“Unrivaled” Layer Upon Layer of Intrigue (With Fun!)

Alanah Pasqual, Pearl Lam, Adele Lim in "Unrivaled" at Seattle Public Theater 

Unrivaled
SiSProductions and Seattle Public Theater
Through June 2, 2024
 
The opening moments of Unrivaled, in a co-production between SiS Productions and Seattle Public Theater, immediately propel you into every aspect of Rosie Narasaki’s fascinating play about 1000-year-old Japanese writers Lady Murasaki and Lady Sei. Director Mimi Katano brilliantly sets the mood and the music.
 
Precise dance moves; specific use of fans; a gauzy, simple, effective set by Robin Macartney; and elliptical conversations that hint at layers beyond layers of meaning. These elements plus a trio of super actors create a 100-minute production that flies by.
 
Adele Lim starts to narrate the story as Empress Teishi with such cuteness it’s impossible not to laugh, but also demonstrates instantaneous ability to change her demeanor and after setting herself up as a ditz, also asks some of the very smartest questions in the script.
 
Teishi describes her court and the intrigue surrounding royal family secret and not so secret attempts at rising to the top. She shrugs her shoulders at the culture that marries off all the daughters to the rising sons as a way to keep power in the family. She details the most recent spate of deaths and successions. She also introduces how her court includes the smartest lady writers recruited to write and publish for an information-starved populace.

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ Tells A Lot, Shows Little

 

Robert Pescovitz, Bradford Farwell, Brandon J. Simmons
in The Lehman Trilogy (Rosemary Dai Ross)

The Lehman Trilogy
ACT Theatre 

Through May 19, 2024

Does the ACT Theatre production of The Lehman Trilogy stand up to the play? Or does the play stand up to ACT’s version?
 
Of the Broadway production in 2021, Charles Isherwood, critic at Broadway News, said, “But for all its surface stylishness, "The Lehman (Trilogy)" is a stolid and rather monolithic slab of a show: a three hour and twenty minute talking Wikipedia page, so dense with description and narration, and devoid of drama - or even dialogue - that watching it is like watching very expensive paint dry, or maybe, to use a more apt metaphor, listening to cotton growing.”
 
There are a lot of glowing reviews out there that beckon you to come see an amazing story. The story is, indeed, amazing, though 160 years in the making. However, the script by Ben Power (from the first iteration by Stephano Massini), is written in what Seattle might think of as “The Book-It Style” where people refer to themselves in third person (Henry says, “He looked hard at his brother.” While looking hard at his brother.).
 
Book-It Repertory Theatre used that style often to great effect while also working very hard to theatricalize the novel it was based upon. Here, though, it’s a history book. This history tries to conflate decades into three plus hours. Three actors portray three brothers and all the myriad other characters throughout their lives.

May Laughs Abound in Theater

Nathaniel Tanenbaum and Sophia Franzella in Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position at Taproot Theatre (Robert Wade)

May seems to have brought out the funny-bone in the Seattle area theater world. If you’re looking for something dark and moody, you probably have to wait a month! Here are world premieres and a bunch of laughs, so get out yer calendars and get some tickets!
 
The Lion Tells His Tale, Intiman Theatre, 5/1-5/24 (at Broadway Performance Hall) (world premiere)
Vida Oliphant Sneed introduces Delbert Richardson’s national award-winning museum, making it come to life on stage for a brand new theatrical experience. Audiences will be transported on a journey of awakening as the brilliance, resistance, and resilience of Black people from Africa to the Americas is brought to life. Music, dance, and spoken word carry our hero through time as we all gather to engage and learn. “Until the lion tells his tale, the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” - African proverb
www.intiman.org
 
The Savannah Sipping Society, Edmonds Driftwood Players, 5/3-19/24
Four unique Southern women, all needing to escape the sameness of their day-to-day routines, are drawn together by Fate—and an impromptu happy hour—and decide it’s high time to reclaim the enthusiasm for life they’ve lost through the years. Together, they discover lasting friendships and a renewed determination to live in the moment.
www.edmondsdriftwoodplayers.org
 
