December

Theater

Underneath the Lintel

Interplayers isn’t doing a Christmas play this season. What it’s doing is a semi-crazed-Dutch-librarian-on-a-wild-goose-chase show as performed by a single actor.

When the Librarian discovers a book in the return slot that’s 113 years overdue, first he gets angry. Then he sets out to follow some slender clues about the irresponsible malefactor’s identity.

Interplayers’ new artistic director, Reed McColm, will be all alone on Interplayers’ thrust stage, surrounded by his slide projector and plenty of tagged items — his “evidences” — trying to discover the identity of whoever it was who hauled the same book with him from the Middle East to China and London over the span of several centuries. Plausibly.

Because the Librarian — for all his obsessive, cockamamie ways — is onto something. Mystery lovers will enjoy the Librarian’s sleuthing; followers of abnormal psychology will enjoy his many quirks; and the amateur theologian in all of us will be intrigued by how his obsessive quest transmogrifies into a search for evidence of God’s existence.

McColm dislikes the contrived premise of many one-actor plays, but Lintel’s makes sense, he says: The Librarian has rented a lecture hall for just one night, and he has this tremendous travelogue of a story to tell, and it’s an important story having to do with God, and he just has to tell it right now. That gives the account great immediacy.

Here’s how McColm sums up the Dutch librarian (with his rumpled clothes, his darting, eyes, his comic mannerisms): “He’s like the Columbo of Holland.”

As for the Librarian’s obsessiveness, “I think we recognize it in ourselves,” McColm says. “It’s the kind of niggling itch that we cannot satisfy. For him, yes, it becomes wildly obsessive. But then he really thinks that he’s onto SOMETHING BIG.”

He seeks a “biblical proof” — and when you combine that with the Librarian’s sad tale of lost love, the oddball gets humanized, with the result that an otherwise cerebral story gains some emotional dimensions as well.

The Librarian, McColm says, “is emotionally and intellectually stripped naked onstage. He’s silly and hopeless and yet he’s such a universal figure. Because he’s bereft, he becomes adorable. There’s a sense in the audience of wanting to protect him.” Nov. 25 - Dec. 12; Interplayers Professional Theater, $12-$21 — MICHAEL BOWEN

Film

Professor Film Series

So we haven’t talked yet to Magic Lantern owner Joe Davis about how well the re-opened theater is doing financially. (We’re playing ostrich and hoping things turn out all right.) We gotta say, though, that we’re pretty happy with the way things are going programmatically. Some great films have already shown: In the Loop, Song of Sparrows, Food Inc., Humpday. (Great variety there.) The Room. (Terrible, but the kids love it.)

And now, the theater is hosting a professor film series! Organized by Pete Porter of Eastern Washington University — and featuring every Presbyterian’s favorite film prof, Leonard Oakland, talking about Francois Truffaut’s blithely nihilistic sex romp, Jules et Jim (Oct. 21) — this is going to be a great, completely subjective selection of films by the area’s deepest filmic thinkers.

It’s a perfect series for the Lantern: Film geeks geeking out with other, more prominent film geeks — people with terminal degrees, for God’s sake, in film geekery. The intelligentsia. What more could you ask for? Well, you could ask for discussions on flicks outside the traditional film school canon. You could ask, and these profs would deliver.

You want someone to wax philosophical on Blade Runner — the Philip K. Dick novel turned morbid noir Harrison Ford vehicle turned ’80s cult classic? Marvin Smith of EWU can do that for you (on Dec. 2). The series has eight more dates sketched out for 2010 as well, but we’re trying to focus on the present. Wednesday, Dec. 2; The Magic Lantern, $5 — LUKE BAUMGARTEN

Classical

Ronan Tynan

He’s a double amputee who has triumphed over his disabilities. He has succeeded in a solo career even after being an Irish Tenor. He’s known for singing patriotic songs at athletic events. Ronan Tynan, born in Dublin 49 years ago, is plenty inspiring even before he starts singing Christmas standards while backed by a symphony orchestra. Dec. 4-6; The Fox, $24-$54, children $14 — MICHAEL BOWEN

Visual Arts

Small Works

The Art Spirit’s Small Works exhibition is not going to knock your socks off with the latest-and-greatest trends or behemoth works that tower over you. But it’s not going to show the same old-same old, either. It’s neither exclusively cutting-edge, contemporary nor totally regional work. Not just paintings, but sculpture, even textiles will appear this year along with some ceramic work.

In fact, this Coeur d’Alene gallery’s annual exhibition provides a little something for everyone. And by little, we mean less than 12-inch squares. That modest scale — which is about the same size as your face — makes for work that is more accessible to the viewer, both in terms of proportion and price.

Many of the artists participating (by invitation only) are familiar to Northwest art lovers — Kyle Paliotto, Robert Grimes and Brad Rude, for example, all had shows at the Art Spirit this year. Victoria Brace also returns with her filmy, soothing, dreamlike portraits and figurative paintings.

