“Unrivaled” Layer Upon Layer of Intrigue (With Fun!)

Alanah Pasqual, Pearl Lam, Adele Lim in "Unrivaled" at Seattle Public Theater 

Unrivaled
SiSProductions and Seattle Public Theater
Through June 2, 2024
 
The opening moments of Unrivaled, in a co-production between SiS Productions and Seattle Public Theater, immediately propel you into every aspect of Rosie Narasaki’s fascinating play about 1000-year-old Japanese writers Lady Murasaki and Lady Sei. Director Mimi Katano brilliantly sets the mood and the music.
 
Precise dance moves; specific use of fans; a gauzy, simple, effective set by Robin Macartney; and elliptical conversations that hint at layers beyond layers of meaning. These elements plus a trio of super actors create a 100-minute production that flies by.
 
Adele Lim starts to narrate the story as Empress Teishi with such cuteness it’s impossible not to laugh, but also demonstrates instantaneous ability to change her demeanor and after setting herself up as a ditz, also asks some of the very smartest questions in the script.
 
Teishi describes her court and the intrigue surrounding royal family secret and not so secret attempts at rising to the top. She shrugs her shoulders at the culture that marries off all the daughters to the rising sons as a way to keep power in the family. She details the most recent spate of deaths and successions. She also introduces how her court includes the smartest lady writers recruited to write and publish for an information-starved populace.

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ Tells A Lot, Shows Little

 

Robert Pescovitz, Bradford Farwell, Brandon J. Simmons
in The Lehman Trilogy (Rosemary Dai Ross)

The Lehman Trilogy
ACT Theatre 

Through May 19, 2024

Does the ACT Theatre production of The Lehman Trilogy stand up to the play? Or does the play stand up to ACT’s version?
 
Of the Broadway production in 2021, Charles Isherwood, critic at Broadway News, said, “But for all its surface stylishness, "The Lehman (Trilogy)" is a stolid and rather monolithic slab of a show: a three hour and twenty minute talking Wikipedia page, so dense with description and narration, and devoid of drama - or even dialogue - that watching it is like watching very expensive paint dry, or maybe, to use a more apt metaphor, listening to cotton growing.”
 
There are a lot of glowing reviews out there that beckon you to come see an amazing story. The story is, indeed, amazing, though 160 years in the making. However, the script by Ben Power (from the first iteration by Stephano Massini), is written in what Seattle might think of as “The Book-It Style” where people refer to themselves in third person (Henry says, “He looked hard at his brother.” While looking hard at his brother.).
 
Book-It Repertory Theatre used that style often to great effect while also working very hard to theatricalize the novel it was based upon. Here, though, it’s a history book. This history tries to conflate decades into three plus hours. Three actors portray three brothers and all the myriad other characters throughout their lives.

May Laughs Abound in Theater

Nathaniel Tanenbaum and Sophia Franzella in Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position at Taproot Theatre (Robert Wade)

May seems to have brought out the funny-bone in the Seattle area theater world. If you’re looking for something dark and moody, you probably have to wait a month! Here are world premieres and a bunch of laughs, so get out yer calendars and get some tickets!
 
The Lion Tells His Tale, Intiman Theatre, 5/1-5/24 (at Broadway Performance Hall) (world premiere)
Vida Oliphant Sneed introduces Delbert Richardson’s national award-winning museum, making it come to life on stage for a brand new theatrical experience. Audiences will be transported on a journey of awakening as the brilliance, resistance, and resilience of Black people from Africa to the Americas is brought to life. Music, dance, and spoken word carry our hero through time as we all gather to engage and learn. “Until the lion tells his tale, the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” - African proverb
www.intiman.org
 
The Savannah Sipping Society, Edmonds Driftwood Players, 5/3-19/24
Four unique Southern women, all needing to escape the sameness of their day-to-day routines, are drawn together by Fate—and an impromptu happy hour—and decide it’s high time to reclaim the enthusiasm for life they’ve lost through the years. Together, they discover lasting friendships and a renewed determination to live in the moment.
www.edmondsdriftwoodplayers.org
 
Bee Present, SecondStory Repertory, 5/4-19/24 (world premiere)
A new children’s musical with Book & Lyrics by Kate Swenson and Music by John Allman. Birdie the Bee is so busy micromanaging the hive that she forgot the queen's birthday. Now she's on an impossible quest to find a gift the queen has never received before. And if she fails to surprise and delight her monarch---Birdie is out of the hive forever. With the help of a distractible hummingbird, a merry meadow, some crafty crows, and the infamous Sloth Thought Collective, this overly busy bee might find more than the perfect gift, she just might learn to stop stressing and Bee Present. (Ages 4+, 55 minutes no intermission)
www.secondstoryrep.org
 
Broadway Spectacular, Seattle Women’s Chorus, 5/4/24 (1:00PM and 5:00PM at Cornish Playhouse)
Billie Wildrick guest stars with the Seattle Women’s Chorus as it celebrates all things Broadway! Billie is is one of Seattle’s best-known musical theater performers with a belt that can’t be beat.  This is a concert that will keep your toes tapping and hands clapping.
www.seattlechoruses.org