Rhinoceros: good thought, not as good execution

Scene from Rhinoceros (John Ulman)

Rhinoceros

Strawberry Theatre Workshop

Through October 8, 2016

Rhinoceros is a famous absurdist play by Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco, written in 1959. Certainly, Strawberry Theatre Workshop chose to mount the play now because it was originally written to reflect Ionesco’s experience of the rise of “group think” during Nazism, and Strawshop is making a comparison to today’s Trump politics.

For more background, I will quote from Wikipedia.org about the play. “Over the course of three acts, the inhabitants of a small, provincial French town turn into rhinoceroses… The only human who does not succumb to this mass metamorphosis is the central character, Bérenger, a flustered everyman figure…The play is often read as a response and criticism to the sudden upsurge of Communism, Fascism, and Nazism during the events preceding World War II, and explores the themes of conformity, culture, mass movements, mob mentality, philosophy and morality.”

Bérenger, in this production is played by Carol Louise Thompson, who has done some excellent work around town on various small stages. Translating a man into a woman here doesn’t change much. There is a love story and so, obviously, it becomes a same-sex one, but that changes little else about the trajectory of the play.

"Bad Apples" - important story, bad musical

Kate Morgan Chadwick and Carlton Byrd in Bad Apples (Jeff Carpenter)

Bad Apples

Co-produced by ACT Theatre/ACTLab, Artswest, and Circle X Theatre

(at ACT Theatre)

Through September 25, 2016

Bad Apples, the new musical at ACT Theatre (co-produced by Artswest and the originating theater in Los Angeles, Circle X Theatre), is bound to get mixed reviews and stir controversy. After all, it is a musical about the most egregious torture and debasement the public is aware of during the 2003 Iraq War aftermath at Abu Ghraib prison. We might as well have someone write a musical about the My Lai Massacre, the 1968 killing of hundreds of civilians by American soldiers.

If you are not aware of what happened at this notorious Iraqi prison, nor the government cover-up of torture (waterboarding, electric shock, hanging from the wrists-behind-the-back, withholding food and water, and sexually debasing prisoners), this musical doesn’t exactly educate you well. Vice President Dick Cheney is on record as saying he would torture again “in a minute.”

Dinner with unicorns - "The Glass Menagerie" Nordo-style

The Glass Menagerie (Jeff Carpenter)

The Glass Menagerie

The Williams Project and Café Nordo

Through September 3, 2016

I have never eaten with the Wingfield family, so it was with hope for a unique experience that I went to the Culinarium, Café Nordo’s home, to experience what eating with the Wingfield’s would be like. If you don’t know who they are, they’re the family in the play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams.

The Williams Project, a group of east coast actors who seem to be coming to Seattle for summer residencies, focus a lot of their attention on their namesake’s work. They also seem, in the experience I’ve had with two Williams plays they’ve done here, to work particularly hard at deconstructing and reconstructing Williams in a fresh and far from stereotypical way.

The most explosive September in memory!

Dedra Woods in a rehearsal of Wedding Band at Intiman Theatre (Alex Garland)

It’s that time of year again! Theater in Seattle explodes and there are too many wonderful productions to see at once! Anyone up for a contest? Who will see the most September performances? How many can you fit into a week? Some of the most anticipated shows of the year are opening now….

The 39 Steps, Lamplight Productions and KTO Productions, 9/1-11/16 (at Bathhouse Theatre)

Based on the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock spy/romance film, this hit play is sure to please anyone who enjoys spies, hi-jinks, handcuffs, murder, missing fingers, kissing, secrets, chase scenes, more kissing, trains, planes and yes, automobiles. A cast of four actors tackle over 100 characters in what is guaranteed to be a good time.

http://lamplightproductions.bpt.me/

Scab, Many Hats Theatre, 9/2-10/16 (at Ballard Underground)

In this unconventional comedic-drama, Anima's sphere of desperation and self-destruction is invaded by the arrival of her perky new roommate, Christa. Prompted by a malevolent talking statue of the Virgin Mary and a bloodthirsty houseplant named Susan, Anima and Christa enter into a friendship that incurs traumatic results.

http://scab.brownpapertickets.com/

Fun Farce Faces Final Forays

David Roby in One Man, Two Guvnors (Ken Holmes)

One Man, Two Guvnors

Sound Theatre Company

(at Armory Theatre)

Through August 27, 2016

David Roby is everything one would want in a classic prat-falling (hey, anyone know what a “prat” is?) door-slamming British farce, like One Man, Two Guvnors, playing now by Sound Theatre Company. In Richard Bean’s slick adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s 1746 play, Servant of Two Masters, Roby pulls out all the stops to make us laugh as he moans about needing to eat and then hankers after love.

Bean’s adaptation hews closely to the original. A young woman (Kayla Teel) disguises herself as her dead brother, trying to find the man who killed him. She doesn’t realize that that man is her lover (Luke Stubbers). But she also needs money, so she goes to the father (John Clark) of her brother’s betrothed (Christine Riippi) to collect the dowry, not knowing that the betrothed wants to marry someone else (Daniel Stoltenberg).

Dual ways of looking at "Duels" by Nick Stokes

The cast of Duels (Andrea Sassenrath)

Duels

amador/stokes

(at 12^th Avenue Arts)

Through September 10, 2016

In a metaphorical and concrete way, Irene tends her garden, in the premiere of Nick Stokes’ play, Duels, mounted with the help of director Jose Amador, and presented at 12^th Avenue Arts. But this garden has more than vegetables in it. It has become the graves of her husband and lover.

Walking into the room at 12AA, one is immediately met by the pungent smell of dirt packed into inverted triangles with a path between them. Plantings immediately bring to mind a vegetable garden, but lying there, as well, are the two men in the play. Carter Rodriquez and Daniel Christensen play Juan and John, the two men in Irene’s life.

At first, we see Irene (Marianna de Fazio), coping confidently and graciously with birthing a new calf, sure of her ability to manage the facets of country urban farming on her own. But suddenly, Juan and John arise and face each other in an inexplicable duel, while she explains that they’ve killed each other and walks them through the process of doing it again.