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| The cast of 7th and Jackson (Dangerpants Photography) |
7th and Jackson
Café Nordo
Through August 11, 2019
Although I’m reporting about the unique and well-executed
show, 7th and Jackson, after the fact, which means you can’t
attend and experience it yourself anymore, I can encourage you to attend other
unique and well-executed programming at Café Nordo in the future. I can also
encourage you to watch for and attend other events starring and/or written by uber-talented
Sara Porkalob.
7th and Jackson is a newer venture for Ms.
Porkalob, whose writing has most deeply been for her solo performances and
digging into her own family’s extraordinary past. Best known for Dragon Lady,
where she tells her grandmother’s story about being a Filipino gangster,
Porkalob has extended that story to Dragon Mama, and soon to Dragon
Baby, wending her way down the generations to her own beginnings.
7th and Jackson amplifies her writing
talents to plays where other people appear and other stories are told. In this
play, Lee (Anasofia Gallegos), Min (Corinne Magin), and Ada (Sarah
Nicole Russell) are 1940s school friends who long to emulate the success of
the Andrews Sisters, singing three-part-harmony and getting famous. Their hopes
rest on a local restaurant and jazz club in the International District of
Seattle.
Porkalob brings to the fore a sensibility of
intersectionality as she demonstrates through the characters how the onset of
World War II affected communities of color. While most of us might have been
taught about how the imperial Japanese wanted to attack our country, making
World War II a very stark and U.S.-patriotic time, Seattleites were very close
to the Japanese community that was removed from Bainbridge Island and forced
into internment camps in the deserts of the United States.
Porkalob’s characters are black, Korean, and Filipina. Min,
the Korean-American, is targeted by those who assume she is Japanese, even
though her family hates what Japan did to Korea, years before. Ada, the young
black singer, points out in the play that black men were not allowed to serve
in the Army and were treated as less than citizens.
The three main actors are called upon to each portray one of
their parents, as well, in a kind of “mini solo performance” style. It’s a way
that Porkalob infuses her style into characters she doesn’t portray herself.
The evening contains well-known songs the Andrews Sisters
would have made famous, accompanied by a small house band. In Café Nordo’s
signature way, the food served in this four-course meal, designed by Chef Erin
Brindley, matches aspects of the evening.
The dim sum-style appetizers included tempura
baby turnips and garlic long beans and a pork soup with dumplings followed.
The most insanely crunchy buttermilk-fried-chicken “ssam” came with Korean-style
lettuce wraps. I’ve never tasted anything I wanted tons more of
so insistently! (Can I get a gallon bowlful, please, stat?) Dessert was a
luscious blueberry pielet with coconut ice cream. Exquisite!
Watching for the “next” event Sara Porkalob is doing, whether as
an actor, writing for herself or writing for others, is a worthy pursuit.
People who see her lauded in many places might think she’s just a “flavor of
the moment,” but her talent is undeniable and we’re lucky to have her energy
infusing our stages. One upcoming event will be a world premiere play written
by Porkalob, Alex and Alix, to be presented at Artswest in April 2020.
Looking ahead to Café Nordo events, they’ve announced their next
full season of shows with the first, in September, titled Violet’s Attic.
It appears that The Culinarium invites you to look at the world from a doll’s
eyes. I can’t quite tell if that’s supposed to be creepy or not…
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