A 'Jack Goes Boating' recap: What's missing here?

Todd Van Voris, Emily Beleele and Tai Sammons pass the hookah./Owen Carey

By Barry Johnson

Let's say that you have developed a fixation on Bob Glaudini's Jack Goes Boating --  Philip Seymour Hoffman's film version nabbed you, maybe, or his Off-Broadway performance in the play itself -- and you've decided to read every review, story or post you can find about it. That kind of dedication would now lead you to Portland, Oregon, where the play has just opened at Artists Repertory Theatre.  (Which will come as absolutely no surprise to resolute Arts Dispatch readers!)

At this moment, you would have four reasonably formal reviews to help you figure out how things looked to us here in Portland:

Marty Hughley in The Oregonian: "Allen Nause has directed "Jack Goes Boating" with a suitably light touch, making it sweet and engaging all around (despite a touch of violence and lots of drug use). But its the light/dark dichotomies at the heart of the play -- and a performance that balances them so effectively -- that really make this show float."

Ben Waterhouse in Willamette Week: "Their (Clyde and Lucy) exertion in their work and tendency to inflict cruelty on one another feels truer than Jack’s fumbling romance, and their persistence in the face of repeated mutual betrayal is as convincing a defense of the value of marriage as any I’ve seen. (John) San Nicolas and (Tai) Simmons convey roiling discord, absentminded intimacy and reckless affection—and what more is married life about?"

Bob Hicks on Art Scatter: "Let’s just say that Todd Van Voris’s sunk-in, loamy comic essence is ideal for the character of Jack, the shy and schlumpy limousine driver whose only passions seem to be for good dope and good reggae songs until the possibility of Connie comes along."

Barry Johnson on Arts Dispatch (that would be me): "That drama is usually what the romantic comedy is about, after all, not what it critiques. Glaudini’s comedy doesn’t match the ferocity or the cynicism of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,  which is hardly a romantic comedy, but it does visibly cringe and then flee the wilder reaches of relationship conflict. This is awful, get me out of here!"

Our mythical Jack Goes Boating obsessive probably would get a decent idea of how things went at Artists Repertory Theatre on opening weekend -- that the production was sharp and the performances balanced. And maybe some idea of what passes for good theater in Portland, because all of the reviews were so positive and provided some good context.  But there are some things missing, some fairly obvious things, and I have a feeling that my imaginary friend might leave these accounts at least somewhat dissatisfied.

Weekend reviews: 'Jack Goes Boating,' Northwest Dance Project, Linda Austin at Disjecta

By Barry Johnson

This was one of those weeks when the events of the outside world -- the drama with nuclear reactors in Japan, the institution of a no-flight zone in Libya -- creep into our theaters, galleries and concert halls. Sometimes a play is so involving that it acts as a momentary escape from international news, and that's how Artists Repertory Theatre's production of Jack Goes Boating worked for me. Not that the relationship issues at stake in Bob Glaudinin's romantic comedy aren't important themselves: We know from experience that our personal lives go on regardless of the events in Japan or Libya, and that those events go hardest on the personal lives on people a lot like us. But still, this is an indirect connection.

Other times, we may be watching a dance performance, as I did Saturday night, and experience a sudden mental newsreel -- of file footage of Tomahawk missiles or fresh video from the one of the tsunami's many disaster areas. In this case, I think the dance itself, Sarah Slipper's Black Ink for Northwest Dance Project, inspired that jolt of memory.

Those were two of the shows I saw this weekend. The third was an improvisation by Linda Austin set on and around and even under an installation by Kurt Burkheimer at Disjecta, an art space in the Kenton neighborhood. It took me on an entirely different course altogether, as Austin's work often does.