 14 of 18
 Save this Article 
Email this Article To: