The prize for longest-lived Alaska actor in a continuing role has to be Jim Richards of Skagway, who has played the main character of Soapy Smith in Skagway's "Days of '98" show more than 10,000 times over the past 33 years.
Richards came to the job as a banjo-playing member of Soapy's gang in another show, "Soapy Lives" before taking over the lead and merging it with the "Days of '98." The revue plays to boatloads of tourists at the Eagles Hall Theatre hundreds of times each summer.
Richards had been slowly working himself out of the show in anticipation of his eventual retirement, but that process became more urgent Aug. 28 when he had a stroke in the middle of a performance.
He described the experience to the Skagway News, saying that his mind was clear, but the words just would not come out. He was rushed to a clinic and went back on stage Sept. 1. His final performance was Sept. 17.
"You know, it's been real fun, but I'm ready (to retire)," he told the Skagway News. "I'm way past ready."
It'll probably be another generation, however, before Skagway residents stop referring to him as "Soapy" when they greet him on the street.
Arts roundup
A tardy catch-up for art that went on display in early October. The No. 1 "must see" is Don Decker's "Disclosures" series at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art. These deal with things revealed as the seasons change, water, trash, canine jawbones. You might call them abstract landscapes. Most have the approximate same shape -- a vertical rectangle -- and size, about 30 by 40 inches. But each features a completely different group of media ranging from plywood to foam, metal, fabric, resin, found objects and video. Each is also totally different in concept and appearance. The connecting factor is the sense in each that there's something to try and see beneath the surface. Decker's admirable technical proficiency is evident in all of the pieces. The bad news is that the gallery on D Street is only open from noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The good news is that downtown traffic is quiet enough that you can find a parking place.
Among other displays in the IGCA, small five-by-five inch paintings by Laura Nutter and Karmen Staveland, priced at $85, are worth looking at, especially if you like cats.
John Wilcox's "Remants" in the Carr-Gottstein building is art that the bold might hang on their walls -- mixed media of boards, paint, metal, and (I think) human hair in asymmetric assemblages. Rabbits, keys and birds are among the images that recur.
The most accessible piece among the Wilcox offerings is titled "Compromise." In it a woman is getting nuzzled by a rabbit as she looks through a field of vertical lines -- a cage? -- at the back part of a fluttering black bird. In a piece titled "Statement," and perhaps intended as that rather than as a proper painting, the artist quotes Louis L'Amour: "No memory is ever alone. It's at the end of a trail of memories."
Heading back downtown, it seems that, with the tourists gone, art shops are now closing at about the same time that meter-free parking kicks in, so I was relegated to staring through windows without much success. Except when I stepped into the Hotel Captain Cook where the almost empty fine art shops offered much to admire.
In the Boreal Traditions shop masks by Alutiiq carver Jacob Simeonoff caught my attention, especially his superb full size reproduction of a historic "Negaqvaaq" mask (a Yup'ik-style image of the North Wind, variously spelled in English along the lines of "Negakfok.")
Stephan Fine Arts -- the one in the hotel, not the separate store at the corner of Fifth Avenue and K Street -- is the place to go for prints and paintings by Yukon artist Nathalie Parenteau, whose singular style treads the line between cartoon and dream and whose subjects (at least those seen in Alaska) reflect northern people, animals and activities.
Stephan also has new work by Andy Hehnlin, who specializes in the finicky medium of egg tempera. Largely self-trained, he's come a long way since popping into our awareness five years ago. His painting of a mining camp in winter is simultaneously attractive because of its Alaska theme, unexpected perspective and technical execution. I understand he wil be featured at the gallery in December, so be ready for their First Friday fete on Dec. 4.
More on Johnson
Someone asked me whether I'd go see Emily Johnson's energetic but perplexing "The Thank-You Bar" again. Probably not, I replied. But if forced to choose, I'd much rather spend $20 to see that show than $85 to see "Lion King" again. It's sticking in my head with greater persistency.
Choreographer Courtland Weaver has sent me a well-written appreciation of Johnson's show. "Johnson is an engaging performer," he writes. "Her movement is direct, focused and rhythmic, relying on form and shape to define its pattern and continuity. Add in some understated physical prowess, a descent nearly to the floor on one leg with the other leg stretched in front of her that appeared to be effortless, and her training and choreographic discipline are obvious. ... I hope that she comes back to Alaska often."
Read Weaver's full critique online at adn.com/artsnob.
Imperial Anchorage
Preston Jones, author of "Empire's Edge: American Society in Nome, Alaska, 1898-1925" will give a sneak preview of his upcoming book, "A Model Village: Anchorage, Alaska on the Pacific Rim, 1914-1941" at 7:30 p.m. today at the Anchorage Museum. It's the University of Alaska Anchorage's 5th Annual Alaska Day Polaris Lecture. Jones' talk is titled: "Anchorage and Empire: Early Anchorage as an Imperial Outpost." The event is free.
By MIKE DUNHAM
mdunham@adn.com