SPT's "Arcadia" brings past and present together

Trevor Young Marston and Izabel Mar in Arcadia (photo Paul Bestock)

Arcadia
Seattle Public Theater
through June 8 (very close to sold out)

Tom Stoppard is a very, very intellectual playwright. Some of his plays are more accessible than others. For me, Arcadia and Travesties are two of the harder plays to come to grips with. Seattle Public Theater's current production of Arcadia has some strong performances and a very nice set design (by Craig Wollam) that help bring more understanding to a complicated and "heady" play.

A rather large cast is headed, first, by a wonderfully grown-up and arch performance by teen Izabel Mar. She plays Thomasina, a preternaturally smart 1820s gentleteen being tutored by the almost-able-to-keep-up-with-her Septimus (Trevor Young Marston). They start off the play by talking about higher math, physics, and "carnal embrace" which the tutor, embarrassed, passes off as "hugging meat." He's the one who has been hugging the meat of another man's wife in the gazebo, though.

That man, the easily bamboozled Chater (Brandon Ryan), wants to duel with him until Septimus convinces him that Chater's wife was trying to gain Chater a good review of his latest poetry book.

Theater Writers are an integral part of the communal "whole"

It's really frustrating when people in other parts of the theater community treat people who write "about" theater as if they are not part of the same community. I also feel bad when people in other parts of the theater community give off a vibe like people who write "about" theater should not consort with or otherwise involve themselves with the artists who create the theater they watch.

Do you think, you artistic folk, that you are so different from those who write about what you do? Is your background so different? I'm here to tell you that many of us who write about theater have theater backgrounds not much different than yours. In fact, we usually have degrees in and experience with many aspects of the artistic side, as well. 

We love theater as much as you do. We care about the success of the artistic expression as much as you do. 

And we understand our connection to the community of theater, because we see our words about your product co-opted into your advertising and touted by you as "worth" something — that is when you want to use what we have said that is good about your artistic creation. Though, you're not so eager when we say some things didn't work so well or even failed in their intent.

SOAP Fest 2014 includes a Yussef El Guindi One-Act. (He’s ‘Local’ Unless Rent Gets Too High)

SOAP Fest Playwrights Yussef El Guindi, Juliet Waller Pruzan, K. Brian Neel and Brian Healey (photo Ann-Margaret Johnson/Sassafras Photos)

Yussef El Guindi and cat (photo Amal Toleimat)

First there was Sandbox Artist Collective where a bunch of theater “professionals” (does that mean they make money that way?) got together to create work and support each other. Then they expanded into a radio show Sandbox Radio and after that, they decided to create a play festival, Sandbox One Act Play Festival which this year has performances  (tickets) June 4-8 at West of Lenin. Who knows? Is Sandbox Coffee (?) next?

SOAP Fest includes four new plays by four local playwrights: Yussef El Guindi, Brendan Healey, K. Brian Neel and Juliet Waller Pruzan. I spoke with Yussef El Guindi about his participation in the Collective and life in general as a playwright in Seattle.

"Once" is a truly theatrical event!

Once cast (photo Joan Marcus)

(as posted on Seattle Gay Scene)

There’s a reason the musical Once feels like theatrical kin to the acclaimed Black Watch from the National Theatre of Scotland – John Tiffany. He employs a minimalist style of theatrical staging, or maybe more appropriately termed “essential.” The esthetic may be a wholehearted embrace of legendary director Peter Brooks’ boiling down of theatrical moments to their elemental state, as witnessed recently by Seattle Rep’s production of Brooks’ The Suit.

Sometimes, when theater is created by people who know what they have to bring out, it becomes magical in the way that theater can be magic. Once is a reflection of that magic.

Seattle Repertory Theatre and STG Presents have joined to present the touring production of Once at The Paramount Theatre, here through June 8. Surely the production would have felt so much more personal on a smaller Seattle Rep stage, yet even in the cavernous Paramount, this “small” musical catches at people’s hearts and becomes bigger than any might think.

Once, the musical, is based on a lilting movie of the same name, written and directed by John Carney. The movie contains much of the music that ended up in the musical, so the musical had a big head start.

Playing Around the Sound: Quick WrapUps of ‘The Grimaldis’ and ‘Don Juan in Chicago’

If you like vaudeville, aerialists, magic, original songs, ballet and some included noshing, you only have two more chances to see The Grimaldis: A Musical Ghost Story at Hale’s Palladium. Go here for tickets for Sunday night 7:00pm http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/577891. Saturday 7:00pm tickets are only to be had at the door, now. Though they are standing room only.

