Solo performers travel from NYC to Theatre Off Jackson for "Mom Baby God" and "Killer Quack"

Madeline Burrows in "Mom Baby God" (Jessica Neria)

Solo Performance Festival

Theatre Off Jackson

continues Feb. 27, 28, March 1

Those in the know have been attending Seattle’s Solo Performance Festival over the last several years, housed and supported by the crew at Theatre Off Jackson. Several different solo performers have had shows this last month and this weekend showcases a few more.

Two in particular are coming from the East Coast to showcase their talents.

Mom Baby God is performed by Madeline Burrows, who spent two years going undercover to anti-choice conferences (for which kudos seem due, just for actually attending such things to expose what really goes on there)! She plays “a teenage anti-abortion activist at the fictionalized Students for Life of America Conference. Six other characters from ministers to abstinence-only sex educators provide humorous, insightful and shocking looks into the movement,” says the pr for the event. More information on her work can be found at www.mombabygod.com.

James Judd’s piece is entitled Killer Quack, about a real man who pretended to be a dermatologist in Manhattan and ended up killing one of the patients. It turns out that Judd was one of the patients, seeing “Dr.” Faiello to remove a tattoo, and was kind of infatuated with the handsome “doctor!” So, his piece is autobiographical, and involves letter and converstions he exchanged with the man from prison. More information on his work can be found at www.killerquack.com.

Solo performance is a unique skillset. You must have a compelling story or subject matter and be confident about your ability to hold all the attention and manage the entire performance generally without any onstage help. I interviewed these two performers about solo performance and why their performances work best in that way.

MG: What was your background in theatrical performance and did you have to do/change/learn anything to become a solo performer?

JJ: The lessons I learned at The Groundlings and the Improv (in Los Angeles) is that the theatrical experience is always for the benefit of the audience, not yourself. The worst advice people give actors, especially solo performers, is "just go out there and enjoy the moment." I was lucky enough to be part of an improv class led by Cynthia Szigeti, the legendary improv teacher.  On one particular night I was on stage with scene partners.  I was dying up there. She shouted at me, "Do something funny!" It was a thunderbolt of truth. When you are on that stage it is your responsibility to entertain the audience who paid for their tickets and dragged themselves out of their homes to see you. If you can't cut it, get out. 

MM: I was doing a lot of Suzuki theater training, which is very focused on the body and physical specificity. Doing that kind of precise physical work helped me a lot when creating solo work, because in solo performance you’re relying on one body to convey sharply different characters and tell a story. I also worked with Andy Paris from the Tectonic Theatre Project when I was in college, doing interview-based work and training in their Moment Work method. That work taught me not to hide the process – in solo performance, you have no choice. So both Suzuki work and Moment Work taught me a million things about solo performance without me realizing it at the time.

MG: What made you want to develop a solo show on this topic as opposed to a multiple-actor play?

JJ: I'm exclusively an autobiographic solo performance artist.  My art is turning the stories of my life into theatrical experiences to entertain audiences. It's also an intensely personal story of my relationship with a man who began as the objection of my affection to someone who rejected and frightened me to a tabloid sensation as the Killer Quack to eventually becoming someone I consider a friend. Do I think it would work as a multi-actor play? Probably.  But then where would that leave me? Would I have to buy a ticket? What if no one wanted to sit with me? It's all too much to think about.

MM: Initially it was out of necessity so that I could attend all the anti-choice events on my own time and rely on myself to meet deadlines. But through the process I’ve fallen in love with solo work. One of the best things about solo work is the interaction with the audience. In any play you feed off of the energy of the audience, but in a solo show the audience becomes your scene partner. It’s terrifying and exhilarating, because it forces you to be present from the get-go.

I portray several male characters in the show – right-wingers who say some explicitly misogynistic stuff, but because it's a solo show performed by me, they are being expressed through the body of a young Queer woman, and by the same actor who 30 seconds later is portraying a teenage girl. Having all these characters come through the same body can give a sense of how this teenage girl, Jessica, is internalizing the politics of the right-wing, what effect they are having on her. It also provides a thread of continuity that I think is politically important. Solo performance drives home how despite some tactical differences, the anti-choice movement is very united. All these different characters are pieces of the puzzle. And that’s a scary thing.

From the get go I wanted this to be a piece of theater that could connect with a growing anger about the attack on reproductive rights and with activists who are grappling with how to build a counter-movement to the anti-choice movement. A big part of that meant the ability to tour the show, and doing a solo show provided the kind of flexibility to make that happen.

