Oregon at its essence

If you were to boil Oregon down to its essence, it would no-doubt smell like a waterlogged cedar on its way to the sawmill. And that’s because what really defines Oregon is the land itself–the vast forests, the coast and the perpetual, never-ceasing rain.

These physical attributes still overwhelm the residents of this land, eclipsing our settlements of nature.

Perhaps no work of art has so perfectly captured this essence as Ken Kesey’s novel Sometimes a Great Notion. An early ’60s hippie, complete with an acid bus inhabited by a group calling themselves the Merry Pranksters, Kesey wrote the now-famous One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (he refused to see the Jack Nicholson movie, however). For his second book, he moved to a small Oregon logging town and wrote what has been called by some “the first post-modern novel,” Sometimes a Great Notion.

So, it’s only fitting that Portland’s regional theater, Portland Center Stage, should be the first to produce a play based on Kesey’s work. Director Aaron Posner, though now residing in New York, grew up in Oregon and the novel is close to the hearts of many of the key figures at PCS. It shows in the play, with a run that has been extended twice due to sold-out crowds.

Sometimes a Great Notion follows Leland, the youngest of the renegade Stamper clan, as he returns from college on the East Coast. His mother killed herself a few years back, and he has been contemplating doing the same. Instead, he is summoned by a postcard to go back to his family and help with their logging business. He soon begins to wonder if this is a fate worse than death.

In addition to the grueling physical labor of logging, Leland has to contend with his older stepbrother Henry. Henry is what some call the strong, silent type–the opposite of Leland’s talkative intellectualism. Leland responds to his slights, and troubling childhood memories, by vowing to take revenge on this towering figure.

It turns out the reason the Stamper family business is looking for more hands is because they are, in essence, breaking a local loggers’ strike by supplying the logging company with a load of logs. When the union loggers hear of this, they do not respond kindly.

As is often the case in Oregon, the rain intervenes to force a crisis. Sabotage by the union loggers and an impending flood conspire together with the mutual affection growing between Leland and his brother’s wife, Vivian, to bring Henry down in a day of classically-tragic proportions. The end, however, departs from typical tragedy into more believable and nuanced territory.

All of the action takes place on a massive series of platforms and beams ascending up the entire height of the Gerding Theater’s stage. It is truly a sight to behold.

The lead actors (mostly non-locals) show their talent by doing a great job capturing the flavor of Oregon rural life, and the chorus of backing characters have lived here long enough to already embody this attitude.

Sometimes a Great Notion highlights themes familiar to anyone who has been outside the bubble that extends from Eugene up to Portland: rugged individualism versus the needs of the community, strength versus weakness and rural verses urban. Ultimately, however, none of these factions are the real winner. The force of Nature itself holds sway over the events and lives of men and women.

Anyone living here in Oregon will find the play (or book) deeply satisfying. Longtime Oregonians will see the familiar themes of Oregon life presented as never before, and newcomers will find a perspective in Sometimes a Great Notion that reveals a lot about their new state and its residents.

Sometimes a Great Notion

Through May 10

7:30 p.m. performances most nights, 2 p.m. matinees most weekends.

Tickets: $21.50 for students, $28 – $61.50 for everyone else

Gerding Theater at 128 N.W. 11th Ave.

See www.pcs.org for additional information.