"Young Frankenstein" at Seattle Musical Theatre is fun

Young Frankenstein
Seattle Musical Theatre
through April 13

Seattle Musical Theatre's production of Young Frankenstein is a pleasing one, with a solid cast of young singer/performers and a very well done set for a very complicated trick-stage show.

This stage version of the Mel Brooks movie is as romp-filled as the movie, with the same sensibilities. Since it is a riff on the pseudo-scientific making of a human, there has to be a complicated dungeon laboratory with gizmos that work and special effects. Also stuff like paintings that come to life and library doors that rotate when a candle is lifted. The credits go to Samuel Pettit for set design and Zak Scott (technical director) and Caleb Dietzel (sound and lights) for making it come to life.

Tails of Wasps stings So Good!

(Paul Morgan Stetler and Sylvie Davidson. Photo by Chris Bennion)

Tails of Wasps

New Century Theatre Company

(at ACT Theatre/Central Heating Lab)

Through April 27

A taut, world premiere morsel of explosion just opened via New Century Theatre Company in ACT’s Buster’s Event Room. Tails of Wasps is a new play by their “resident playwright,” Stephanie Timm. It is the next “must see” moment in a month of key moments, here in Seattle! It is exquisite and exquisitely painful. It truly is as good as good theater can get.

Timm has been known for some pretty far out playing, including On the Nature of Dust, where a teenage girl devolves from human into tinier and tinier animal species, and mining fairytales and myths for Sweet Nothing and part of ACT’s production of Ramayana. This is nothing like any of those. It is a direct, real-human to real-human mining of power and relationship and self-justification and self-delusion.

SSR's Kiss of the Spider Woman is perfect for Ryan McCabe

Ryan McCabe (seated), Justin Carrell (lying) (photo courtesy Billie Wildrick)

Kiss of the Spider Woman

SecondStory Repertory

Through April 13

SecondStory Rep has taken on a huge challenge in its production of Kiss of the Spider Woman. The musical with book by Terrence McNally and music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb is a dark, edgy undertaking, though it has some beautiful music and a morally uplifting message.

The musical is the story of two cell mates in a Latin American prison: Valentin (Justin Carrell), a Marxist revolutionary, and Molina (Ryan McCabe), a gay window dresser. At first, Valentin draws a line down the middle of their small cell in antipathy to the talkative and effusive Molina. Molina escapes their dark world into a fantasy world of the movies and a screen star he loves named Aurora.

But first, a “praise warning!” I am about to extol the virtues of Mr. Ryan McCabe.

Ryan McCabe’s time is now! His performance in Spider Woman is perfection and would be perfect no matter whose production he starred in, whether SecondStory or Village or 5^th Avenue. He has toiled in the trenches of Seattle’s musical theater companies and proven his value over and again. He is the perfect age and in perfect voice for this role. So, kudos to SecondStory for choosing this musical and allowing him his starring vehicle.

Can women support each other? Is it too much to ask?

Cast members: Shane Regan, , Sara Javkhlan, Ruth Yeo-Peterman, Lisa Marie Nakamura, Kathy Hsieh and Erwin Galan.

Women make up 51% of our country, yet make 77% of the income most men get in almost every profession. There was a feminist movement that gained great ground in the 1960s and ‘70s and now, everywhere you turn, we have given that ground away again in so many ways. “Girl” was a word that we were taught should go back to being applied ONLY to females under age 18, and now “girl” is used by 50 and 60 year olds: I’m a girly-girl. I’m a theater girl. She’s one of the girls that teaches in that school.

No, we are women. The word “girl” diminishes us and dismisses us. Yet, we are working so hard to stay submerged and diminished.

Makeup is a multi-billion dollar industry made to make women feel like they must fix “flaws” in order to present themselves well. And now, instead of rejecting the constant messages we can’t be just fine with flaws or that flaws individuate us in important and interesting ways, instead men are now being “allowed” to wear makeup, cover up facial flaws with base, add a little eyeliner to give them more interesting eyes.

SiS Productions is opening their next play this week. Impenetrable, by Mia McCullough, is a play that was inspired by an actual event in a Chicago suburb in 2007. A huge billboard of an amazing looking, bikini-clad woman appeared. A plastic surgeon put up the billboard and added  arrows pointing to areas of her body where this woman could have plastic surgery to fix her “flaws.” The people in that suburb protested until the billboard was taken down.

Mia McCullough was inspired to write a fictional story dealing with how women are perceived and the expectation that even that physical perfection is not enough. I talked to Artistic Director Kathy Hsieh about the upcoming production.

Kathy says, “What’s interesting about the play is that it explores four different women, one who is 10, one in her 20s, one in her 30s and one in her 40s and uses the billboard as a starting point. It’s a revealing look at how those kinds of images affect women’s perceptions of themselves. The men I’ve talked to who have heard rehearsals have commented that they find the script fascinating because it gives them insight to women they might not have thought about before.

