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51 °F Forecast | Road Cams Monday, December 13, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend May 18, 2004 The road to ‘Panama’ is full of (groovy, gnarly) surprises By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune In "Panama," Samuel Beckett meets Monty Python. We are closer here to farce than to either dark comedy or tragicomedy, but the Beckett spirit precludes pure farce in the sense of, say, Michael Frayne’s "Noises Off." Oregon Stage Works’ production of Mike Folie’s play about a man who wants to live forever opened Saturday night at OSW’s new theater in the A Street Marke Place in Ashland, directed by Caroline Shaffer. It was the play’s Northwest premiere, an energetic staging of a very funny play. Beckett’s "Waiting for Godot" inaugurated the theater Friday. "Panama," which is filled with Beckett gags and a Beckett-esque theme, was a natural choice to run in repertory with "Godot" through June 28. Advertisement In the first scene, Man (Peter Alzado) comes to realize, in his mid-40s, that he will someday die. Absurdly, this is news to him. He is outraged, so he kills his doctor and embarks with Wife (Kate Sullivan) on an antic road trip to find a way to live forever (there is a lot of killing in "Panama," but it’s not serious killing, and the killed have a way of snapping back to life). Man and Wife pick up two hitchhikers, Young Man (Kirk McKenzie) and Young Woman (Eve Smythe), who tell Man that in the future, scientists might be able to, like, halt the aging process. The scientists are in California, where "everything really good and cool and bad and groovy and neat and phat and gnarly and gar happens." The four stop on the way to pick up Grandpa (Corey Christensen) and Grannie (Chris James, in drag) — they may or may not be Man’s parents — somewhere in Arizona. "Hi!" Man says. "Howyadoing?! Give me all your money!" Not gonna happen. No matter. All six are soon together in Man’s car — six folding chairs and a steering wheel — in a road picture a la "Natural Born Killers" with, say, John Candy and the Marx Brothers. We willingly suspend our disbelief at gags involving police helicopters, a dentist-turned-hostage negotiator named Jesus, and all the money in the world. Along the way Folie pokes fun at cop movies, tabloid television, Gen X-ers, feminists, Hollywood, Walt Disney, community theaters, family get-togethers, theme parks and Beckett. The spirit is Horatian, one of gentle fun, as if Folie is nudging us in the ribs. This is the kind of romp that must be played broadly, and it is. Under Shaffer’s direction, the action unfolds breathlessly but deftly. Reading the script, I’d tried to picture what it looked like on stage. Saturday I realized it looked like this. The actors used the broad brushes of farce yet endowed each character with a bit of an arc. Jim Bowen was hilarious in a skein of minor roles. The second act cranks the absurdity a notch in a visit to the Happy Days Theme Park, a cartoony, surreal sequence that leads to a climactic meeting with Bowen’s mad scientist. Beneath the yuks is the image of Panama, the play’s central metaphor, "a little sliver of land between these two mighty oceans of time," as Young Man puts it. "And the Atlantic Ocean is, like, the future — all cloudy and misty and cold ... And the Pacific Ocean is the past — all nice and warm. So it’s like we’re always sitting in the Panama Canal, man, while that cold Atlantic future flows over us on its way to the Pacific." This is the space inhabited by Estragon and Vladimir, Beckett’s bums who keep waiting for something that never comes. Folie, too, sees the absurdity of our little space between eternity and forever, but if "Panama" is a comic riff on Beckett, it glimpses the existential abyss not with alienation and despair but an affirmation. Folie says: Live, damnit. And love. Jesus underscores the message in a coda that is perhaps a bit too obvious. None of this is heavy. If the subject is Beckett, the zeitgeist is firmly Monty Python. "Panama" is about 90 minutes not counting an intermission between the two acts and a tacked-on cabaret number at the start. It contains adult language and themes. As funny as the performance was, several laughs in the script did not come across, despite generally good timing. Maybe this will work out. The twin bill of "Panama" and "Godot" signals the arrival of an ambitious and important new player on the theater scene. Reach reporter Bill Varbleat 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities