A satisfying twist in LungFish Prods.’ "The Last 5 Years"

(Kaitlin Mellinger/Kyle James Traver poster design)

The Last Five Years

LungFish Productions

(at Armory Theater 4)

Through March 1

A new company, Lungfish Productions has begun producing plays in the last year. Their latest offering was The Last Five Years, a musical that is easy to produce because it only has two characters on stage. It is written by Jason Robert Brown, who is famous for intricate music.

JRB, as many refer to him, has written some very autobiographical musicals, and this is no exception. This story is told with the male character falling in love and proceeding forward for five years of the relationship until the end, but the female character starts at the end of the five­year relationship and proceeds backwards in time to the beginning.

The male character is a writer, though to make it a little less autobiographical, he writes books, not musicals. The female is an actress, and she is written with a lot of insecurities. Maybe because it’s autobiographical and JRB isn’t good at expressing himself, we learn a lot about the woman, Cathy, and really don’t learn much about the interior life of Jamie. In fact, Jamie comes off as very self­centered and rather hard to like.

This production starred EmilyRose Frasca and her husband James Frasca, and they made a lovely and believable couple. The production used a number of photographs of the relationship as it went forward and backward, and all of the photos used were real ones taken of the Frascas’ relationship itself. The Frascas meshed well with one another and were both able to hold our attention and tell the story. They made a great casting choice for the production.

The music direction by Kimberly Dare was well done and the addition of a string section was marvelous. The musicians managed beautifully in a difficult performing venue where they were spread around and had some difficulty seeing their conductor. It’s somewhat the nature of that black box space.

Director Kyle James Traver had an interesting idea about The Last Five Years. He did not make any changes at all to any lyrics or dialogue, but he reinterpreted the meaning of a couple of songs in an interesting way.

After a first act that doesn’t reveal much about Jamie’s feelings, Jamie already comes off as an asshole.

In the second act, there is a song called “Nobody Needs to Know,” sung by Jamie. Typically, it is a song sung by Jamie supposedly to a woman he is cheating with, about how his wife, Cathy, doesn’t need to know about the affair.

The original understanding of the plot would be that Jamie cheats on Cathy and that’s why they end their marriage. But Traver reimagined the story and had James Frasca sing with a wine bottle in his hand, implying that what “nobody needed to know” was that Jamie is a closet drunk.

It certainly is a credible reason to break up – many couples break up over drugs or alcohol – but it softens the character flaw. If Jamie has an affair, what redeeming value does he have as a love interest for Cathy?

The last song in the musical has Jamie singing “I love you” to Cathy. If Jamie parts from Cathy due to his drinking, that makes it far more understandable for him to say “I love you” to her, even though he can’t control his addiction, than if he says that after cheating on her with another woman.

Kudos to Traver and the Frascas!

We shall look forward to what LungFish develops next, and applaud the creative thinking that led to a satisfying musical experience of The Last Five Years.

Enjoyable "Spelling Bee" at Seattle Musical Theatre

Evan Woltz (front) as William Barfee (photo credit unknown)

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Seattle Musical Theatre

closed

A good cast amps up the fun in Seattle Musical Theatre’s The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which is a fond and funny look at the tweenage participants in the one event that gets national attention for nerds.

Bee is a relatively simple show and allows for the focus to stay on the jokes and songs and character development. A pair of adults, here Tadd Morgan and Lindsey Larson as the ascerbic vice principal and amiable teacher, run the spelling bee. One really different aspect to this musical is that three audience members are pulled up to spell with the “kids.” That amps up the fun, too.

As each “child” is asked to spell, facts are given to the audience about them so we get a chance to know more about them as the production goes on. Also, each child gets a chance to shine in a song about his or her life. So Brad Walker plays Chip Tolentino who is mooning over another kid’s sister and gets one of the funniest songs in the musical, My Unfortunate Erection. Chelsea LeValley plays Logainne Schwartzandgrubenniere who has two very helicopterish dads and a lisp. Nik Hagen plays homeschooled Leaf Coneybear who isn’t even sure he’s smart.