Playwright Goodisman talks "Checkoff in the Sun"

Playwright Leonard D. Goodisman

(via Capitol Hill Seattle)

The subtitle of Leonard D. Goodisman’s new play, Checkoff in the Sun, staged at Eclectic Theater, is “a comedy about dying.” There’s a very obvious pun in the title and the flavor of the famous playwright Chekhov permeating the play. Goodisman says, “The pun just sort of popped out when (my character) Victoria asks, ‘Why did you come here, just to check me off a list?’”

Goodisman’s subject is Victoria, a woman who is in the end stages of dealing with cancer, yet still in control of her decisions and desires. Victoria calls together her family and best friends to a villa in the Southwestern desert. It’s a Palm Springs or Tucson type property that her real estate friend hasn’t sold yet. Though they really shouldn’t be in the property, they accept her wish and travel to this destination to say goodbye and resolve what they can of loose ends, things unsaid, broken moments unmended.

Yet, there is a lot of humor woven into the play. Goodisman, who says he is a fan of Chekhov, reminds that Chekhov thought of himself as a humorist. He says that the leading figure of Russian theater, Stanislavski, chose to direct The Cherry Orchard as a tragedy, and “Chekhov stood for that and it’s been done as a tragedy ever since. I see the comedy in all his plays.”

Run! See "Gidion’s Knot" untangled at SPT!

Rebecca Olson and Heather Hawkins in Gidion's Knot (photo by Paul Bestock)

Gidion's Knot by Johnna Adams

Seattle Public Theater

through April 20

It is kind of ironic that children under age 13 are discouraged from coming to Seattle Public Theater’s gritty production of Gidion’s Knot, though they really shouldn’t. The irony is due to the subject matter of this two-hander that every parent and teacher and person who cares about children should see! Gidion is a ten year old boy. It is his mystery that needs untangling.

This is an intense 70 minute “real time” play about a parent-teacher meeting no one you know should ever want to be a part of. Directed with a sure hand by Shana Bestock, the two actors, Rebecca Olson and Heather  Hawkins go toe to toe with a welter of emotions and justifications. Rarely will you see such bald emotions on stage, and if you do, not often will those emotions be as well-deserved as these.

Johnna Adams has written a taut and intense drama. The word that keeps leaping to mind is “proportionate.” The emotions are proportionate to the issues, the discussion is proportionate to the mystery, the women are balanced one with the other in strengths and weaknesses, the length of the play is also proportionate to what needs to be said. Everything is measured to the exact amount needed. That in itself is quite a brilliant success.

Capitol Hill ensemble’s latest acting challenge: Stand on stage by yourself while channeling a 16-year-old

Samie Spring Detzer (photo courtesy of Washington Ensemble Theatre)

(via Capitol Hill Seattle http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/03/capitol-hill-ensembles-latest-acting-challenge-stand-on-stage-by-yourself-while-channeling-a-16-year-old/)

The next play up at Capitol Hill’s Washington Ensemble Theatre is The Edge of Our Bodies by Adam Rapp. It will perform from March 28 to April 14, a relatively short run, but as usual with WET, there are Monday evening performances you can attend.

This play is a one-character show and focuses on a 16-year-old girl, Bernadette, as she boards a train to New York City to see her boyfriend. Samie Spring Detzer is the performer and CHS spoke to her about her journey to becoming Bernadette.

“The narration of this incredibly smart and honest sixteen year old is very intriguing to me,” Detzer said. “We don’t often give young women the chance to tell their story with such clarity. There’s also something about the idea of one performer in a space telling a story that is very exciting to me.”

Detzer said that she was sent the Rapp script by a director friend as an idea for her to perform, and she brought it for consideration to WET’s retreat in December of 2012. Their egalitarian-styled ensemble votes on their seasons. “I read the script out loud to everyone,” she said. “It’s about 16 year old Bernadette who goes to New York to tell her boyfriend that she is pregnant. It’s about mixing the power of wanting to be seen with the desire to disappear.”

New "Uncle Vanya" succeeds and fails but tries admirably

Uncle Vanya's added music with Zhenya Lavy and Sean Patrick Taylor (photo by Annie Paladino)

UNCLE VANYA
AKROPOLIS PERFORMANCE LAB
(AT WASHINGTON GARDEN HOUSE)
Through April 5

Zhenya Lavy and Joseph Lavy are consummate theater practitioners. They demonstrate that in so many ways in their new production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. They have chosen an unconventional venue to mount the production. It's an old home in the Beacon Hill area that is now the headquarters for the Washington State Federation of Garden Clubs. It also is an admirable choice as a stand-in for the Russian estate of the Serebryakov family.


Zhenya Lavy has made a new adaptation of Chekhov's Russian play, being a Russian speaker herself. It is quite faithful, in presentation, to what you might expect, if you have already read or seen a production. One of the most successful aspects of this production is her addition of multiple Russian folk songs with most of the actors singing and providing delicate harmonies. (While that addition is a delicious texture adding to the ambiance, Lavy might temper her desire for more than three verses of any given song.)


In the first moments of the play, while singing a folk song, Joseph Lavy enters with heavy chests and begins to meticulously unpack them into what had been a rather empty playing space. It's a riveting and theatrical moment that provides a shiver of anticipation of what is to come. Then, the play unfolds, but so does some fairly uneven acting and choices.


