THUMBS SIDEWAYS

posted by James Reel

    A couple of times, people have read my review of some play or concert and asked me, “So, did you like it or not?” If critical response were that simple, all I’d need to do is plop some thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon on the page and be done with it. But I’ve rarely encountered a performance that is either a completely wonderful, stunning, orgasmic experience or complete, abdominal-cramping crap. Even the best presentations usually have one or two elements that don’t quite come off, and when I point that out, readers wanting an all-or-nothing response ask, “Doesn’t he like anything?” Well, of course, but I hardly ever like anything completely. By the same token, I can usually find some glimmer of hope in even the least successful productions.
    So, look at my two reviews in the latest Tucson Weekly; did I like the plays or not? The answer in each case is a strongly qualified yes:

    A man completely out of touch with his own parents becomes obsessed with the skull of what he believes to be a 9,000-year-old ancestor. A woman completely out of touch with her culture and anyone else's defends the skull from the man's reclamation efforts; she's a scientist determined to use the skull to learn about dead people, without having to interact with living people any more than necessary.
    These competing agendas propel the action of Cherylene Lee's Mixed Messages, currently presented by Borderlands Theater. The title is perhaps more apt than Lee intends. Her play dabbles with issues of mixed-race and mixed-heritage populations in contemporary California, personal identity, ownership of culture and the legal rights to the remains of long-dead people. Lee presents the competing arguments even-handedly, but by the end of the play, she abandons those arguments to let the antagonists unite against a common enemy. The big legal issues not only go unresolved; they go missing.

    Please, Shakespeare purists, don't be put off by Live Theatre Workshop's description of its late-night version of Romeo and Juliet.
    The company's Etcetera series promises "a fast-paced interpretation adapted from the original to make it accessible yet still vital ... (an) adaptation that carefully balances a modern approach while remaining faithful to the original style of this classic tragedy." Well, that could mean almost anything, including dumbing down the Bard. Not so in this case. I'm not sure about fidelity to the "original style," but LTW's highly condensed Ro and Ju tells the core story swiftly, flashing some illuminating moments along the way.