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Wednesday, February 12, 2020

One Woman on the Perils of Beauty – “Solo Fest” at ACT Theatre


Susan Lieu (Brett Love)

Over 140 LBS
Bread Crumbs
Left on Yellow Brick Road
ACT Theatre/ACTLab
Through February 16, 2020

ACT Theatre is producing its very first “Solo Fest” this month, anchored by a show by Susan Lieu that Lieu has done several times, in the area and then took it on the road to several other cities. Three other performances are also included and this weekend, you can potentially see three of the four, if you work quickly. Seats are limited.

Sherif Amin created Left on Yellow Brick Road, for which the description reads, “When a boy from Egypt unexpectedly finds himself in the Land of Oz, he travels to a place past the Emerald City where he stays. Soon he starts to wonder, is it better to stay in Oz or find his way back?”

Jasmine Joshua created Bread Crumbs which is an exploration of how they discovered, over many years, that they were non-binary. I have seen a couple of their iterations of this work and each time it is interesting, emotional, revealing, and thought-provoking. I expect no less from this outing.

Joshua’s journey encompasses the fact that they have twin girls and a husband and also developed a drag persona named Harvey Gent for which they now dress up as half Harvey, half themselves in a visual representation of that exploration.

Lieu’s autobiographical show was generated by the effect of the death of her mother from a botched tummy tuck by a doctor who should have had his license yanked far before he met Lieu’s mother! Lieu was eleven. It was entitled 140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother. The weight refers to both her mother’s and her own weight. Apparently, after her mother died, no one in her family, not her father, not her siblings, not her aunts or grandparents, wanted to speak about it. It was as if her mother poofed off the earth.

Monday, February 10, 2020

Apply Yourself to SPT’s “Admissions” – Smart, Funny, Mind-blowing

Benjamin McCormach in Admissions (John Ulman)
Admissions
Seattle Public Theater
Through February 23, 2020

Playwright Joshua Harmon is a fearless writer. As demonstrated in his play, Bad Jews, and again, clearly, in his play, Admissions, now at Seattle Public Theater, he seems to take a topical subject and aim his pungent thoughts at just about every aspect of it! And he’s funny and writes smart dialogue that fill his characters with complicated, human feelings.

Director Annie Lareau pulls out all the complications imbedded in this story of an “admissions counselor,” Sherri (aptly and sensitively played by stage veteran Anne Allgood), who has worked tirelessly over that last 15 years to increase diversity at a very white, very old New England prep school. She is finally on the verge of gaining the coveted 20% mark for minorities which she and her husband, Bill (a lovely, acerbic Kevin McKeon), want to celebrate. Bill is also a school administrator.

But then, at the same time, their only child, high school graduating senior Charlie (Benjamin McCormack, who pulls out all the stops), receives the news that he has been “deferred” at his dream school, Yale. He also finds out that best friend, Perry, has been accepted! They dreamed of going together. Suddenly, Charlie is not so happy about his friend’s acceptance and wants to chalk it up to Perry’s being “Black” (Perry’s family is “mixed race”) because Charlie’s high school achievements are better than Perry’s and he “should” have priority acceptance!

Saturday, February 01, 2020

February 2020 Theater Openings

Susan Lieu in her solo show 140 LBS (Brett Love)

February doesn’t know if it wants to be classic or brand-new. So, it looks like both. Look at what’s peeking out to invite you in as we run down theatrical productions opening this month.

Snow White, Seattle Children’s Theatre, 2/6/20-3/15/20
Deep in the forest, a classic tale emerges and is then radically transformed. Two dynamic actors morph into a multitude of characters – including a princess, her evil queen, a magical mirror, a huntsman, and the humorous seven dwarfs. Lively and imaginative, this new adaptation will update this classical story with an entirely fresh perspective and ask: How did they do that? (Recommended for 5 years and older)

The Children, Seattle Repertory Theatre, 2/7/20-3/15/20
Playwright Lucy Kirkwood gained a Tony nomination in 2018 for her Broadway play. In a cottage on England's beautiful rocky coast, two retired nuclear physicists live a peaceful existence; however, the world around them has been crippled by an environmental disaster. The surprise visit of an old friend brings a shocking proposition.

You’ll Love “She Loves Me”!

Randy Scholz and Taryn Darr in She Loves Me (Tracy Martin)
She Loves Me
Village Theatre
Issaquah: through February 23, 2020
Everett: February 28 – March 22, 2020

A perfect music box of a musical with a cast to match. That’s what Village Theatre gives you with their production of She Loves Me!

The Sheldon Harnick lyrics are some of the very best in any musical and match Jerry Brock’s musical compositions like soft kid gloves. The book adaptation by Joe Masteroff of the short story about a Budapest couple who work together and don’t know they’re pen pals is just enough talking to keep everyone on the same page.

I have to opine that this musical is pretty much bullet-proof, so it’s hard to do it badly. Thank-fully, Karen Lund, usually directing both comedies and musicals at Taproot Theatre, inserts and pulls out many, many moments of fun. She and choreographer Scott Brateng also come up with more moments of choreography than many productions and that increases the delightful moments.