Joseph Lavy directs and is also cast as Uncle Vanya. One has to assume that there was no one to help him realize where his own acting choices could have been more measured, especially at the beginning, so that later on there would be more ability to ramp up the tensions to fit with the climactic moments at the end. Some in the cast are also far less used to acting, and in material as intricate as this, and in a 30-seat space more like a living room, it's easy to know that quickly.


Still, veteran actor Carter Rodriguez, as Doctor Astrov, does as good work as this reviewer has ever seen from him. Also, Sean Patrick Taylor, as a servant, is on hand, to provide some of the wonderful music, as he has in multiple other shows like at Seattle Shakespeare Company.


Zhenya Lavy, as the other servant, also provides texture via spinning real wool into real yarn on a real spinning wheel and knitting real socks. The spinning wheel provides some rhythmic sound effects that can become a kind of ticking clock or the beat of time or the syncopation of a beating heart.


They provide flashes of humor here, but much more could be wrung from the production when dialogue falters. One important addition in direction is that people in the play actually do things from time to time: real work. This amplifies the impression of a real household with normal activities to do, like taking tea.
This is not an easy play to understand or to perform. It has many layers and this production honors and provides layers and textures. While more could be done, it is still an enjoyable and theatrical evening with touches of brilliance, and gifts to the audience of Russian food and song. They give you Russian treats at intermission. But do yourself a favor: bring a cushion to pad your seat.


For more information, go to www.akropolisperformancelab.com or Brown Paper Tickets or call 206-856-6925.

Royal Blood: The heart of the play is Love

ROYAL BLOOD
ONWARD HO PRODUCTIONS
(AT WEST OF LENIN)
Through April 4

Cast of "Royal Blood": Merat and Love front, Hsieh in tie, Nelson and Moore on upper step (photo by Chris Bennion)

 
Royal Blood is a new play by local Seattle playwright Sonya Schneider and she believes in it so deeply that she and her husband have self-produced it in grand style. Directed by capable director, Laurel Pilar Garcia, with a terrific and accomplished cast, they have also invested in a marvelous set by Jennifer Zeyl, beautifully rendered costumes by Anastasia Armes, exquisite sound and music design by Robertson Witmer and well-crafted lighting by Evan Anderson.

Overall, this is a highly successful production. It focuses on a pretty dysfunctional family and an unfolding of some secrets, but almost all the revelations are earned, and the relationships and choices are clear and ones we might identify with in our own families. The members of this family deeply want to feel 'special.'

As the play begins, a woman we will realize is somewhat mentally challenged digs a hole in the wonderfully detailed backyard set, in real sod, to bury her dog, Lady Di. Deb (Amy Love) looks up from her labors to find her sister, Dorothy (Mari Nelson), has come home from Europe and Deb thinks Dorothy has been brought home due to the dog's death. In fact, Dorothy has come to bury their brother Leo, but their father Cliff (Todd Jefferson Moore) has not yet told Deb of Leo's death.

It's easy to identify with Dorothy's desire to be independent of a challenged little sister, to have tried to leave and make a successful life on her own. It's a little less easy to accept that Dorothy might be on the verge of leaving behind her 16 year-old daughter, Cassiopeia (Nicole Merat), though her ex-husband is apparently a decent father. But then Dorothy learns that her father has cancer and the stakes become much higher.

We also learn that Leo committed suicide and that he had a lover, Adam (David Hsieh), though his homosexuality lies uneasily with Cliff. Cliff is an uncomfortable, though believable, character who is also racist and loves to sarcastically tease his family. Moore handles all of that thoroughly and well, not letting us like him as he struggles to deal with how to manage this new illness.

Nelson, an assured veteran of stages such as the Rep and ACT, holds everything together just like the older sister should, and makes it clear how burdened and uncertain she is, though never displaying her vulnerability to her family. Merat is terrific as the headstrong and difficult and brilliant young girl, ably portraying the know-it-all attitudes and emotional outbursts of that age. Hsieh is restrained and formal in a role that is the least well-rounded of the play.

But the heart of the play is Love in a beautiful portrayal of an older woman who has been sheltered and protected from life while longing to be 'normal.' The title comes from the family's supposed descent from the British Spencer Family, the one that Princess Di came from, and Deb lives out the fantasies of their dead mother, dressing in clothing that would be appropriate on Jackie Kennedy or movie stars. Her quirky obsession with movies provides a unifying through-line and some of the best laughs.

A mentally-challenged character still rarely shows up on stage, and this is a great character. Her fate, with her father sick, is definitely a problem anyone can relate to. The dialogue of the play is smart and virtually all the issues raised in the play are wrapped up by the end. In fact, there are almost too many issues and almost too much neat wrapping up! The second act could be strengthened by judicious pruning of a few problems and maybe even leaving one or two unsolved for now.

It's definitely a solid work and an absorbing evening of storytelling. Sometimes around here, you just have to do it yourself, if it's going to get done. Do yourself and Sonya a favor and go see her show. You'll be glad you did!

For more information, go to Brown Paper Tickets or http://www.onwardhoproductions.com/ or call 800-838-3006.