THE RITES OF ELEUSIS are a cycle of seven mystery plays pertaining to the human and divine archetypes of the original seven planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, and Luna. Originally created by Sir Aleister Crowley in 1910, they were designed to allow audiences to experience these archetypes in toto. Scarlet Woman Oasis, Ordo Templi Orientis, a local group involved in ritual theatre, has created modern adaptations of Crowley's works and will stage them all, one play every five days, over a month's time. Each rite will be performed on the day of the week corresponding to its planetary name, with the setting for each rite taking its cue in some way from the nature of the planet and archetype being explored; audiences will visit a revival camp meeting, an existentialist nightclub, a post-apocalyptic world, and so on. The rites continue Nov 9 with The Rite of Jupiter and Nov 14 with The Rite of Mars. Through Dec 4, days vary, 8pm, at the Bodhi Yoga and Massage Center, 1710 Houston. Tickets: $5 show/$31 for all. 443-7382.
GREGORY HINES brings his brilliant skills as dancer, singer, and actor back to Austin to blow an 80th birthday kiss to the Paramount Theatre. It's time for the landmark stage's annual gala, and Hines is this year's performer of choice, giving a command performance at the theatre on Nov 11. Immediately following, a Birthday Bash will be held at the Marriott at the Capitol, with music by Johnny Dee and the Rocket 88s. Of course, the evening includes ample food, drink, and fun, plus the famed Silent Auction. ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY! Nov 11, Sat, 8pm, at the Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress. 472-5411.
TEMPORARILY YOURS Just before this Vortex Repertory Co. production begins, the air in Planet Theatre is filled with the familiar theme from Bewitched. It couldn't be more apropos. With its magical mischief and meddling mom and mildly mirthful mix-ups, Tom W. Kelly's fanciful play could almost be a lost episode from that Sixties sitcom, albeit one involving gay men, nudity, and AIDS. Joey, an ailing man desperate for relief from the disease that is killing him, turns to a text on magic to find a healing spell. Two guests arrive -- Billy, new amour of Joey's former-lover-but-still-roommate Eric, and Helen, Eric's mother and a Christian with a conservative streak -- and the book is used to magically scramble the minds and bodies of these characters. Director Bill Jay keeps the production about as laid-back and light as a TV episode. The pace is even. The actors move through the comic material at an easy skip, tackling the body swaps gamely with amusing results. It's a modest bit of magic, amiably cast. (Robert Faires) FINAL WEEKEND! Through Nov 11, Thu-Sun, 8pm, at Planet Theatre, 2307 Manor. Tickets: $11 ($7 w/discount). Running time: 1 hr, 20 min. 478-LAVA.
ALL IN THE TIMING The poor saps in playwright David Ives' world know what they want to say, but when they say it, it comes out funny. They try to pay a compliment and only deliver an insult; they endeavor to be clever and come off looking the fool. For them, it's funny peculiar. For the audience, it's funny ha-ha. Ives loves language, and he can make words do tricks, stand on their heads, hop through hoops. Each of the six sketches in this show rises from an ingenious premise -- three chimps at typewriters try to peck out Hamlet, a con man peddles a "universal language" that's mostly pidgin English -- and each exists chiefly to mine laughs from that premise. Which, in every case, it does. Shrewdly and with sparkle. But Ives' pieces are more than just clever; they're smart. They're built on a keen understanding of how humans communicate, revealing how hard we try to say what we mean. The show demands much of its actors, and the five in Live Oak Theatre's production deliver. They can be crisp in their service of Ives' delicately timed gags and supply longing with laughs. Director Steve Shearer has helped them find the words and how to say them, and they sound right even when they're wrong. (Robert Faires) FINAL WEEKEND! Through Nov 12, Thu-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 6pm, at the State Theatre, 719 Congress. Tickets: $15 Thu/Sun; $17 Fri/Sat ($2 discount seniors, students). Running time: 1 hr, 45 min. 472-5143.