MG: What makes solo performance a preferred medium?

JJ: There's nothing easy about touring a solo show.  Being a solo performer means carrying everything, literally, with you to the next performance.  It's intensely lonely and psychologically difficult, especially that half hour you spend alone backstage waiting for the show to begin.  There's no camaraderie, no one to lean on backstage or onstage, and the cast parties are the WORST.

I can come up with a million better ways to spend whatever time I have left in this life that would be infinitely more comfortable and less stressful but for whatever reason I have to do this. It isn't a pursuit of fame because no fame will come of it. It isn't part of my journey to the next level. It isn't a means to an end. It is the end. This is it. This is what I do. Do I sound depressed? I'm not. I love this life. 

Mom Baby God performs Feb. 27, 28 and Mar. 1. Killer Quack performs Feb. 28 and Mar. 1. For more information, go to www.theatreoffjackson.org or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/venue/163709 or call 800-838-3006.

"Odysseo" lives up to its hype

Acrobats (photo by Francois Bergeron)

It's possible that ticket prices are daunting for this amazing blend of human and horse feats of derring-doo. Still, Odysseo is likely to be one of the most memorable "event" experiences you can hope to see, anywhere in the world. So, what price is worth that? Only your pocketbook can tell.

With 66 horses, a good number of them performing without saddle or bridle of any kind, and 52 artists, including riders/handlers, riding acrobats, aerialists and acrobats, this is an immersion into a fantasy world where you don't have to think or analyze. It's all wonder and emotion. 

A small band of musicians play live music, though they are so well integrated that they sound recorded. Like Cirque du Soleil "songs," the words are unintelligible combinations of  lovely sounds and flavors of language that are beautifully delivered by Anna-Laura Edmiston.

The troupe of African acrobats (apologies if not all of them are African, though some must be from Guinea per press release) are particularly engaging and crowd pleasing. Their energetic antics are cheeky and laugh-inducing, but also have aspects of amazing physical strength and endurance. Their enjoyment is infectious and they get the crowd clapping. 

The horses are asked to do things that can be extremely taxing for them, like stepping sideways, and maintaining formations. But none of them are coerced, and it's clear from back stage conversation with groomers that the horses are cossetted and even spoiled in encouraging them to cooperate. On stage, the spectacle of unfettered horses staying in formations or, in the event that one decides he wants to run his own way, the calm encouragement to get back into place, is calming and awe-inspiring.

Sometimes, like a three ring circus, there is so much to see that it is impossible to focus on one person or trick, particularly when a host of aerialists swing from rings around the stage. An enormous video backdrop enhances the scenery over a huge mountain built especially for the performance. 

The finale includes pouring 80,000 gallons of water onto what had been a sandy surface, turning the stage into a lake in just a few minutes. All in all, there is nothing like this anywhere else. Seattle has just extended the run until March 16th, but there doesn't seem like anything is holding them back from extending even further. As there is also no guarantee, don't wait to lock in your opportunity to go. 

Feel completely free to bring the whole family. Even children as little as 4 or 5 will probably find enough to rivet them to the stage, and there is nothing offensive anywhere, except a few piles of horse poop on the stage.

For more information, go to www.cavalia.net or call 1-866-999-8111.

"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.

"Marisol" challenges, not for every taste

Shermona Mitchell and Carolyn Marie Monroe in Marisol (photo Jessica Martin)

Marisol

The Collision Project

(at the INScape Building)

Through February 24

A new company, The Collision Project, is debuting their maiden work, Jose Rivera’s Marisol. The company is comprised of people who have been part of other small companies around town, but say they want to “foster unusual collaborations within highly theatrical, yet simply staged stories.” They want to do that in “cross-disciplinary” experiences.

This production of Marisol does not clearly demonstrate a cross-discipline of any other artistic medium, though it is an interesting and challenging choice of work. Choosing Jose Rivera makes them stand out, since few of his plays have been mounted in Seattle, at least in recent years. Marisol is challenging because it is open to so many interpretations. It is a surreal and non-linear premise that begins with a young woman on a New York subway possibly being murdered with a golf club, but maybe that’s someone else who shares her name.