Friday, January 31, 2020

And the Award Goes To... the Winners of the 2019 Gypsy Rose Lee Awards

The Last World Octopus Wresting Champion (courtesy ArtsWest)

The winners of the 2019 Gypsy Rose Lee Awards are announced by the Seattle theater reviewers circle, Seattle Theater Writers!

This year, several productions were clear critical favorites, with multiple nominations and multiple wins. Gaining the most recognition among the winners were Indecent at Seattle Repertory Theatre and Village Theatre’s The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time in the Large theater division, and Sound Theatre Company and The Hansberry Project’s Citizen and Sheathed by Macha Theatre Works in the Small division.

Friday, January 24, 2020

And the 2019 “Gypsy Rose Lee Award” Nominees Are!

Fire Season (Truman Buffett)
The Last World Octopus Wrestling Champion (John McClellan)


For the ninth year in a row, theater critics in Seattle have banded together to honor excellent theater in town over the past year. Anyone who is on the “inside” of this small industry knows that there are fewer and fewer places where people can write about theater, unless they establish a blog or other online outlet! However, there are still a few of us left trying to help audiences find great work.

To that end, the annual critics’ award still chugs along, at least for one more year. Spanning dozens of theater companies and productions, from large and prominent to small and humble, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor the excellence found in as much professional theater as we reviewers can attend in a year. Named in honor of the famed theater entrepreneur and Seattle native, Gypsy Rose Lee, and in a nod to the vast numbers of theater practitioners forced to travel the country to earn their living, the Gypsys seek to acknowledge the excellence of the Seattle theater community. (The group’s online presence is at www.facebook.com/SeattleTheaterWriters.)

This year’s changes include the abolishment of “male” and “female” acting categories in favor of all-in-one “actors.” Each year, the reviewers seek to refine the awards to better reflect inclusivity and clarity.

The winners will be announced January 31, 2020. 

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Feminist “The Revolutionists” at Artswest

Sunam Ellis and Dedra Woods in The Revolutionists (John McLellan)

The Revolutionists
ArtsWest
Through February 9, 2020

ArtsWest is presenting Lauren Gunderson’s play, The Revolutionists. We’re in 1793 and France is in complete turmoil! The Revolution has turned into a free-for-all of executions (by guillotine, of course) of royalty and those who support them. The Jacobins are in power and the Girondins are against them. “People power” is generally what the populace wants, but how to get there is an open question.

Journalist Jean-Paul Marat has stirred up the populace with his rhetoric. Charlotte Corday (Hannah Mootz) decides he is an integral part of the power structure and if he dies then those fomenting the violence might significantly weaken. She determines to gain entry to his bath by pretense and to knife him there.

Olympe de Gouges (Sunam Ellis) is a playwright and activist who championed Haitians fighting for freedom from the colonialism of France. She wrote plays on the slave trade, divorce, marriage, debtors' prisons, children's rights, and government work schemes for the unemployed. As a playwright, she often was in the vanguard, writing political works on contemporary controversies.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Seattle Shakespeare presents “The Rivals”

Alexandria Henderson and Avery Clark in The Rivals (John Ulman)

The Rivals
Seattle Shakespeare Company
Through February 2, 2020

The Rivals, by Richard Sheridan, is a 1700’s comedy of manners. It basically pokes fun at the society that Sheridan lived among, though apparently, they didn’t take offence (the British spelling) to it, since it became very popular.

A 17-year-old ingenue, Lydia Languish (Alexandria Henderson), is so in love with romance novels, which she reads voraciously, that instead of looking for a wealthy husband, she thinks it far more romantic to choose a pauper to love. Young Jack Absolute (Avery Clark), who should “come into” a fairly significant fortune, falls for her. Knowing her penchant for paupers, he pretends to be a penniless Ensign “Beverley” and gains her heart.

Her guardian, Mrs. Malaprop (Julie Briskman), is enraged about this and has bottled Lydia up in the house while plotting to match Lydia up with someone with money. Suddenly Jack’s father, Sir Anthony (Bradford Farwell) shows up and the two elders decide their youngers should get married.

But now Jack has a problem because Lydia will find out he’s NOT penniless! Oh NO! Now what does he do? Lydia might fall out of love with him!

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Make “Reparations” a requirement!

Reparations (Aaron Jin)
Reparations
Sound Theatre Company
(at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute)
Through Feb 2, 2020

Trauma is not individual. Whatever an individual experiences with trauma radiates out from that individual to all the others in the circle – family, friends, all associates. Once trauma changes the individual, trauma also changes others. This is the fundamental subject that Darren Canady tries to illuminate in his searing new play, Reparations, commissioned by Sound Theatre Company.

But wait? (You might ask.) Isn’t the play about Black people wanting or needing “reparations” for slavery? Isn’t this a political play?

The play tries to answer the question of “why” Black folks feel that some important recognition and/or compensation should be offered to Black families. This play doesn’t start with slavery. This play starts back only a couple of generations to the early 1920s when the KKK attacks, burns and lynches Black parents of three children in their home.