Sparkly – if long – comedy, “Balconies” bubbles at Annex

Katherine Karaus, Drew Highlands, Evelyn DeHais in Balconies (photo Dangerpants Photography)

Balconies

Written by Scotto Moore

Annex Theatre

Through August 30, 2014

Opposites attract premises, particularly the conservative/liberal variety could be kind of eye-rolling, but at the hands of playwright Scotto Moore, it turns out to be a whole lot more fun than hackneyed. His newest work, Balconies, at Annex Theatre, has many of his signature elements: fast-paced dialogue, high tech speak, agile plot devices.

Instead of a just-ahead-of-its-time future fantasy (Moore’s previous works), this play stays rooted in 2014, but makes fun of a Scientology-type cult and lets the geeks win. Characters who, at first glance, seem stereotypically boring turn out to be a whole lot quirkier than their book-cover.

Cameron (Drew Highlands) is having a best-launch-ever party in his condo for Sparkle Dungeon 5. (I would love for that game to become a reality!) He’s invited dozens of geek friends in costume. But just next condo over, Annalise (Katherine Karaus) is hosting a fund-raiser for her politician mother (Laura Hanson), politicians including the Chief of Police, and a key funder, Lonso (Jason Sharp), a creepy world-thought-dominator.

With ‘low tech stage magic,’ "Chaos Theory" brings the apocalypse to Annex Theatre

(courtesy Capitol Hill Seattle)

 (DangerPants Photography) Keiko Green and Jana Hutchison

Maybe Courtney Meaker writes plays about the end of the world because she grew up in small-town Tennessee and had to hang out with a lot of people who didn’t hate homosexual people, they just hated homosexuality. Courtney says that she majored in creative writing and theater, but had never written a play before coming to Seattle.

Meaker

Her work Chaos Theory begins a one-month run Friday at 11th and Pike’s Annex Theatre. (April 18-May 17, 8pm)

“Writing a play felt a lot more rewarding because you could experience it in a lot of different ways, where you never know if someone is going to read a short story,” Meaker said. “It was a more fun thing to write than a short story.”

Chaos Theory is Courtney’s second full length play. Last year, Macha Monkey produced Buckshot.

Courtney says, “Chaos Theory is about Franny. She has just been left by her partner and her friends are trying to coach her through a break up. By the end of this time cycle (first scene), her friends decide the only option left is to give her a book about chaos theory and parallel dimensions to pull her out of the dumps.

“From there, the story unravels as an exploration of how we define our world. It messes a lot with genre and storytelling and different conventions. There might be a laugh track or things might fall from the sky. The core is very basic that everyone goes through feeling like you’ve been abandoned.”

"Black Like Us" furthers important community explorations about race

Florence (Chelsea Binta) & Maxine (Dior Davenport) in Black Like Us (photo by Shane Regan)

Black Like Us
Annex Theatre
(co-produced by Brownbox Theatre)
through March 1

Black Like Us wades in where a lot of others fear to tread, a full-out discussion of race in our veins. A recent Pacific Science Center exhibit focused on race and scientists discovered about a decade ago how one mutation in one gene (out of 3.1 billion?) may be the genesis for the lighter pink/yellow skin coloration that proliferated across Europe. Yet, skin color became the great divide in society.

The premise of the play starts with varied skin color within the same family. Two sisters are shaded differently: one lighter and one darker. That truth, already a head-shaker one might think, to those who see only "black" and "white," in 1950s Seattle, leads the one with lighter skin to escape the oppressive nature of the racial divide by "passing as white" and even loving and marrying an Italian and not introducing him to her family.

"Passing" was considered a trick and a con. Regardless of how absurd it was and is to categorize people by skin hue, "passing" was ... ummm... illegally claiming to be white, even though that is what any "white" person does due to skin color. So, it's with a mixture of shame and defiance that Florence (Chelsea Binta) leaves her family behind. The consequences, to both sides of the family, are what the rest of the plot focuses on.

Florence's children and grandchildren appear as white as their father/grandfather. Her choice to hide apparently does not get revealed through DNA transfer in skin color. We meet, in the play, her daughter and three granddaughters (Devin Rodgers, Alyson Scadron Branner, Lindsay Evans and McKenna Turner). 

Florence's sister, Maxine (Dior Davenport), becomes a black activist, marries, has at least one child we don't meet, and two granddaughters we do (Marquicia Dominguez and Kia Pierce). Maxine becomes acquainted with Florence's daughter, Donna, when Donna moves into a neighborhood she can afford - aka the diverse neighborhood that Florence grew up in and Maxine remains in. 

Fertile ground is plowed in the script when the three white granddaughters figure out their grandmother was "black" and go looking for their cousins. Branner's role, Sandra, gets to be the outrageous and funny say-it-like-it-is sister who relishes how she now has a lot more to talk about, and maybe her kids might benefit by "minority status" in applications to college. 

