Tag: dates

What the Constitution Means to Me

Portland Center Stage gave us a great show with What the Constitution Means to Me.

Rebecca Lingafelter was excellent as Heidi Schreck, the young woman who participated in Veterans of Foreign Wars speaking competitions.

As Marissa Wolf, PCS artistic director, says in the program, “Immediately, we’re lifted into a powerful world in which she maps legal rights and history onto her own body and invites the audience into this crucible through emotions, sometimes thriller-esque storytelling.”

I also really liked the set, which had a pieced together diorama quality. In this rather dark photo, you can see the large paperclip that is holding the eagle to the curtain.

Alas, we caught the penultimate show, so we couldn’t spread the word. But if this show should appear in your town, do make time for it.

Portland Center Stage: Hair

Matt and I attended PCS’s production of the iconic 60s musical. I had only seen the movie, and that was a late night viewing that I didn’t retain too much of.

The production was well acted and the musical numbers were great. However, the discussion we had in the car going home was why we found the musical itself so annoying.

We concluded that what we mostly felt about the hippies was that they were annoying and that perhaps they needed to be annoying to throw off the dominant paradigm. While we enjoy the fruits of their actions, that doesn’t make them any less annoying.

I most identified with one of the tourists (played in a delightful scenery-chewing fashion) who, when looking at the group said, “Where are your shoes????”

Shoes are needed sometimes, Like in New York in the fall, winter, and spring.

Also, I saw a backstage photo, and all the actors put on flipflops when they come off stage.

Happy Days by NWCTC

Matt and I went to see the NWCTC perform Happy Days in the Lloyd Center Mall. It took place in the former Victoria’s Secret as it did last year, when I saw The Fever.

It’s not quite as easy to see the layout of VS because of the curtains, but you can see the iconic black and white stripes on the walls.

While I deeply loved last year’s production, I found Samuel Beckett’s play to be tedious. I’m not so much into absurdist plays. Neither was the guy next to me who looked at his Apple watch more than four times.

The program says about the play, “It is considered a ‘summit role’ for female actors, presenting a unique opportunity of intense theatricality.”

Diane Kondrat (Winnie) and Chris Porter (Willie) were very good in their roles.

We Escaped! From the Mysterious Museum

Some time ago, Matt brought home two escape room games. Exit has created at-home escape rooms, which are brilliant. For less than the cost of one person attending an escape room, one to four players can “escape” from the scenario. There’s also no having to work in teams with people you’ve never met before, a thing I don’t love about real escape rooms.

We worked through the various rooms and escaped from the museum.

At the end, you can fill out your certificate.

If you use the app, it keeps time for you, and then you can enter your information and get a star rating. We got 8 out of 10.

While card game “rooms” don’t provide some of the surprises we’ve found in physical escape rooms, this was a fun experience I would like to repeat.

Matt’s Birthday Celebration

As with many things, we dropped the ball on making reservations for Matt’s birthday celebration (the just-us dinner) and so the celebration happened almost a month after his birthday.

But Arden was worth the wait. We had the four-course prix fixe menu and I would swear that there were about seven courses in that four-course dinner.

The dinner ended with a Basque-style cheesecake and for Matt a little scoop of sorbet and a birthday candle to blow out.

Arden was a delightful place to eat.

Milkshake and Craft at Creative Culture

I found out about Creative Culture from my friend. She posted a picture of the fanciest milkshake I had ever seen. The place to get that milkshake was Creative Culture, a DIY craft studio and milkshake bar.

It’s a pretty slick business model. Though we went for the milkshake, we stayed for a craft project.

We chose to do string art, which was one of their more economical offerings.

First, we pounded in all the nails, then discovered it was difficult to put the string on, so we removed the nails and went section by section.

Our finished art.

The thing that motivated us to visit.

Young Americans at Portland Center Stage

Matt and I really enjoyed the world premiere of Young Americans by Lauren Yee and directed by Desdemona Chiang.

The then-and-now road trips were engaging. The first was with Joe (Danny Bernardo) and Jenny (Marielle Young). Jenny has flown to Washington D.C. to meet with Joe as part of an arranged marriage. When she finds out how far away their home in Portland, Oregon, is from Washington D.C., she’s annoyed that Joe had her fly to the other side of the country. Joe wanted her to see as much of her new home as he could show here in a cross country trip.

The second trip took place a few decades later with Joe surprising his daughter Lucy in Washington D.C. as she returned from visiting the country where she was born.

As these two trips alternated, it was interesting to see the conversations the young (as in new) Americans and young (as in not-old) Americans had.

I also really enjoyed the car that the cast drove as they made there way across the landscape. It swiveled and turned so the audience had differing views.

This play was enjoyable and left me with a lot to think about.