A great loss, a new adventure

Today is the last day at The Oregonian for senior critic Bob Hicks. Hicks was the drama critic in the 80s, who didn't always like what I was doing on stage but often did and was a staunch supporter in either case. He was a good writer and a fair critic, the best I've seen in Portland since I've been here. He's been at the paper for 34 years, so it's understandable he's ready to move on. He says he'll be doing some freelance writing. I wouldn't be surprised if we read even better things from him now that he's free of the paper.

Here's an example of his work, in this case in support of my play, Christmas at the Juniper Tavern.

"Juniper Tavern" is topical, philosophical, very funny, and crafted with great skill. It goes beyond local effort and stands as a fully professional play that could be produced and enjoyed anywhere.

This is when Portland was just beginning to spread its theater wings, ready to get national attention. Indeed, if the building of the Performing Arts Center hadn't pulled the rug out from this growth, if instead of theater in that artifice they had restricted it to the symphony and such, embracing an alternative option to link downtown theater companies with a trolley car, creating a theater district -- oh if this, if this, then Portland would have challenged Louisville for being the most progressive theater city in the country. But money talks and the money behind the PAC demanded theater there. So, predictably, within a few years, all but one of the thriving Portland theater companies were bankrupt. When will they ever learn? Never.

An irony to all this: before the transition happened, a Seattle writer came down and reviewed the Portland theater scene (including my play about Moliere) and found it more daring than Seattle's, from which he talked about the disadvantages of building theater edifices for professional companies.

But Portland has come full circle and once again there are homes for new plays here, though the context is very different because the times are so different. I still call the 80s the Golden Age of Portland theater, and I'm not alone.

Bob Hicks, when I interviewed him for my essay on Peter Fornara, put it this way:

Those were great days for Portland theater [i.e. 1980s], with an enduring value that hasn’t been matched overall since then. I believe Fornara, more than anyone else, stands for the best of what Portland theater has been.

Amen to that.