Anyone who’s ever seen a performance by the amazing Bill Irwin has wondered, “How does he do that?” Thing is, the question could apply to any number of seemingly impossible feats the chameleonic actor/clown/choreographer/playwright is capable of. Like, how does he do that thing where his legs get all rubbery? (And his face, for that matter?) How can an actor be so completely endearing in one role (Fool Moon) and so utterly chilling in another (CSI), and win awards both for clowning and for playing one of the most soul-searing roles in modern American drama (George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which won him the Tony for Best Actor). And oh, how did it feel to be the first officially recognized “genius” when he received the inaugural MacArthur fellowship? You can ask him all this and more at the next installment of USF’s estimable Talk of the Arts lecture and performance series. Irwin is slated to talk about what it’s like to work in such an “odd mix” of genres, and he’ll also do some “baggy pants” clowning and perform excerpts from his dramatic work, “looking at — among other things — the language of the body.” But you never know what to expect with Irwin; last spring, he premiered a show called The Happiness Lecture in Philadelphia that turned out to be a tour de force mix of vaudeville and faux academia. Not a lecture exactly, but it made audiences — at least this member of the audience — very happy. Mon. Jan. 13, 7 p.m., College of Visual & Performing Arts Theatre 1, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa, free, 813-974-2323.
This article appears in Dec 31, 2008 – Jan 6, 2009.