Erin Jorgensen. Photo by Basil Harris.
It’s been a long, crazy, five-week ride with SPF 4, but the Solo Performance Festival is drawing to a close this weekend (at Theatre off Jackson; tickets $15). A line-up of three shows plays April 1 through 3, with pieces by Ben DeLaCreme, Jennifer Jasper, and Ernie Von Schmaltz. Then on Sunday, the festival closes up with a best-of-fest presentation of Lisa Koch’s The Place of My Abode.
But tonight, March 31, there’s a double-bill that, for my money, is a can’t-miss.
First up is local musician and performer Erin Jorgensen, with Worse Places. This is the third piece I’ve caught Jorgensen in (including Sunday Service last year at the Northwest New Works Festival, and on-and-off-again French Project), and it’s always an odd treat. A tattooed redhead with a bluesy voice, in Worse Places Jorgensen situates herself behind her marimba (her instrument of choice) and delivers a series of monologues, ranging from a nightmare about a mane-less lion to accidentally feeding baby birds to crows, with an awkward date thrown in. Whereas too many solo performers use obscure, poetic language, Jorgensen’s minimalist narratives are blissfully concrete and minimal on the flourishes–Gordon Lish-style editing for a monologist. And of course she’s a pretty marvelous marimba player, whether creating a lush soundscape for a text or accompanying herself on a song.
And then there’s Paul Budraitis’ Not. Stable. At all., back for one last showing at SPF. I’ve already written about Budraitis’ performance at greater length, but it’s tough not to recommend the piece again. Budraitis nails one of the most technically difficult parts of solo performance: the hairpin turns switching from character to character, carrying the audience from an aggressive attack on their personal space to a comic but creepy bit about a totalitarian police state to playing a genial con artist extracting information from you. Not. Stable. At all. is a Don Delillo-esque exploration of agency panic and paranoia in contemporary society, and it’s been one of the stand-outs in the festival, as far removed from the stereotype of solo performance as a step above stand-up as you can get.
Directed by Sean Ryan, Budraitis will also be presenting the piece at this year’s Northwest New Works Festival in June, so even if you can’t make it tonight, you’ve got another chance.