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Posted by Sasha Burchuk

The only tragic element of this play is that only a handful of people will be able to follow the script, with its multiple references to the Arthurian legends, histories of witchcraft, lycanthropy, physics and astronomy. And I think that only James Joyce might have understood this play the whole way through, including the two minute segment that's in Latin/Ancient Welsh/bastardized Arthurian. To everyone else, this is just an absurdly psychedelic journey to the end of the night (which makes it very difficult to describe, thank you very much). Regardless of how much I didn't understand, this is one of the more entertaining plays that I've ever seen. There's dancing (music provided by a live band), sexual innuendo, nudity, demonic possession, smoke, intellectual snobbery, and the wardrobe is great.

The curtain opens on Page Phaedra and Vivian Lacome who await their arriving guests. Easter Sunday 1954 marked the first full moon on Easter (a. Ostara) in over 100 years, hence, these supernatural, dark-romantic academic types have already planned the perfect blueblood blue-stocking Dionysian orgy. As the guests arrive one by one it becomes clear that the hostess has intentionally invited guests who strongly dislike one another. Fortunately, one of them, an astronomer with Tourrette's (who is also a werewolf) has the antidote to this completely unkosher social situation, which he brandishes at the most pretentious moment in the play.

I asked Charles Steen if this was an absurdist play. "Not like Genet or Beckett or Artaud…this is a serious play, with meaning," he told me. "What's the meaning?" I asked him. "Friendship," he said.

You really just have to see it for yourself.

The Order of Ostara & That Party Crashin' Pervert: A Two-Act Dramatic Representation of Easter 1954
Written and directed by Charles Augustus Steen III
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Performances at The Hostess
(538 SE Ash St., Portland)
November 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22 at 8:00 PM.
Tickets $10.