Heading downhill

The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa is a play every bit as goofy as its title suggests. This latest production from the Miracle Theatre Group, a Latino arts and culture organization, is a strange, shallow look into the lives of a Latino family in the 1960s.

Driven to distraction

Distracted, the newest production from Artists Repertory Theatre, is a disappointing look at the modern world’s attention span. For a lot of people, the subject will hit close to home.

Theater of the Freaks

Freak shows have a broad appeal. Like rubber neckers who look at the scene of a car crash, it’s a fascinating insight into the world of deformities, and more often than not, depravity.

The life and times of Storm Large

Storm Large has become an institution in Portland. A frequent guest star, with her band The Balls, at various bigwig events around the city has made this six-foot-tall blonde a bona-fide local celebrity.

Rethinking Sophocles

The Portland State Theater Department’s production of Sophocles’ Electra, with its new adaption by Frank McGuinness, is a house of cards held together by decent student performances and fluidity of story. Other than that, it is what I refer to as “snooze-core.”

Staying happy

There is that time of day after work or school—or in between the two—when the world makes a little more sense, where you don’t want to kill your boss, subordinate or significant other and, of course, that time usually includes alcohol.

Well-bred bombast

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s simultaneous love note to and critique of British high society during the Victorian era, is a wonderful play to take a discerning date to.