There are a lot of laughs in the play, both easily enjoyable ones and uncomfortable titters, as we are forced to examine our own deeply buried (perhaps) thoughts about skin color, how we were raised, who we are now, whether we behave the way we believe, if we have knee-jerk reactions we'd rather not have. Sandra addresses head-on, in her way, whether it's ok to call people "black" or "African-American" and embarrasses her sisters by having "I'm Black and I'm Proud" as her ring-tone. 

So, kudos for considering and then creating this play and getting it on stage to help us all look inward and explore, and perhaps revise.

Now for hoped-for revisions:

The play grew from a ten minute short to a 30-minute short to what is now close to a two and a half hour marathon. It is massively too long and undercuts the challenge it presents to audiences to look inward by awkwardly inserting soap-opera-like elements.

The "how" the granddaughters find out Florence was black includes a sister who won't tell why she already had suspicions before they find a mysterious box. Scene after short scene simply ends when Michelle just doesn't answer her sisters' questions. It takes them forever to push back and finally get the answer: she had infertility tests which revealed sickle cell anemia genes (a gene known to most-often be a hereditary possibility among African-Americans). That fact is important, but the character development it adds is nil and the addition of some odd kind of cliff-hanger scenes is incomprehensible.

The interactions between Maxine's granddaughters and Florence's granddaughters are fun and interesting and there could be more there. There are realistic questions on the part of the "left behind" family as to why they should wish to interact with the "white" family that just found out they are "black." The question of who we are and who the world perceives us to be is quite important.

The relationship on stage between Florence and Maxine is also mysterious. Short scenes between the two of them at different decades of time show that they never reconcile, but not why. They don't include more information except one tangential mention that Florence had apparently reconnected with her parents and even financially supported them in their declining health, but Maxine didn't know.

There is a scene saved to the end that shows how Florence gets her idea to "pass" and that it could provide benefits. However, the reasons Florence chooses this direction are never made clear, and that is one potent area for theatrical exploration. There doesn't seem to be any fear that her choice will be revealed to her husband upon delivery of a child, which would add to her danger of discovery. 

There are some great moments in the play and some telling and intelligent exploration of the topic. Playwright Rachel Atkins has created interesting and unique characters who have distinct voices. There is almost material there for two plays, though, one between the sisters and one among the grandchildren! But for the moment, the substantive play has been allowed to grow with the help of cliche'd moments of melodrama that detract, bore, and release the audience from their tensions. Once released, we too often tune out and then ignore. There is too much here that needs attention to allow that to happen.

For more information, go to www.annextheatre.org or call 206-728-0933.

Annex brings "Black Like Us" world premiere to Capitol Hill

(Posted on Capitol Hill Seattle blog:)

Rachel Atkins, playwright

February brings a new play to Annex Theatre, co-produced by Brownbox Theatre, Black Like Us by Rachel Atkins. Annex says that while its scheduling during Black History Month is intentional, it is “more than race… of the sweet, complex, and exasperating relationships that exist between sisters…The history of the Central District and the Civil rights movement in this city are woven into the narrative.”

Rachel reports that as many as 3 million people have seen her work presented around the country, but most people in Seattle aren’t even aware of the (local) company. Living Voices focuses on social justice issues of many sorts: civil rights, women’s suffrage, Japanese American internment, the Holocaust (Anne Frank), immigration. All their scripts are written by Atkins and then integrated with video or archive photos, and the actor interacts with voices from the past.11th and Pike’s Annex is no stranger to new plays, many of its presentations deliberately chosen from local playwriting submissions in a hotly contested annual company debate. Nor is Rachel Atkins a stranger to playwriting, with a long history as a writer and teacher and 20 years as a script writer for Living Voices, historically-based multimedia one-person theatrical events.

“This play is about families and sisters,” Atkins said. “I wrote the play so it could be double-cast but (director) Jose Amador decided we would keep individual roles for four African American women instead of two, so there would be a maximum opportunity for more actors of color, since there are so few on stage, often.”

Atkins said this work is also purely female. “The relationships they have with each other have nothing to do with men,” she said. “I’ve gotten good feedback about that. ‘Hey, none of their problems have to do with if they’re going to get some man or keep some man.’”

Atkins said she turned to her own background to write characters of a different race. “My parents are Jewish but my step-dad, who raised me was black,” she said. “I grew up in the ‘70s when a mixed-race family was not nearly as common as now. I grew up aware of those issues and questions about race and it was a complicated situation for my mom and step-dad.”

“The play is from 1950s until today, so characters in the ‘50s speak differently than contemporary characters,” Atkins said of the language she used. “Part of this is about the assumptions we make about people and these characters needed to sound like themselves, whatever their skin color. Also, the play is set in Seattle and there is a regional sound to it.”

“I had a shorter version of this play run last year and black audience members actually talked to the characters,” she said. “I don’t think any white audience members did that. Tyrone (Brown, artistic director of Brownbox Theatre), my director, did mention that might happen because black audience members might have something to say about what was happening on stage.”

American folk tales
Also playing until February 26th on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Annex is Story and Song. Bret Fetzer performs two American folk tales with backing a small group of singers a la the movie O Brother Where Art Thou?

For more information, go to www.annextheatre.org or call 206-728-0933.