Los Pajaros and More on This North Coast Weekend

Update: It's the final weekend (Feb. 12-14) for Los Pajaros.  With Mother Teresa as Harpo, Dick Nixon as Groucho, it's the Marx Brothers meet Firesign Theatre, with a Latino edge.  The cast of 11 seems even bigger at times, so it's fascinating to recall that before this HSU production, the only performances were by the three members of Culture Clash. 

HSU Theatre is opening its major production for this school year on Thursday (Feb. 5) and it's something different for the North Coast.  It's Los Pajaros, a contemporary musical satire adapted by the Chicano American performance troupe Culture Clash from the play The Birds by Aristophanes, directed by Del Arte's Michael Fields, and featuring a Tim Randles band playing salsa, blues, gospel and rock & roll.

What's different is the Latino voice and perspective, in the Culture Clash script and as carried out by a largely bilingual HSU student cast.  The production recognizes the growing Latino population in Humboldt County and within the HSU student body, while adopting and adapting a comedic approach that's as old as theatre in western civilization.  That's pretty exciting.

So even if local media is waiting a week to review this play, it's worth saying that it opens this weekend and runs for only one more: Thursdays through Saturdays, February 5-7 and 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday February 14 in the Van Duzer Theatre.

  There's a lot more information at HSU Stage & Screen.  I usually have my complete say there, as production publicist.  But once in awhile I need to add a little emphasis when it may not be getting through otherwise.  (If you read the Journal you won't even get that link to information.  In what looks very much like deliberate pettiness, they've excised every mention of a web page link to this weekend's HSU theatre and music productions.)

Not that this is going to be a regular thing here anymore, but here's a couple of other events this weekend:

Arcata Playhouse hosts The Uncomfortables Tour, a spoken word event featuring Billy Tuggle (aka Karma Threesixty, from Chicago) and Wil Gibson from Maine, plus special guests. It's happening Thursday (Feb. 5) at 7 p.m.  There's a free workshop earlier that afternoon at 4 p.m. 707-822-1575.

First years at the Dell'Arte School present their annual Commedia dell'Arte Show  Thursday, Friday and Saturday Feb. 5-7 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.