Have an opinion about terror, war, government, the current state of the world? Portland's production of NO SHAME GOES TO WAR is looking for a few good writers and performers for our April 6th charity show. Monologues, scenes, music, dance, poetry, hand puppets... anything 3 minutes or less that entertains and makes people think. Writers who are not in Portland can still submit scripts for consideration. And actors without scripts can be given material. If we get more submissions than we can perform in an evening, we may just have to do this again!
NW Cultural Center
donations $2-$10
1819 NW Everett Street
7:00 p.m.
all profits to Not In Our Name
and The Artists' Network of Refuse and Resist
Wow! What a No Shame![SOURCE: review posted on web message board by Lee Moyer]
Sad that it takes innocent people dying to create a show this intense. For what it's worth, here's my report on the proceedings of NO SHAME THEATER GOES TO WAR! -Portland, Oregon Edition.
Intro - Spider Mocassin - community radio KBOO DJ
ACT I
We Need A War With Iraq, by Derrick Jensen, performed by Eric Levine
A good piece to begin, as it pretty much laid the factual groundwork for what was to come after. Well written, well performed.This Rock, by Jeff Goode, performed by Annaliese Moyer
A long piece, but a good one. Annaliese moved it all around, and kept it's energy going. Enough time (and more than enough horrible news) has passed since September 11 that the audience was visibly shaken when the subject was broached. Later there were laughs, and the rock itself pretty much caught people totally off guard.Homeland Insecurity, by Greg Hays, performed by Jeff Woods
Irony of ironies. Here's the piece written for the tall twisted sculpture we could not fit it into our moving truck, and it became a C'Ville No Shame door prize. But it's Greg's statue now, so we witnessed a very different version of the piece. Jeff did an excellent straight-faced job, leaving pauses and speeding text up for maximum effect. His White House podium sign was a thing of beauty and was also used in State of the Union Address 3 pieces later. The fact that he'd forgotten to bring the Idol on stage at the piece's beginning left the audience having NO idea what was in store. Then when the Idol appeared (in this case an 8" Cthulhu sculpted by our painter pal Steve Hickman) there was much laughter. The audience dutifully asked there questions, and kept it lively. Very popular with the crowd.When Accountability Starts at the Top, written and performed by Jordan S. Weiss
Stream of consciousness that never quite tipped it's hand. The fact that Jordan later performed The Dreams of Saddam Hussein caused me to think they were both written by the same person. Strange and oblique. And by this point, the more oblique the better i thought...America 2003 in the Style of a Late Famous Poet, performed by Tobias Andersen
Tobias is a local pro who did an exemplary job of stepping into Boris Karloff's Dr. Seuss- spouting shoes... Given most of the No Shamers i know are not professional actors, it was a particular joy to watch the Zen confidence of a man at his craft. Each word, lilt, and rhyme measured just so, and with no evident strain. He took a lovely anonymous piece and made it play.State of the Union Address, by Jeff Goode, performed by Jennifer Hartman and Rafael Untalan
The business with the brooms, the movement, and the expressions were just great. I find it hard to imaging this piece could be better performed. Just superb! And the writing was certainly up to Jeff's usual standards.Raptapsody in Blue, written and performed by Shoehorn
I cannot adequately describe this performance. Rap, Tap, Gershwin and Peace. 4 Great tastes that go great together (in his case). If Shoehorn had projected his voice a little better to the giant hall, it would have been just flawless. As it was, I felt like i was watching a 1 Man No Shame Honor Guard.War is for Pussies, by Jeff Goode, performed by Craig McCarty
Craig just put it out there. Off-book and using his wiry frame and large eyes to great effect. A piece without much movement, but short enough not to need any.War Dance, written and performed by M. K. Shibek
I'm a fan of pieces based around language, but given the concrete horrors of the war, the AOL article that began this piece seemed too bizarre and diffuse to get me where the author/performer wanted to take the audience. Interesting yes, but probably too personal to the writer's own sense of logic to enlist mine thoroughly.Beware the Sharp Light, written and performed by Spider Moccasin
