The Short List

The Portland Tribune, May 14, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

©STEPHANIE DAVIS AND ANGELA BOLANOS

In Milagro Theatre’s "The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa," José González plays the father, with Bunnie Rivera as his wife — parents of a son without a body who thinks he is Poncho Villa, played by Vincente Guzmán-Orozco.

THEATER

‘The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa’

Regarded as the father of Chicano theater in America, playwright Luis Valdez is best known for “Zoot Suit” and the film “La Bamba.” “The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa,” his first full-length play which premiered in 1963, is an absurdist comedy of racial stereotypes of the ’50s. Belarmino, the eldest son in the family, is severely handicapped — he has no body, only a head, and he does not even talk. But when his brother returns from the army, determined to move his family out of the barrio and into the American dream, the head starts talking. Olga Sanchez directs this English language production.

— Randall Barton

7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through May 30, Milagro Theatre, 525 S.E. Stark Street, 503-236-7253, www.milagro.org, $16-$22

‘The Uneasy Chair’

Evan Smith’s droll drawing room comedy on Victorian manners sparks comparisons to Oscar Wilde or Bernard Shaw. Flinty spinster Amelia Pickles runs a boarding house into which a retired military man, Josiah Wickett, moves. The late-bloomer’s incessant squabbling leads to love. Shelly Lipkin directs this unblinking view of aging and love.

— RB

8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through June 13, Coho Productions, 2257 N.W. Raleigh St., 503-220-2646, www.cohoproductions.org, $20-$25

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