Reviews: Cheech & Chong, Ghostland Observatory, 'Ophelia'

COMEDY - CHEECH & CHONG

"I didn't even know we broke up. I thought we were on vacation."

With that, Tommy Chong pushed past decades of what seemed like bad blood between one of the most influential comedy duos of all time, Cheech & Chong. Chong and his partner in stoner culture infamy, Cheech Marin, played the sold-out Austin Music Hall last weekend , part of the "Light Up America" reunion tour.

In one of the stand-up comedy segments interspersed between classic songs and sketches from the duo, Chong alluded to Marin's success on TV and movies, which, he said, led to Cheech & Chong's long hiatus. "You can't make a rich Mexican do (expletive)!" he joked, to wild applause.

At 70 and 62 years of age respectively, Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin would seem to be way too old for the scatological songs and doper skits that make up the group's ouvre. Thank goodness for the audience, which included members close to Cheech & Chong's age and several generations of younger fans, that they haven't. The recycled material, almost all familiar to even the most casual fan, still shocks and produces powerful belly laughs, even if you're not stoned.

"Let's Make a Dope Deal," the hitchhiker bit from "Up In Smoke" and one of the dirtiest sketches ever written (set in an adult movie theater with Marin in wordless drag) still, incredibly, holds up. Good writing is good writing and the show was also blessed with spry, spot-on performances from the two. Despite a few wireless mike problems, Cheech & Chong never lost their timing or their powerfully goofy charm.

The tight performance opened with a brief, nicely put-together video featuring album covers and movie posters of their best work, plus a curve ball or two (the imaginary, but amusing, "The Audacity of Dope"). Chong's wife, Shelby, opened the show with a stand-up comedy set that invited heckles and catcalls. Shelby Chong didn't get rattled; she gave an amusing account of her husband's 2003 arrest for selling a bong.

"Did everyone get stoned before you came to the show?" she asked. Maybe some did, but a lot more waited till the end of the performance. By the time Cheech & Chong closed with a celebratory performance of the song "Mexican American," the entire balcony was a haze of thick smoke. Tokers blew plumes into the air like human chimneys.

If that didn't make it a party, the other songs sealed the deal. Marin's hilarious takedown of glam rock, "Alice Bowie," and Chong's foul-mouthed bluesman Blind Melon Chitlin' egged on the rowdy audience. There was no "Basketball Jones" and their most famous skit, "Dave," was notably absent, But fans were laughing too hard to complain.

— Omar L. Gallaga

MUSIC GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY

To kick off the weekend, Austin's Ghostland Observatory played one of two consecutive sold-out shows at Stubb's on Friday, blasting their spastic electro pop down Red River Street. (Ghostland will play Jan. 30 at the newly renovated Bass Concert Hall, it was announced this week.)

Winds whipped and temperatures were dropping as the performance began, and many audience members were wearing only T-shirts and jeans.

But once frontman Aaron Behrens and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Turner took the stage, no one seemed to care. Behrens began prancing back and forth, pounding his fist in the air while shrieking his high-pitched melodies, and the packed space before the stage became a sea of grooving bodies and waving arms.

Adding to the frantic mood of the night was a carefully synced light show. Flashing strobes and twirling lasers swelled, stuttered and twirled through the stage smoke to the pounding beats.

As Behrens and Turner broke into the chorus of "Sad Sad City" halfway through the set, someone in the middle of the crowd tossed hundreds of multi-colored glowsticks into the air, and the audience was soon adding to the light display. After a few songs, however, security confiscated the fluorescent toys.

Turner traded his spot at the synthesizers for one at the drums for a few songs, while Behrens picked up a guitar, but by the set's end they were back to electronics. They thanked the crowd for supporting them, then played an encore of early fan favorites "Silver City" and "Rich Man."

— Alex Daniel

THEATER 'OPHELIA'

Edgar Allan Poe wrote that "the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world." If that's so, "Ophelia" gives us poetry five times over. The new work, written and directed by Dustin Wills for Tutto Theatre, gives us five different aspects of Ophelia, makes the audience come to sympathize with or even share Hamlet's love with each, and then kills her off.

Poe continued that "equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover." That's certainly true in the original "Hamlet," where the prince himself hauntingly wails her death in the graveyard, but here the bereaved is Ophelia herself.

That's both a strength and a weakness. At its lowest, "Ophelia" can seem overly introspective, insidery, and academic, all of which goes with the territory. It's easy to lose the sense of real relationships and emotions unfolding in the, admittedly clever, allusions to, echoes of, and twists on "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," "Macbeth," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and more.

At its best it's just as easy to forget all that and simply watch a young girl, or five, slowly descend into madness on her own.

The play opens ominously. The five Ophelias sit on a starkly white, wooden framed stage, designed by Lisa Laratta, under the boughs of a weeping willow made of tangled ropes and swings that grows, of course, aslant a brook. They dangle their feet, splash each other, and laze about until, sharply, they join in song and spoken word to recite Queen Gertrude's description of Ophelia's drowning.

From there the story follows Ophelia as she falls deeper in love with Hamlet, is warned away by her father, and devises a plan to trick him into madness. The plan, though I never could figure out why, is meant to both appease her father and win Hamlet's heart — letting Ophelia please all the men in her life at the cost of herself.

While the plan itself might not make much sense, though it's certainly no less confusing than Hamlet's original device of feigned madness, the presentation is touching. Wills, a stronger director than writer, has an eye for beautiful and poignant scenes, bringing strong performances out of his entire cast.

Sofia Ruiz, as Ophelia in Love, opens the play with charming naivet? and innocence. Each subsequent Ophelia teeters closer to the line between madness and reason, adding conflict to her aspect of the psyche as saner, balancing aspects are removed, until finally all that's left is Kim Adams' Ophelia, undone, and a moving rendition of madness set to violin by Emily Tindall as Ophelia, in water.

Gabriel Luna, as both Hamlet and Polonius, offers the male side. While he's occasionally childish and jokey as Hamlet, Luna retains sincerity and power, particularly in Will's unique twist on the classic "Get thee to a nunnery."

Separating most of the Ophelias' time on stage are dreams of lyrical dances, choreographed by the ensemble. Coming after a scene of high hope and love or one of despair and anger, they offer moments of quiet reflection that set the tone for "Ophelia" as much as any of her conversations.

"Ophelia" as a play might occasionally be more academic than human in its exploration of Ophelia outside of the male-dominated "Hamlet." As a production, though, it manages, as its lead character struggles, to balance the head and the heart.

— Joey Seiler

'Ophelia' continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through Nov. 23 at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Rd. $12-$15. 927-1118, tuttotheatre.org.