Our MC and a local DJ at radical radio KBOO, he seemed to view the war in a longer lens than most of us. His style with a guitar and vocals was not what I expected, but more powerful for that. He struck us as a punk Roger Manning in folkie "disguise".American Wars, by Ursula K. Le Guin, performed by Katherine Zieman
Wow. Short and sweet. After the first act of acrid invective, and Spider's impassioned summation thereof, this was a tiny voice of perspective and beauty. A gem.Comedy Is Hard, written and performed by Lee Moyer
Thank heavens for Craig McCarty! He kindly volunteered to be "the victim" in this piece at the last possible second, and did it proud. This piece was rejected by other No Shames (you know who you are :P Probably because of the single line- "Lights up full to reveal man buried in bananas"). The audience seemed to enjoy it, and heaven knows I did. Fortunately 150-pound Craig was not harmed as 4 people dumped 160 pounds of bananas on him during a total blackout. Craig then stayed buried on stage while our dauntless MC announced the intermission, and told the crowd that there were snacks in the lobby and free bananas on the stage.ACT II
The Dreams of Saddam Hussein, by Peter Ullian, performed by Jordan S. Weiss
Jordan's fitted sheets fit this dream sequences to a T. His pronunciation of "Human Shield Dude" killed me. Nice work with UBL and GWB too. A good piece that seemed a continuation of Jordan's own piece...A Short, but Polemic and Emotional Essay, by Inga Muscio, performed by Sabra M. Choi
I thought Sabra did a wonderful job with a difficult (and apparently not spell-checked) text. Annaliese rightly pointed out that she should have left the stage in disgust as I prattled on at the end. Would have been a nice touch...Unusual Suspects, written and performed by Lee Moyer
Funny to hear who in the audience remembered Jimmy Carter. I'm still so new to performing that each performance is a trial, and I felt that I was perhaps too experimental with my pacing and volume this time. Oh well, at least it got some laughs at the expense of Republicans...The Terror of George W. Bush as Witnessed by the Sisters of Mercy, performed by Carla Grand, Jennifer Mon, Angie Lawless, directed by Scott Kelman
Holy moly! I loved this piece. It reminded me how powerful the stage can be. Direct, beautiful, to the point - and Leonard Cohen into the bargain. I would have loved Sisters of Mercy to close the show, but who knew how powerful they would be?Pieces For Peace, by Peter Levine, performed by Eric Levine and David Levine
The preamble (well, amble anyway) was a hoot in and of itself. Nice work overall, but probably a just a wee bit too long. If you'll pardon my intimation of masturbation...Back to Babylon, by Viggo Mortensen, performed by Annaliese Moyer
A piece like Ms. LeGuin's in some respects. Poetic, longing and lyrical. i thought it was dreamy and surprising in the tack it took- not sarcastic per se, but cynical and sad. Like the times we live in... Annaliese certainly got the meaning of the words, and put them across, but i would rather have heard a rolling mellifluous voice in the role...Fruit of the Poison Tree, written and performed by Spider Moccasin
It seemed like Spider was the only performer who didn't have to refit his act for War... Any time you hear this government speak of "Liberation" run for the hills.The River of Life, by Starhawk, performed by Diana Brainerd, Rebekkah Brainerd, Willow Joseph, Gail Lehrman, Annaliese Moyer, & Katherine Zieman, directed by Katherine Zieman.
This was a vastly complex and ambitious piece that could have absorbed months of rehearsal. Considering it got 1 night, I thought it went quite well. I think Starhawk wrote the "bitches" line to get the laugh - and it did. It seemed to me that the Sisters of Mercy should have followed this. Like the Norns/fates/weird sisters practicing what River of Life preached.Overall, a great thought-provoking, funny, wacky and altogether fine show. Lichen June did a marvelous job of putting this sucker together, and she backed it with her own money. Many thanks and much admiration to her.
I leave you with the thoughts (from noted Europeans) that ended our Program:
"The world is too dangerous to live in - not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." - Albert Einstein
"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Herman Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshal at the Nuremberg trials
