Stamper family easily treads the boards

Theater review: ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’

By ERIC BARTELS

The Portland Tribune, Apr 11, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

©2008 OWEN CAREY

Stamper family patriarch Henry (Tobias Andersen, middle) rallies sons Hank (P.J. Sosko, left) and Leland (Karl Miller) to keep their logging business afloat in “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

Ken Kesey’s towering 1964 novel is the greatest Oregon story ever told. The question is whether it’s simply superior to other Oregon stories or a monumental work that happens to be set in Oregon.

In director Aaron Posner’s world-premiere adaptation, which opened at Portland Center Stage last weekend, nothing is more vividly on display than the power of Kesey’s tale.

In it, a defiantly self-reliant logging family in early ’60s Oregon contracts to do the work of fellow loggers who’ve gone out on strike. The deal could prove lucrative but also costly, enraging locals whose livelihood is threatened.

The issue is self-interest versus community, whether the stubborn Stamper family will show regard for its neighbors and whether it should. Flinty patriarch Henry (Tobias Andersen) says the strikers are materialistic and lazy and is unconcerned with their plight.

Oldest son Hank (P.J. Sosko) agrees. The family that carved a hard-won fortune for itself by holding to its credo, “Never give a inch,” isn’t about to change its ways.

But Kesey has woven other matters into the fabric. Needing manpower, the family summons young brother Leland (Karl Miller) from his life as an East Coast academic, which rekindles a dangerous rivalry between the intellectual and the rough-hewn Hank, the half-brother he sees as a lifelong oppressor.

Hank once had an affair with Leland’s mother, who has since committed suicide, and the younger man now sees his liberation in Hank’s trophy wife, Viv (Sarah Grace Wilson). She finds herself drawn to Leland’s intelligence and vulnerability.

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