FRIDAY-THURSDAY
FILM
EYES WITHOUT A FACE
Along with Psycho and Peeping Tom, Georges Franju’s 1959 Face helped create the modern slasher-shocker. In the movie’s sinister first scene, anxious-looking Alida Valli drives by night through the deserted suburbs of Paris, searching for a place to dump the inert humanoid passenger slumped in the backseat. Valli plays the zombified lover and accomplice to Professeur Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), a plastic surgeon who attempts to restore the mutilated face of his birdlike daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob, above), with skin obtained from young women. Between grafts, Christiane flits about the château, peering through the sockets of a molded plastic mask. In the end, she regains her humanitythough not in the way we expect. Eyes is a masterpiece of poetic horror and tactful, tactile brutality. Runs Fri., Jan. 2- Thurs., Jan. 8. Grand Illusion, N.E. 50th Street and University Way, 206-523-3935. (NR) J. HOBERMAN
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
STAGE
14/48
ConWorks has made a lot of missteps in its stage programming lately, but forget all that; this annual festival is a genuine event always packed, always worth a look. Seven local playwrights are each assigned a randomly chosen theme and given one Thursday night to write a 10-minute play, which is then rehearsed and fully produced by another team of artists over the following 24 hours. All seven shows are performed that Friday evening. The process repeats itself again the following night, creating 14 new plays in 48 hours. Not everything you see will be good, but it’s usually a kick finding out what is. 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Fri., Jan. 2-Sat., Jan. 3. $14.48. Consolidated Works, 500 Boren Ave. N., 206-325-6500. STEVE WIECKING
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
FILM
DONNIE DARKO
Not exactly a perfect film, but a dystopic remix of John Hughes movies and Stephen King novels, Darko holds a dark mirror to the tortures of adolescence, when every kid feels the tug of insanity and the urge to right the world. Jake Gyllenhaal (below) is Donnie, a Holden Caulfield-like misfit who owes his life to the imaginary friend who instructs him to get out of the house just before a jet engine plummets into his bedroom. Increasingly belligerent at school, his scorn turning to vandalism, the question for Donnie becomes: Where else is the voice of Frank leading him? Midnight, Fri., Jan. 2-Sat., Jan. 3. Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 206-323-4978. BRIAN MILLER
SATURDAY
READINGS
HEATHER MCHUGH
Like a poetic stand-up comic, McHugh is inspired and unabashedly witty at her readings, surprising her audience with lyrical phrasing, playful puns, and the subtle humor that abounds in her writing. If ever there were someone who could be drunk on words, McHugh would happily plead guilty to such intoxication; she overflows with a love for syntax and rhythm and can send her readers into a state of wonderment with her ingenious line breaks. Now a faculty member at the UW, she’ll read from her latest collection, Eyeshot (Wesleyan Univ., $20). 7:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 3. Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., 206-624-6600. SAMANTHA STOREY
TUESDAY
READINGS
GREGORY WOLFE
You’d be hard-pressed to find anything more unfashionable in this town’s artistic circles than seriously engaging issues of faith and religion. How odd, then, to have Image, the intellectually sophisticated “Journal of the Arts and Religion,” based here (at SPU). With writing from people like David James Duncan and Annie Dillard, interviews with Wim Wenders and Carolyn Forché, and art from painters such as Eric Fischl (his Strange Place to Park, below, adorns this summer’s cover), each quarterly issue also carries a short essay from editor Gregory Wolfe, whose astute pieces have been collected into a book, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and Mystery (Square Halo, $9.99). 7:30 p.m. Tues. Jan., 6. Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., 206-624-6600. MARK D. FEFER
