"Kav and Clay" is a special event! It's a five-hour event and that shouldn't stop you for a minute!

Frank Boyd, Opal Peachey, David Goldstein in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (photo by John Ulman)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Book-It Repertory Theatre

Through July 13, 2014

Adapted by Jeff Schwager

Directed by Myra Platt

Starring Frank Boyd, David Goldstein, Opal Peachey

One of the most amazing aspects of the history of comic books is who the major creators of this quintessential “American” art form turn out to be: New York-based Jews! Similar to the confounding aspect of American musical theater, replete with Jews and gays or Jewish gays, comic books were mainly conceived of and developed by Jewish men. Did they inject something into the water there?

Michael Chabon wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,  a sprawling history of two fictional cousins, Joe Kavalier, a Polish escapee from Nazi occupation in 1939, who comes to stay with Sammy Clay (nee Clayman), a comic book lover who aspires to emulate Superman’s creators success. It turns out Joe can really draw, and Sammy can really create great stories, in a match made in buddy-story-heaven.

Turning his far-ranging book into a Book-It style production was gutsy and overwhelming. Deciding to give it a four hour run time was almost inexplicable. Would audiences accept an epic evening of theater that includes two intermissions and a meal break? The answer is, “YES!” Virtually all the reviews and word of mouth, so far, have been positive and encouraging.

Seattle’s amazing – ambiguous – history in intricate detail, now at Book-It Rep

Kevin McKeon, Jennifer Lee Taylor, Chris Ensweiler (photo Chris Bennion)

Truth Like the Sun

Book-It Repertory Theatre

Through May 18

Jim Lynch’s meticulously detailed book, Truth Like the Sun, is no straightforward history lesson. It weaves back and forth in time with major mysteries to explore and perhaps unfold. Creating a fictitious “Mr. Seattle” who becomes the face of the 1962 World’s Fair, he explores and exposes the seamy underbelly of graft and corruption that others have mined similarly. He creates a tenacious and overly cynical journalist out to get the “real” story any way she can, in 2001, and has her dig hard into Mr. Seattle’s possible corruption.

Book-It Repertory Theatre has chosen, for the third time!, to adapt a Jim Lynch novel, and Truth Like the Sun is riveting, ambitious, ambiguous, and challenging, all at once. This is not the kind of play to allow you to sit and let it wash over you. Sometimes there are evenings like that, like last month’s excellent Seattle Shakespeare Company production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde’s skewering trifle is fun but not terribly taxing to watch. This production calls upon you to sit up, fasten your seat belt, and PAY ATTENTION!

Kevin McKeon’s adaptation and Jane Jones’ direction creates a cacophony of voices from time to time, from the beginning bustle of World’s Fair Seattle hubbub forward. It’s a bit cinematic in style, and it does make it a bit hard for those who can’t decipher the speaker or the short sentences, at times. There is also a well-done theatrical technique to throw us back and forth in time (without using sign titling) that takes two or three iterations to get used to so we know the “when” we’re looking at.

Book-It's "Frankenstein" is the Real Story

Connor Toms, Jim Hamerlinck (shadowed) in Frankenstein (photo by Chris Bennion)

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus

Book-It Repertory Theatre

through March 9

We have taken a ghost story by a remarkable 18-year-old woman, written in the early 1800s, and stretched it all over the place by now, with movies of various  sorts and successes, all the way up to the over-the-top hysteria of Young Frankenstein. The novel has sparked inspiration and adulteration and a classic "creature" that is known the world over, though often the creature is named Frankenstein, which is incorrect.

David Quicksall has adapted and directed the current theatrical production of Frankenstein for Book-It Repertory Theatre. As is Book-It's mission, he has gone back to the book and what we see on stage is crucially not a horror story, with blood and gore, though there is some of that. It is a distillation of a novel of unfettered ambition, passion without boundaries, and a cautionary tale of where human endeavor should fear to tread.

The adaptation has much to recommend it: a talented cast, as usual, headed by an intense and focused Connor Toms as Frankenstein, a young man who describes his folly in pursuing his passion for chemistry through forming and animating a quasi-human being. He tells his tale to a ship's captain (played with gravitas and enormous patience by Frank Lawler) after being rescued improbably in the waters of the Artic Sea.

The fluid set design by Andrea Bryn Bush, of many curtains billowing in stage breezes, a dim and evocative lighting scheme by Andrew D. Smith, eerie and cataclysmic sound and some terrific original music by Nathan Wade, and precise costuming by Jocelyne Fowler, provide great atmospheric support.

The cautionary tale is of a young man’s passion for science, an obsession with discovery, and some very unlikely science fiction. In some ways, the holes in the story become more obvious, and the leaps of logic more difficult for an audience member to make. But it certainly is a ripping good tale.

Frankenstein gives life to a creature and is so horrified by what he has done that he rejects the creature, leaves him completely to death or uncertain life, and tries to forget all about him. The creature (improbably – here is one of those leaps you just have to accept) not only finds a way to live, but also learns English and how to read, all by himself, and then finds a way to find his creator, Frankenstein. The creature, in retribution, then murders everyone who is important to Frankenstein.

The creature’s longing for human contact is pretty palpable, but however much ardor Jim Hamerlinck displays as the creature, and it’s considerable, the director created a certain emotional distance from the audience that fails to stimulate our empathy to the degree that could be accomplished. Partly because some of the creature’s story is told by voice-over.

I continue to wish that theaters help their playwrights/adapters by giving them top-notch directors who can team to bring out the best of each quality. Book-It is somewhat unfortunately wedded to a concept that the adapter is the best one to direct a production. I disagree with this and think they would have great synergy of energy if they allowed teams of two to create their productions. There were particular moments that a different director might have improved. Quicksall is both a great adapter and a solid director. Just better one at a time, in, as they say, my humble opinion.

Due to a small amount of nudity, the production is not for children, perhaps under sixteen. For more information, go to www.book-it.org or call 206-216-0833.