Thursday, April 10, 2008

This North Coast Weekend

The musical Hair continues this weekend at Ferndale Rep, and La Bete in the Forum Theatre at the College of the Redwoods. My preview of them in the Journal is here. Betti Trauth reviews Hair and La Bete in the T-S.

Concluding its two week run at the Arcata Playhouse is the experimental CRAWDADDY: A Freak Tragedy. My Journal review is here, and Barry Blake reviews it in the T-S. I guess what I'd add to my review is that some of it is strange to the point of being surreal. The bit I liked best was the story of the puppet's father who, as a cartoon character, tested the ringers in ringer washing machines by being rung through them until he was flat as a pancake. Anyway, I assume that bit is still in the show! I wonder if they kept the castrati wolf man--I'll bet there were questions about that in the talkbacks. It concludes this run Thursday through Saturday at 8 PM.

And since I'm linking to my own stuff, here's one to my Journal review of the Canadian TV series "Slings and Arrows," which I've also written about here. Oddly, Michael Fields of Dell'Arte mentioned he was watching it (he's on season 2) and asked me if I knew of it-- before he'd seen my review in the Journal published that very day.

In that column about Hair and La Bete (with a tiny mention of Helen) I also repeated my rationale for objecting to the "trailer trash" term that first appeared here. (Specifically, here.) I've had very good response to it, notably from parents (including theatre artists) and a teacher.

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