Yep. Ohio came through in a big way. Let's just hope the Buckeyes kick the snot out of Penn State and the loathed Wolverines this fall.
Posted on 06/08/2005 9:50:27 AM PDT by Fido969
'Letters' an unabashedly slanted view of Bush win
By STEVE FEENEY,
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. E-mail this story to a friend
"LETTERS TO OHIO," Winter Harbor Theatre Company WHERE: St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center, Portland WHEN: 8 tonight
Call: 775-3174
Ohio was a key state in the last election, securing the electoral college win for President Bush in a pretty close race. That win took the wind out of a lot of people who wanted a different outcome.
Caitlin Shetterly and Erica Silberman were among the disappointed voters. Rather than retreating and laying low, however, they decided to commission an evening's worth of performances that responded in one way or another to the Bush victory and its implications for the type of country and world they and other artists would like to see.
"Letters To Ohio" is an 80-minute series of monologues, performance pieces and songs presented by a dozen artists who sit visibly in the wings, taking turns doing their thing at center stage.
Delivered with varying degrees (and levels) of humor, anger and sentimentality, the performances all share the common thread that the country is being taken in a radically wrong direction by the current administration. There's a certain sense of huddling together to weather the storm about the show. But it is nonetheless quite entertaining, with a few truly inspired moments.
The printed program for Monday's performance was woefully inadequate in not identifying the performers, authors or composers of each specific piece. It was possible, however, to piece together some names and titles from the advance publicity the show received.
Tim Collins had some of the most powerful moments of the evening, performing excerpts from his own aptly titled "Power Play." Collins' characterization of a snide and supercilious young Bush supporter, who finds a preference for lattés the only value he shares with liberals, was very nicely done. Later, as a ranting street person, he brought a chilling, unpredictable energy to the stage.
Caitlin Russell and Silberman each incorporated the observations of foreign-born individuals into their critiques, some comic, some cutting, of the state of the nation.
Chris Holt donned a Bush mask to read a fictional letter full of fractured syntax by the President in a piece written by Aran Shetterly (part of a strong Shetterly presence, as Robert Shetterly's neo-expressionist paintings lined the theatre walls).
Denise Poirier mined similar territory in Craig Pospisal's "No Child Left." Alex Rheault read about being a campaign worker in Florida.
The songs were folky, with acoustic accompaniment, and tended toward the more traditional protest-music style (one tune proclaimed "the devil's in charge"), with an affecting spiritual added at the close.
Director Shetterly has said that her goal is "to encourage and foster a more conscious and compassionate community." While that remains a worthy goal, it seems that events like "Letters To Ohio" may more simply serve the purpose, as the political pros like to put it, of securing the base.
Not that I've seen it, or anything. Just guessing.
How dreadfully unimaginative and boring.
Where's the shock value the kids are so fond of these days?
-Eric
The real shame here is the fact that Kerry lost by one state. It should have been a landslide in favor of GWB.
Yep. Ohio came through in a big way. Let's just hope the Buckeyes kick the snot out of Penn State and the loathed Wolverines this fall.
I am SO SICK of all the Bush-bashing by contemporary artists. Can't they even think on their own? Drives me crazy.
As seen here ...
Yep. Ohio came through in a big way. Let's just hope the Buckeyes kick the snot out of Penn State and the loathed Wolverines this fall.Sus Barbatus (aka Michael Moore) was loudly rooting for Michigan after the election, and his whining when the Buckeyes won was almost as amusing as his post-election blues.
-Eric
Just more maudlin self-pity by the Democrat losers.
Not to worry. They will all be dealt with suitably.
**What a useless, sniveling, self-serving mastabatory pile of drek.**
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don't.
Good thing I had my boots on ... Jeez how god-awful trite
Oh Yeah.
Watch the reaction to that remark.
The loonie paranoid losers are lurking.
Sounds like they could sentence criminals to see this show--as punishment!
Maybe they haven't heard. . .Bush won re-election by a respectable margin. Seems like these 'artists' are the ones going the wrong direction.
Wimps.
The songs were folky
There’s a shock.
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