FRED GARBO AND COMPANY bring their whimsical movement, rollicking rhythms, and inflatable props to town to amuse the whole family in two comical shows. See mime! See juggling! See "Fred Zeplin, the Inflatable Man!" See him meet the "Inflatable Woman!" Garbo and Daielma Santos provide a barrage of colorful physical comedy. TWO PERFORMANCES ONLY! Nov 12, Sun, 2 & 4:30pm, at the Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress. 472-5411.
REBEL YELLS centers on the hearts and dreams and self-deceptions of seven war-scarred soldiers. Steve Warren (Gone to Texas, The Wisdom of Children) is the author of this new work, which is being given a developmental production by Remembrance Through the Performing Arts, the company which just did the same for Rosalyn Rosen's drama Repetitions. Directed by Marla Macdonald (Repetitions). FINAL WEEK! Through Nov 13, Sun & Mon, 8pm, at Capitol City Playhouse, 214 W. Fourth. Tickets: $6 ($5 seniors, students, ACoT). 329-9118.
TEEN LIFE THEATRE COMPANY begins a new season of shows exploring teen issues in dramatic skits. The troupe of Austin area high school students is sponsored by Planned Parenthood of Austin to communicate adolescent concerns and problems to youth, parents, and members of churches, schools, and social service agencies. A free performance for the public is being held this week. ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY! Nov 15, Wed, 7pm, at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center. Admission is free. 476-0541.
TALK RADIO On a balmy Cleveland eve, talk-show host Barry Champlain fields calls from area citizens. Some have issues on their minds, some want to praise him, but to Barry, they have nothing to say. They're just talking to vent, to spew, to let something out. In Eric Bogosian's satire, Champlain is the Last Thinking Man, the one person who can still articulate ideas, and his life has been distilled to a nightly showdown with the world in a call-in radio show. The Company's production serves up this acidic punch with rowdy energy, best exemplified in Ken Bradley's Champlain: bright and cutting with words, he's physical, too: restless, aggressive, with a touch of frontier swagger, a lone rider on the radio range. The energy can work against the script; sometimes, actors invest so much intensity in the delivery of... each... word, the honesty is lost in a coating of technique. Fortunately, this occurs only sporadically; there is also plain, simple work that adds dimension to the characters. The show overall plays like a station on the edge of its broadcast range; some moments it's clear as a bell, then abruptly it fades and is fuzzy. Your reception may depend on how close you are to the source. (Robert Faires) HELD OVER! Through Nov 17, Thu-Sat, Mon, 8pm, Sun, 2pm, at Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd. Tickets: $10 ($7 seniors, students, ACoT). Pay What You Wish: Thu, Sun, Mon. Running time: 2 hrs. 499-TIXS.
LARGO DESOLATO is a place of depression and madness, one into which Professor Leopold Nettles is sinking as scheming colleagues and a sinister government try to strip him of his identity. Before he became president of the Czech republic, Vaclav Havel was a playwright, a great playwright, and a political rebel. The script, translated by Tom Stoppard, is produced here by The Broccoli Project. Nov 9-18, Thu-Sat, 8pm, in Batts Hall, room 7, UT campus. Tickets: $3.
LOST IN UTOPIA is where psychic detective Miss Pretty Hand finds herself: the Utopia Coffeeshop, that is. It's an Upper West Side eatery that has mysteriously exploded in bubbles and lost in the suds is four-year-old Joy Cortez. Can the famed specialist in diff-Occult cases find the girl? This, the seventh Miss Pretty Hand adventure by writer/actor Katherine Griffith, is, like its predecessors, a rapid-fire barrage of puns, tongue twisters, and verbal acrobatics, with plenty of magic and metaphor in the mix. THREE PERFORMANCES ONLY! Nov 16-18, Thu-Sat, 8pm, at Planet Theatre, 2307 Manor. Tickets: $11 ($7 w/discount). 478-LAVA.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is getting a real workout this season. The Shakespearean comedy of a rogue who sets out to bend the will of a tart-tongued woman is being produced by at least three Austin theatre companies this season. First up is a version by the Boxtree Players, a troupe composed of past participants in Dr. James Ayres' Shakespeare at Winedale program. Gavin Mundy directs a cast that includes Anne Engelking as Kate, Jon Watson as Petruchio, and Carrie Strader as Bianca. Nov 9-18, Thu-Sat, 8pm, at ArtSpace, 403 Baylor. Tickets: $5.