This is essentially a scripted musical with original music by John Woods. But initially, you’re told, as you walk in, that this is a preview for an auction taking place the next day of Grimaldi Family Estate items. The Grimaldi family is a multi-generational show business family with paraphernalia to match. Written by Dane Ballard and directed by Kerry Christianson, it’s a unique, affordable, snack theater event. (Bites are served during intermission.)

The Schmee Rises! New space, new lease on life!

The Schmee: Some months ago (photo Dave Hastings)

Revered theater, Theater Schmeater, lived in a basement under Brocklind’s Costumes from 1992 until last year. Brocklind was a benevolent upstairs neighbor and was closed at night and on weekends, so that partnership worked for many years, despite support columns in the middle of stage space, lack of ceiling height, concrete sound-bounce, and lack of adequate heating and cooling.

The Schmee made it as cozy as possible, adding a unique lobby area, a bar, and smart technical people who overcame much of the challenge of staging in that space. It was similar to other Capitol Hill locations that grew around available empty spaces, many underground. But that all changed when Brocklind’s closed and the building was sold.

Roger Huston, managing director since August 2012, continues the narrative, “The new owners, Hunters Capital, entered into an agreement for a restaurant to occupy the first floor. It would not be practical to install sound insulation under the already-low basement ceiling (in a 100 year old, uninsulated building) and would no longer be practical to use the basement for theater.”

Village pulls out all the stops on "Funny Girl"

Sarah Rose Davis as Fanny Brice (photo Mark Kitaoka)

Funny Girl

Village Theatre

Issaquah: through July 6

Everett: July 11-August 3

The final show of Village Theatre’s season is Funny Girl, the classic musical turned movie by Jule Stein, Bob Merrill and Isobel Lenhart. Village pulls out all the stops on the technical elements, flying in stage drops and pushing and pulling set pieces just about every 30 seconds! It’s a dizzying technical feat. Some of those stage pictures (like the “wedding” song tableau) are absolutely gorgeous. (Set designer is Bill Forrester.)

It’s a “big” show with a large ensemble cast filling the stage, enchanting bits of choreography by Kristin Holland, and a lot of brass in the orchestra (music directed by Tim Symons and Bruce Monroe). Outstanding smaller roles include a star turn for John David Scott and his terrific tapping, along with his charmingly poignant friendship with Fanny that endures while he clearly is in love with her. Also, great fun is had with Fanny’s mom, Bobbi Kotula, and busybody neighbor Mrs. Strakosh, Jayne Muirhead.

But the focus of the evening, indeed the person who is barely off-stage for even a moment, is Sarah Rose Davis as Fanny. Davis has everything she needs to bring this role to life: a terrific voice, ability to lapse adorably into funny-awkward comedic moments, and the knowledge of how to put a song over the transom and deliver. This show taxes all her abilities to their limit and she rises to the occasion beautifully.

Exhilarating Taproot play is completely up-to-date despite being written in 1908!

Helen Harvester in Diana of Dobson’s. Photo by Erik Stuhaug.

I always expect plays at Taproot Theatre to be well-done in most every respect. Technical support (sets, costumes, lights, sound) is always appropriate, actors are all solidly talented, and the experience is invariably pleasing, at minimum.

Every once in a while, they blow even that high expectation out of the water and their current production of Diana of Dobson’s is one such occasion! The play is a gem of a script by Cicely Hamilton. It focuses on a shop girl whose humdrum and restricted working conditions are similar to any minimum-wage earner or factory worker in our current economy. She unexpectedly receives an inheritance and, despite pleas from her fellow workers to be careful and save her money, decides to blow it all in one glorious month of pleasure that she can remember forever.

Whim W'Him comes to Cap Hill with #unprotected

Whim W'Him (Bamberg Fine Art)

(Via Capitol Hill Seattle)

The innovative dance company Whim W’Him is performing its first full-length evening of works on Capitol Hill with eight performances times at the Erickson Theatre. Created by ballet dancer Olivier Wevers five years ago, Whim W'Him has typically performed at what is now the Cornish Playhouse. For the first time, they will move outside of Seattle Center to the 150-seat Erickson, May 15 - 23. They’ll place the first row of seats directly on stage for what sounds like a most “immersive” experience.