New for 2009 is longtime illustrator Tim Lord, whose menagerie of subject matter includes an elaborate procession of felines and crows. Another artist to watch for is Frank Boyden, esteemed for his ceramic sculpture and his sometimes sardonic, historically referential printmaking.

Rather than being a detractor, diversity is what unites the artists. Somehow gallery owner Steve Gibbs is able to puzzle together seemingly disparate works into a show that in its 11th year running has never failed to produce a visually engaging range of well-crafted, interesting work. Friday, Dec. 4; The Art Spirit Gallery, free, Dec. 4-31 — CARRIE SCOZARRO

Theater

The Lion King

Disney’s theatrical juggernaut, returning to Spokane after four years, conveys a lot of themes. Shakespearean: Our hero must seek revenge for the murder of his beloved father at the hands of an evil uncle. Christian: The son of a godlike father must redeem a nation fallen into wickedness. Environmental: Not just “The Circle of Life,” but way that director Julie Taymor’s life-size creations convey the animal in the human/human in the animal. Numerological: Nearly two dozen traveling semi-trailers, 20 stagehands just to manage the transition from the elephant graveyard to the wildebeest stampede, 250 puppets, nearly 12 years (and still running) on Broadway.

But all that isn’t what fills the seats. What fills the seats is the entire-family appeal (the cartoon violence in “Chow Down” for the kiddies, the sensuality of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” for Mom and Dad). What fills the seats is a spectacle (colorful and impressive) that also appeals to small children’s imaginations (flexible and all their own). Nov. 11 - Dec. 6; INB Center, $23-$72. — MICHAEL BOWEN

Reading

Empyrean Poetry Slams

Mark Anderson, Kurt Olson, Danielle Estelle, Zack Graham — they can make a room go wild. Onstage there’s no guitar or a drum kit to be found — just nervous hands and shadowed brows. These are poets with something to say out loud.

At Empyrean’s poetry slams, anyone who wants to participate has a mic, a spotlight and the undivided attention of a crowd. It’s open — but first-time readers might want to try Empyrean’s regular poetry open mics before slamming. You won’t see many slammers fumbling through pages of journals or diaries; poetry slam is largely a performance-oriented event. Before the event kicks off, poets sign up to read their original work on stage. That list of names is randomized and five unbiased (meaning they aren’t there to watch their friends) judges are appointed from the audience. Poets are called up to read (most recite their work from memory) and are judged on content, originality and performance.

“Winning a poetry slam doesn’t make you the best poet, it just means that night you competed the best in the eyes of the judges,” says Anderson, who organizes the events with Empyrean owner Chrisy Riddle.

Slammers like Olson and Anderson are well-practiced performers, spitting out lines of verse like they’re speaking in tongues or rapping from the depths of their souls. And the audience goes wild for it — cheering, yelping, snapping and wheedling. Their cheers practically beg each performer for more. Thursday, Dec. 10; Empyrean, $5, 7 pm, all-ages — LEAH SOTTILE

Dance

Ballet Memphis Nutcracker

Mother Ginger keeps eight polichinelles — little French clowns — under her enormous skirt. You know they’re in there. She shuffles around like it’s no big deal, but as a kid watching Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, the sheer curiosity was maddening.
What’s it like to be a clown among a gingerbread lady’s petticoats? At age 6, this question can motivate years of ballet. If you’ve seen The Nutcracker in Spokane, you may never have seen Mother Ginger — because the Alberta Ballet Company, which performs here annually, omits her from their production.

The Spokane Symphony hired Ballet Memphis for The Nutcracker this year due to a scheduling conflict with Alberta. “We were looking for someone who had the same artistic quality that we had with Alberta, and at the same time with a fresh approach,” says Annie Matlow, Spokane Symphony marketing and public relations director. That approach includes one sorely missed gingerbread lady – “Mother Ginger,” says Matlow, “is back.” Dec. 18-20; INB Performing Arts Center, $21-$39, four shows — ERIKA PRINS

Classical

Diamonds and Divas

By the time Dec. 31 rolls around, it will have been a long year. Hell, it’s already been a long year. Do yourself a favor and start saving up now for a swanky, luxurious “peace out” to a fiscally strained, nerve-frazzling 2009.

Possibly the fanciest local route to 2010 is the Diamonds and Divas Evening Gala featuring soprano Dawn Wolski, Spokane Symphony concertmaster Mateusz Wolski on violin and Greg Presley on piano, accompanied by the Spokane Opera Orchestra. The evening includes dinner by design of Davenport executive chef Bryan Franz, evening waltzes and midnight champagne.

It’s “one of the few black tie galas that has a fairly formal program” in town, says Spokane Opera executive director Bill Graham. Washington wines are auctioned to raise funds for the opera — regard your bid as a karma deposit for the New Year. Thursday, Dec. 31; The Davenport Hotel, $175, 6:30 pm — ERIKA PRINS