Evan Woltz plays William Barfee who has a magic foot that helps him spell (a song about the foot is usually a big crowd pleaser). Woltz was confined to a wheelchair with an injury, but it worked for his character amazingly well! Every show should have a wheelchair from now on! This is one production where a geek in a wheelchair even works better!

Melissa Fleming does a terrific job as Marcy Park, an Asian-American girl who resents how perfect everyone expects her to be. Fleming also has one of the best voices in the show. Kelsey Hull adorably plays Olive Ostrovsky whose parents are the opposite of helicopter – her mother is somewhere in India and her father is missing the Bee due to work.

Isaiah Parker does a nice job in the difficult role of Mitch, a “comfort counselor” who is court-ordered to help out at the Bee, and also performs as one of Logainne’s dads. Often, this role goes to an African-American though it doesn’t seem like it must be. It is an unfortunate reflection of the overabundance of young black men who are embroiled in our justice system. Besides the Asian girl, there is not much diversity called for in the musical, unless blind casting is used. Here, the unforeseen use of a wheelchair made more diversity where not much is often used.

While the production was generally well directed by Matt Giles, and likely he also choreographed the small amounts of movement involved which were also nicely done, he had a tendency to make his actors overamp the comedy and the stereotyping. That detracted a bit from the funny bits, especially the over-acting of the “dads.” They are already clearly homosexual if they are two dads. They don’t need to then also use stereotypical movements on top.

Teatro Zinzanni: "On the Air" more chaotic in a Good way

Anki Albertsson and Juliana Rambaldi (photo by Keith Brofsky)

On the Air

Teatro Zinzanni

Through June 6

Teatro Zinzanni’s “tag line” is Love, Chaos, Dinner for every show, even as the shows change and get retitled. The current show is named “On the Air” and uses the fictional radio station Radio TZ to broadcast its shenanigans. Refreshingly, this particular iteration is more chaotic in a funny and endearing way, because it shakes up the standard format just a bit, in that it does not specifically have an MC or Maitre d’ character. 

Even a small change is welcome. The standard format has gotten kind of tired and really has needed a rethink. This isn’t to say they have completely abandoned their formula. Indeed, it’s not that much different, but perhaps just enough so that the ensuing chaos feels a little more fun, a little less by-the-book.

It’s a terrific and wonderful place to go for your first time, for anyone who has never gone! And completely makes a special evening, no matter who is performing, since everyone is always a top notch performer. It’s a given, but bears repeating.

There is the audience kibbitzer extraordinaire, Kevin Kent, back to be silly and pull unsuspecting dinner guests from their seats and have them do or say funny things. There are two wonderful singers, Anki Albertsson – a real celebrity from her native Sweden, and an experienced musical theater performer, and Juliana Rambaldi, who scampers ditzily around and teases diners, and helps end the evening with a glorious operatic aria.

The trapeze act is two males, this time, Collin Eschenburg and Matthias Fischer, and a stuffed cat. Les Petits Freres, Domitil Aillot, Gregory Marquet , and Michael Bajazet, are back, though they aren’t actually brothers. Vita Radionova performs her fantastic hula hoop juggling and does her otherworldly contortions, and in this show gets to be an alien from outer space, too. New to the mayhem is Joel Salom, an Aussie juggler who occasionally helps to bring order to the chaos.

For the dinner part of the evening, the new menu includes a very good steak, a crab and sea scallops seafood entrée, and a rich vegetable mash with filo and sweet corn option. The carrot bisque was very silky and very, very hot! (That’s hard to do with so many to feed at once.) The dessert was a lovely tart of apple-rhubarb compote and a whipped topping.

The flight of wine that goes with the meal includes wine from Germany, France, and a couple of wines from Columbia Valley. The dessert wine, Ice Wine from Columbia Valley, was incredibly sweet and fruity and was a lovely accompaniment to the tart.

For more information, go to www.zinzanni.com/seattle or call 206-802-0015. Discuss your opinions with sgncritic@gmail.com or go to www.facebook.com/SeattleTheaterWriters.

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.