Bee Present, SecondStory Repertory, 5/4-19/24 (world premiere)
A new children’s musical with Book & Lyrics by Kate Swenson and Music by John Allman. Birdie the Bee is so busy micromanaging the hive that she forgot the queen's birthday. Now she's on an impossible quest to find a gift the queen has never received before. And if she fails to surprise and delight her monarch---Birdie is out of the hive forever. With the help of a distractible hummingbird, a merry meadow, some crafty crows, and the infamous Sloth Thought Collective, this overly busy bee might find more than the perfect gift, she just might learn to stop stressing and Bee Present. (Ages 4+, 55 minutes no intermission)
www.secondstoryrep.org
 
Broadway Spectacular, Seattle Women’s Chorus, 5/4/24 (1:00PM and 5:00PM at Cornish Playhouse)
Billie Wildrick guest stars with the Seattle Women’s Chorus as it celebrates all things Broadway! Billie is is one of Seattle’s best-known musical theater performers with a belt that can’t be beat.  This is a concert that will keep your toes tapping and hands clapping.
www.seattlechoruses.org

Hear “English” in a New Way at ArtsWest

 

Almost full cast of English at Artswest (John McLellan)

English
ArtsWest and Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble
Through April 28, 2024
 
In a classroom in Karaj, Iran, in the year 2008, four students are learning English in hopes of passing the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), a test that might open the door to them for many opportunities, including visas to the United States. This quickly moving, non-stop play, directed by Naghmeh Samini, unfolds their stories and their challenges and even their emotional responses to learning the language itself.
 
Omid (Emon Elboudwarej) turns out to already have an American visa, and partly grew up in the U.S. speaking Americanized English. He is close to being able to gain a green card. When the classmates find out, they are both jealous and outraged, feeling like he shouldn’t even be in class with them if he can speak so well. But he has his reasons.
 
Goli (Newsha Farahani) loves learning languages. At 18, she’s not sure how she’ll put English to use, but is sure it will come in handy. Roya (Janet Hayatshahi) has a born-in-America granddaughter and her son is pushing her to speak only English to his child. She feels like she has no choice, but wishes she could let her granddaughter hear the poetry and history of her son’s native tongue.

Spring Blossoms in Seattle Area Theater

Duygu Erdogan Monson and Akul Sood in ReAct Theatre's Animals Out of Paper (David Hsieh)

Highly anticipated regional premiere productions come to stages along with other innovative offerings. Take a look and get out yer calenders!
 
English, ArtsWest and Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble, 4/4-28/24
Two words set in motion award-winning playwright Sanaz Toossi’s intricate play: “English Only.” This is the mantra that rules one classroom in Iran, where four adult students are preparing for the TOEFL — the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Chasing fluency through a maze of word games, listening exercises, and show-and-tell sessions, they hope that one day, English will help their futures. But it might be splitting them each in half.
www.artswest.org
 
Gunmetal Blues, Key City Public Theatre, 4/4-28/24
Is this musical a hard-boiled detective tale disguised as a lounge act- or the other way around? Direct from the Red Eye Lounge, Buddy Toupee tickles the ivories in a double-dealing world of rain-slicked streets and demolished dreams.
www.keycitypublictheatre.org
 
Death By Design, The Phoenix Theatre, 4/5-28/24
In a weekend in an English country manor in 1932, Death by Design is a hilarious, delightful and mysterious mash-up of two of the greatest English writers of all time. Edward Bennett, a playwright, and his wife, Sorel Bennett, an actress, flee London and head to Cookham after a disastrous opening night.
www.tptedmonds.org

Smart, Modern "Trick" Plays Out Shakespeare’s "All’s Well That Ends Well"

Rachel Guyer-Mafune, Libby Barnard
and Sophia Franzella in The Bed Trick (Giao Nguyen)

The Bed Trick
Seattle Shakespeare Company
Seattle Center Armory Theatre
Through April 7, 2024
 
Starting from Shakespeare’s troublesome trickery in All’s Well That Ends Well, where two women switch places in the dark to bed a man who doesn’t realize it, playwright Keiko Green fashions a modern dive into what we think of the “trick” now.
 
Sure, folks in Shakespeare’s time might have looked at it very differently. Women had little agency or choices about who they married or how their lives would go. But when a company puts on Shakespeare’s plays now, shouldn’t they take a minute to evaluate what our society values are at this moment?
 
Green has performed on many Seattle area stages and began playwriting here, debuting several works before heading south for an MFA. It’s a privilege to be able to see a playwright’s work over time, and in this case, Green just keeps getting better! The Bed Trick dives deeply into the concept of tricking someone without consent, and also interrogates Shakespeare while blending in some beautiful passages.