WAITING ON GODOT is a satiric riff on Mr. Beckett's existential classic (take careful note of the title's middle word) by Wayne Alan Brenner. Subtitled Working the Butt/Lip Ratio, this scathing new comedy by the poet/writer/dramatist (The Roadkill Factor) puts us inside the howling hell of tablewaiting. Starring Paul Garlinghouse, Charlotte Keith, Garland Thompson, and Kevin Mabrey. A Cafe Armageddon production. Warning: Explicit material. Through Nov 18, Fri & Sat, 8pm, at Electric Lounge, 302 Bowie. 474-7653.
THE BILLY-CLUB PUPPETS There's a lovely point at which theatre becomes theatre. It's the moment when the thing you see becomes the thing you imagine it to be: The stick becomes a sword, the woman wearing cardboard wings becomes an angel. At that moment, you see the world both as it is and as it could be and are flooded with the headiness of possibility: anything can be anything, anything can happen. It is a wonderful point -- literally, a point full of wonder -- that frees us from our adult preoccupations with what is and returns to us the child's ability to see what might be, could be, should be.
For 85 minutes, the Tongue and Groove production of Federico Garcia Lorca's fantasy perches and pirouettes on that point, and oh, it is a thing to see. A rosy-cheeked puppet maid twirls, her body limp with heartache over an arranged marriage to a vicious bully. Her true lover, a lad with a face as white as the moon, leans longingly toward her room. An old flame of the maid amorously clutches her bridal shoes to his face, breast, loins. A cobbler, Wearisome by name, shuffles and sput-ters in inch-long increments, a cross old locomotive. A needle-nosed barber twirls deliriously over the gleaning of gossip. Three dancers -- first as young men, then smugglers, then radiant maidens in gowns of pink -- sway in the way of waves. The bully, his humor as black as the mask he wears, clomps and stomps bullishly. It's the stuff of folk tales (whatever keen lampoon of fascism Lorca may have intended has been dimmed by time and America), but it's offered with such heart and style and pure belief in make-believe, that each simple thing shines and the whole enchants.
Director David Yeakle knows that we are there to help create the effects -- more: that we want to -- and he creates an environment in which we can do that. He has the puppet characters' lines voiced by four musicians to the side of the stage. It contributes to the illusion that the characters are puppets, but we complete the effect. Similarly, he keeps the artifice in full view: the patchwork outfits of Diane Simons and Ellen Yeakle, the painted faces and masks, the tiny proscenium with canvas curtain, the music, only making sure that these things are given cleanly, with precision and honest care, like a hand-crafted garment; he leaves us to do the rest. And in theatre, as in so many areas, the thing that means the most to us is the thing in which we had a hand.
Yeakle and his warm and richly talented company present their show on the deck of Ski Shores restaurant, with leaves and stars above and the waters of Lake Austin not an arm's length away. The ambience is informal, intimate, homey. The distance and the charm of nature make you feel removed from the world and yet part of it, in and out of time. It is another of the fine balances this production manages, another of the many fine wonders it oh so gently, oh so artfully, oh so magically shares with us. (Robert Faires) Through Nov 19, Fri-Sun, 8pm, at Ski Shores (west on 2222, left on City Park Rd one stoplight past 2222 & 360, five miles to marina). Tickets: $10 ($7 seniors, stu-dents, ACoT). Running time: 1 hr, 25 min. 794-0518.