Katie Bombico, executive director, says, “One of our goals for this year is to expand our audience in the Seattle area and we chose to go to Capitol Hill first because the demographics really mesh well: young, diverse in age, diverse in sexual orientation. Bringing our work to Capitol Hill will enable more folks to see the art we create. We’ve collaborated with other organizations and businesses on the Hill. We hope to continue to expand and partner with Velocity. That’s a great place in the community to have access to dance.”

New Bridges Stage Company debuts with “Terre Haute”

Aaron Levin (seated) directs Norman Newkirk (photo by Greg Lowney)

Aaron Levin directs Norman Newkirk and Robert Bergin (photo by Greg Lowney)

Yup, it’s a(nother) new theater company! I could confidently say that every month, I think. But Bridges Stage Company is one you should, likely, pay attention to because director/producer/master teacher Aaron Levin has deep connections to our theatrical community and the administrative chops to get what he wants!

First, Aaron Levin has been teaching actors around town for millions of years and is considered a master teacher. He says, “Not only am I starting a new company and directing the play, I’m teaching two classes a week and finishing a book I’m writing. I just finished Chapter 21. “Passing it On” deals with acting. I’ve taught for 34 years. I’ve heard it a lot that what comes out of my mouth is not what they’ve heard from anyone else. Everything I say in class, I finally put on paper.” That sounds like a potential instant theater classic.

Playing Around the Sound: Quick WrapUps of Satori Group, ArtsWest, STAGEright, and SecondStory Rep

"Returning to Albert Joseph"

Here are short impressions from attending a diverse selections of currently running plays in the area.

Until May 25, Satori Group is performing Returning to Albert Joseph which is scripted by Spike Friedman, a company member, but worked on by the collective. Friedman, in a press packet, says tentatively, that the play is about "loss." But he's afraid that by labeling it, it will make people feel like they won't want to see it. That seems strange for a company member of a group that believes so thoroughly in theatrical expression.

Directed by Caitlin Sullivan and Alex Matthews with a cast of two, LoraBeth Barr and Quinn Franzen, the play could indeed be said to be about loss. It's a very word-focused presentation about a dystopian society where it seems that people have lost the very connection to humanity: human connection. Even being friends with someone seems to threaten the very fabric of that unseen society. Who we are introduced to are outcasts who are on the run, and who have to justify themselves at every moment.

Gun control takes center stage at Town Hall with Strawberry Theatre Workshop

(via Capitol Hill Seattle) 

Gun violence in Washington state causes more preventable deaths than car accidents or smoking. That fact sets the stage for Control, a upcoming Town Hall Seattle performance about gun control put on by the Capitol Hill-centric theater company Strawberry Theatre Workshop.

Town Hall was established in 1999 as a community gathering place to explore crucial local and national issues of the day. Occasionally, the 8th and Seneca building becomes a theatrical venue — a unique confluence of art and social dialogue that will be on display May 9th-18th for Control’s six performances.

Strawshop, which moves permanently into Capitol Hill’s 12th Avenue Arts project this fall, will present the “living newspaper” play featuring dozens of sources complied by artistic director Greg Carter.

MJ Sieber, a veteran Seattle actor performing in the show, said Control mixes scripted story telling with improv.

Theater Profile: Seattle Jewish Theater Company

Carolyn Cox, Sara Schweid and Alice Bridgforth

in "From Door to Door" (Joan Golston)

Art Feinglass relocated to Seattle from New York about four years ago. With a thriving theater company in New York, Mostly Murder, he continues to be bi-coastal, as they say. Mostly Murder is a travelling theater company that stages corporate events, fundraisers, and team building events. Art says, “We present murder mysteries that audiences have to solve and get prizes for solving. The company’s been going for 22 years and now I run it from Seattle. I write the scripts and do the casting from Seattle and then people do it in New York.

“Four years ago I moved to Seattle to be near my grandkids and founded Seattle Jewish Theater Company. I run it pretty much the way I run the mystery company. We go from location to location. We bring the cast and whole play to different venues around the Seattle area.”

SJTC has been to synagogues throughout the Greater Seattle area and will shortly be going as far south as Tacoma and as far north as Woodinville. Their latest presentation was a lovely, three person play called From Door to Door by James Sherman. The title is a pun on a Hebrew phrase, “l'dor v'dor” or from generation to generation. The characters are a grandmother, mother and daughter over a 64 year span.

Actors Alice Bridgforth, Carolyn (Puddin) Cox and Sara Schweid gave touching performances that detailed growing differences over the years of women’s places in the home and religious life of the Jewish community. The play takes place in Chicago and suburbs, where Sherman is from. The strong dialogue deftly sketches the cultural mores of each generation and the bond of the family.

