Anita Stewart and her artistic companions at Portland Stage Company were rightfully nervous before the opening of "Peer Gynt" on Friday.

The show has been in rehearsal since Christmas, and Stewart described it as the most ambitious play the theater has attempted during her tenure as artistic director.

The Henrik Isben classic is a massive undertaking. It's one of those theater pieces that challenges the cast with its words, concepts and themes. It's metaphorically layered, and based on fairy tales, dreams and the inner fears of its central character, the not-so-lovable Peer.

Adding to the complexity is Stewart's decision to work with Figures of Speech Theatre, by including more than a dozen puppets who portray different characters at different moments in their lives. The puppets mingle with the actors on stage, introducing potential confusion.

But everything worked just fine. The audience loved the puppets, and cheered for them throughout the show.

Noah Brady, playing the lead of Peer, was on stage virtually all night, and he was outstanding. The cast, including Portland Stage regulars Sally Wood, Mark Honan, Moira Driscoll, Dustin Tucker and J.P. Guimont, had their timing down just right, and they handled the difficult script without flaw.

The play was funny and poignant, and its central theme of finding one's inner self was not lost amid the puppets, glittery costumes and complex script. The pacing was fine, and the set -- designed by Stewart -- handled the comings and goings of the cast superbly.

I am eager to read the review by my colleague Steve Feeney. But at first blush, my two-cents' worth suggests that Portland Stage pulled off "Peer Gynt" remarkably well.

It is on stage through Feb. 22, and I strongly recommend that you make the effort to go.

Somebody asked noted rock and culture critic Greil Marcus on Monday night, If a big art museum puts on a rock 'n' roll photography show, is it still rock 'n' roll?

Marcus, speaking at the Osher lecture at the Holiday Inn By the Bay, barely hesitated. Of course it is, he said, and then quoted from Bob Dylan's "Visions of Johanna":

"Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial."

In this case, we are the judge and jury, he said. It's up to us to decide how we feel about the exhibition and about preserving rock for posterity on the walls of the hallowed museum.

Marcus was in town to talk about the newest show at the PMA, "Backstage Pass: Rock & Roll Photography," on view through March 22.

It's a blockbuster, all right. It's going to be a huge show for the museum, and provide a timely boost to attendance during the long, cold winter. Already, acting museum director Tom Denenberg said, attendance for the first weekend is 100 percent above attendance over for the first weekend of last year's winter show, a sculpture exhibition by Harpswell artist John Bisbee.

But don't read too much into that stat. For one thing, it's only one weekend. And for another, the museum had a series of huge opening events to mark the show. But nonetheless, it's an impressive start, and it bodes well for the exhibition.

Marcus, who began his career at Rolling Stone magazine and has written about rock 'n' roll for numerous magazines and published many books, noted that the show reflects the singular tastes and views of one collector. The entire show -- hundreds of mostly black and white images -- are culled from a single anonymous collector.

So "Backstage Pass" is hardly a comprehensive review of rock history, nor is it intended to be. Instead, it's a highly personalized view of the back-channels of rock, with candid images of performers off stage, back stage and in private moments.

We get Buddy Holly on a bus, dog tired from travels. We get Elvis backstage, stealing a kiss. We get Dylan behind the shades, hiding from camera lenses and staring past the fans.

We get the Stones, the Who, Zeppelin and the Beatles. We get the famous and the infamous.

We get mystery, aura and cool.

Better still, we know the ending to the story. What makes this exhibition compelling, Marcus said, is that many of these photos were made during the evolution of rock -- although a good number come from the 80s and 90s, as well. But regardless, the subjects of these photos had no idea what was ahead of them when the photos were taken.

Elvis was still an innocent kid. Holly had nothing if not his future. "We know how the story told in this picture turns out," Marcus said, showing a photo of Holly riding a bus, not too long before his death 50 years ago next week in a plane crash.

Dylan was the only one who evoked a sense of knowing. Referencing a 1962 image of boyish Bob, staring dead-on into the camera, Marcus said, "He sees his history ahead of him."

Rockland will host its first Pecha Kucha Night at 7 p.m. Friday at the Eric Hopkins Gallery, 21 Winter St.

Pecha Kucha -- pronounced peh-chak-cha -- derives its name from the Japanese term for the sound of conversation, and is a popular trend across the country where people gather to present, see and hear creative work in a fast-paced format.

Each presenter is limited to 20 slides of his or her work, and presenters can spend no more than 20 seconds on each slide. Space Gallery in Portland has hosted Pecha Kucha Night since October.

Friday's event in Rockland is a program of the Maine Center for Creativity, in collaboration with Midcoast Magnet and the Farnsworth Art Museum.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m, and admission is $5.

The concept began in Tokyo in 2003 as a way for creative people to quickly present ideas, and has spread across the United States and to other countries.