DINNY AND THE WITCHES extends the Halloween season into the month of Thanksgiving, with a comedic tale of a jazz musician confronting a trio of sorceresses. Subtitled "A frolic on grave matters," the script by William Gibson (The Miracle Worker) offers not only enchanted spoofery but a reminder that perfection may be found in the love of another. A Southwestern University Dept. of Theatre and Communication production. Nov 9-19, Thu-Sat, 8pm, Nov 19, Sun, 2pm, at the Jones Theatre, SU campus, Georgetown. 512/863-1378.
JAKE'S WOMEN are the people to whom this successful novelist turns when he needs to talk through his problems: his first wife, his daughter, his sister, his analyst. The only thing is, he talks to them in his head. This dramatic comedy by Neil Simon probes the power of both females and the imagination. Ev Lunning, Jr., directs this Mary Moody Northen Theatre production, featuring guest artist Eddie Mekka (Laverne and Shirley). Through Nov 19, Thu-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 2pm, at the MMNT, St. Edward's University campus, 3001 S. Congress. $10 ($8 seniors, faculty, $5 students). 448-8483.
MOTHER HICKS is called witch by the folks of the town in which she lives, but is she, or is there another reason she leads her peculiar, solitary life? The orphan called Girl seeks the answer, with the help of a silent yet eloquent man named Tuc. Susan Zeder's tale of self-discovery is one of the most prized family dramas of the past decade, and this revival is being staged by the author herself, a faculty member of the UT Department of Theatre & Dance. Gene Mirus, a veteran of the National Theatre of the Deaf, playing Tuc. Nov 10-12, Fri & Sat, 8pm, Sun, 2pm, Nov 14-17, Tue -Fri, 8pm, & Nov 19, Sun, 2pm, in the B. Iden Payne Theatre, UT campus. Tickets: $12 ($9 w/UT ID). 471-1444.
THE DIARY OF A SCOUNDREL isn't a drama on the travails of Bob Packwood, but his recent problems give a little "the more things change..." lift to Different Stages' new staging of this 19th-century farce by Alexander Ostrovsky. Matthew Patterson (The M.O. of M.I.) stars as Gloumov, a schemer who toadies his way into high society but hits a snag when the diary full of his real thoughts is discovered. Norman Blumensaadt directs. Through Dec 2, Thu-Sat, 8pm, Nov 26, Sun, 2pm, at The Acting Studio, 5811 Burnet. $11 Fri/Sat; Thu: Pay What You Can. 499-TIXS.
AVENUE X In John Jiler and Ray Leslee's musical, a gifted, young Italian-American singer meets an equally gifted African-American teen, and the two form a musical team to try to win a big talent show, but must face friends and families who consider their pairing unnatural. We've seen this before: New York, the Sixties, rebels who unite despite great opposition. But the creators do more than recycle West Side Story; they make us feel music and how it fills spaces in our lives. Through a stunning range of song styles, from hymn to gospel call to doo-wop to ballad, they reveal how we employ it in our celebrations, in our worship, how it ineffably articulates our deepest feelings without words. In this Zachary Scott Theatre Center production, director Dave Steakley and musical director Allen Robertson have brought together and nurtured a cast of performers who surrender their hearts to song in every number. Their voices rise with the grace and power of birds in flight, and their soaring is all the more astonishing for being a cappella. No instruments guide the singers upward; we get only voices flying, pure and free. And it is glorious. (Robert Faires) HELD OVER! Through Dec 10, Thu-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 2:15pm, at the ZSTC Kleberg Stage, 1421 W. Riverside. Tickets: $17-19. Running time: 1 hr, 55 min. 476-0541.
SHEAR MADNESS reigns again! The comedy whodunit that ran a stunning 20 months at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center is being revived for a special end-of-the-year run in the same space where it made so many Austinites laugh. Director Alice Wilson is at the helm again, and she's lured Boyd Vance back to Austin to reprise the role of Tony, madcap master of the Shear Madness salon. It's bound to be as much of a hoot as ever, a sleek, smart, giddy ride of gags, takes, suspicions, and send-ups of Austin. Through Dec 31, Thu-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 2:15pm, at the ZSTC Whisenhunt Arena Stage, 1510 Toomey. Tickets: $14-17. 476-0541.
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