Perhaps the world is ending. A guardian angel (Shermona Mitchell) comes to Marisol (Carolyn Marie Monroe) and tells her that she must leave to join an angel army against a senile God. Marisol must make it on her own. Marisol isn’t sure who she can trust: a co-worker (Libby Barnard) who turns out to be the sister of the man, Lenny (Ben D. McFadden) with the golf club? a society woman who has been arrested for using her credit card over the limit (Jill Snyder-Marr)? a man with an ice cream cone? a man who has been set upon, gasolined and set on fire, and now oozes burns? (both Carter Rodriguez)

The play has many possible themes running through it. The themes call out for a director to choose among them for the way to thread the needle for the production, rather than throw spaghetti at the wall and see which sticks. Director Ryan Higgins makes a credible stab at the play, but does not help the audience understand the way through very well. The play does not crystallize in the way that could help.

The rudimentary sets are gritty and roughly painted, but succeed in creating a down-at-heels world in low-income New York City. But if we’re to be transported to a realm between worlds, there are few signposts to help us know that we’ve been torn off the Earth.

Rivera’s play is full of Catholic references which are likely opaque to those who are not steeped in that tradition. So, his meaning and the potential redemption (is that what the ends means? That there is the possibility of “winning” somehow, in this world?) Marisol might achieve are probably outside the grasp of those who don’t follow the hierarchies of angels and the traditions of Catholic Hell.

The actors eagerly embrace the challenge. If immersing yourself in a world that is different and challenging is part of why you love to attend theater, then this production is definitely for you. If you like your stories laid out with few questions and endings that wrap everything up, you’ll want to steer clear. 

"Venus in Fur" Tries for Real Human Sexuality but ends up on Mount Olympus instead

Gillian Williams and Michael Tisdale in Seattle Repertory Theatre’s Venus in Fur (Chris Bennion)

Venus in Fur

Seattle Repertory Theatre

Through March 9

So, an actress walks into an audition late. Very late. And the director/adapter is tired and frustrated, having auditioned dozens, he lets us know, DOZENS of young women who can’t even begin to speak the language of his play. His masterpiece is an adaptation of an 1870 novel, Venus in Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. But the actress dispenses with the novel as “S&M porn,” offhandedly, challenging and taunting the director to allow her to audition, since she’s already there.

Thus begins the latest production at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Venus in Fur, by David Ives. In a co-production with Arizona Theatre Company, two actors from there, Michael Tisdale and Gillian Williams, and director Shana Cooper mount this electrifying, titillating, challenging, funny, whiplashing, role-reversing, sexuality-exploring one-act.

The somewhat lengthy (100 plus) minute one-act is a fast-paced exploration of both the subject of the novel, masochistic relationships (named after author Sacher-Masoch), and who’s on top. Is it the slave or the master? Is a woman by definition the weaker sex, or does the man give over to serve the woman?

What makes this play particularly fun is the lightning fast switches from modern vernacular and slang back to 18^th Century refined speech. Williams is fantastically good at the minute moments of back-and-forth, with a faint New Yorkese, and brash American style, giving way in parts of seconds back to a pseudo-British refinement.

Tisdale starts out promisingly, but does not plant himself firmly enough in the asshole category to hang on to his ascendance in the face of Williams’ immediate disarmament. He does a good job, but when he has to change to a certain submission, the change is undercut by too much passivity at the beginning.

David Ives’ play is very well written and very fun, particularly at the beginning, though he doesn’t end up challenging the male/female relationship nearly as much as he promises. And the ending seems like he decided he had written a long-enough play and had to finish it somehow.

The very first sentences Ives has the man say are completely unbelievable to me: that he couldn’t find any good female actors. Ives may not know that there are dozens of fantastic female actors for every male, because so many women develop theatrical skills for so few female parts! So, it undercuts his understanding of women, and as the play goes along, so do his postulates for feminine power.

Director Shana Cooper plainly revels in the strength of the female character, but unfortunately doesn’t help her create levels of intimacy or a real sexual chemistry with her male counterpoint, and therefore the production misses any highs or lows. The first half of the play feels fun and involving, but it flags and then stays about the same for the last half.

Ives’ decision to transform the female into an archetype (at the end) seems in a perverse way to suggest he is not at all comfortable with real human female sexuality.  In a battle of sexual power, only a Goddess can win over a lowly man, not a real woman. And in that dilemma, Ives fails to illuminate anything useful or new about our sexual lives.

The play is smart enough, then, to end up disappointing. Both a testament to and a failure of a set up that has promise, but does not cut through the musty ideas of female sexuality that continue to hamper us in the rest of life.

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.