SCT goes to the dogs with Art Dog!

Arthur (Auston James) shows off the fine art in Art Dog (Chris Bennion)

Dog thieves (Kate Jaeger and Allen Galli) steal Mona Woofa (Chris Bennion)

Sometimes, adults wonder if shows labeled “children’s theater” are ones that are going to bore them while enriching children’s experience, and how they are going to make it through ferrying their children to the event. For almost every production Seattle Children’s Theatre ever puts on stage, that is never the case and there is always much for adults to enjoy and even savor that will just sail over the kids’ heads.

Such is the case of the adorable production, Art Dog, on stage until May 18th. It is a world premiere musical, although it has the feel of a cartoon more than a musical. It’s a cartoon about fine art, dog-style. It’s based on Thacher Hurd’s book, adapted by John Olive with music by Sue Ennis.

The Erickson is a Community Asset - Why is it empty of theater?

Update:
For unknown reasons, I can't reply to comments. A lot of people are talking about this topic but will not publicly comment. I think there are problems. I think the SC administration has some reasons, though it's hard to determine exactly who is making decisions so that a direct conversation or negotiation can take place. It is my hope that by beginning a more public conversation, people can get involved and change can become possible.

The Ethnic Cultural Center is UW's facility, but I have seen plays and readings there, so I know it is possible to rent (though not for how much). I perceive that the Erickson is in a different situation, and in an area where people are begging for locations to mount their productions.
_______________________________________
Space to perform in Seattle is at a premium already and seems to be getting worse. While there is are two new spaces being built (one for Theater Schmeater that is an example of what I see as the future avenue we must find a way to advocate for with new development, and the 12th Avenue Arts building), each of those spaces will not actually enlarge the pool of available spaces for rentals in any meaningful way. (I am not going to lay out my rationale for that statement here.)

Rentals, theater spaces where people can rent space for performance purposes, are few and full, and vary in their ability to house the requirements of productions. Some of them are uncomfortable to sit in as audience members, and most of them are simply too small for any but productions with four or five people and a single set, maximum.

"Lollyville" creators celebrate 15 years of writing partnership

Juliet Waller Pruzan and Bret Fetzer (photo Eli Pruzan)

 (via Capitol Hill Seattle)

A long, long time ago, Juliet Waller Pruzan was a dancer and choreographer and had a cool idea she wanted to make into a dance/theater piece. She had a vision about people’s secrets flying out of them and getting caught in the branches of a particular tree. She knew that Bret Fetzer wrote original fairytales and performed them. She had seen him perform at On the Boards 12 Minutes Max and decided maybe he would be the guy who could help her create a performance.

There was magic in that request, apparently, because not only did they create a ten minute piece and successfully apply to On the Boards Northwest New Works festival (and entitle it The Gossip Tree), but they went on to create multiple more plays.

Their latest creation actually is a revision of their first ten minute play, now entitled Lollyville and produced by Macha Monkey, a ”fearless, funny, female” theater company on stage May 2-24 (8pm) at RichardHugo House.Through the years, they have revisited that initial concept and revised and revised and now have a new concept.

Both Bret and Juliet have a history with the building the theater is in. Juliet says, “I really love the theater and have a long history of performing there when it was New City and danced there in the ‘90s.”

Seattle’s amazing – ambiguous – history in intricate detail, now at Book-It Rep

Kevin McKeon, Jennifer Lee Taylor, Chris Ensweiler (photo Chris Bennion)

Truth Like the Sun

Book-It Repertory Theatre

Through May 18

Jim Lynch’s meticulously detailed book, Truth Like the Sun, is no straightforward history lesson. It weaves back and forth in time with major mysteries to explore and perhaps unfold. Creating a fictitious “Mr. Seattle” who becomes the face of the 1962 World’s Fair, he explores and exposes the seamy underbelly of graft and corruption that others have mined similarly. He creates a tenacious and overly cynical journalist out to get the “real” story any way she can, in 2001, and has her dig hard into Mr. Seattle’s possible corruption.

Book-It Repertory Theatre has chosen, for the third time!, to adapt a Jim Lynch novel, and Truth Like the Sun is riveting, ambitious, ambiguous, and challenging, all at once. This is not the kind of play to allow you to sit and let it wash over you. Sometimes there are evenings like that, like last month’s excellent Seattle Shakespeare Company production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde’s skewering trifle is fun but not terribly taxing to watch. This production calls upon you to sit up, fasten your seat belt, and PAY ATTENTION!

Kevin McKeon’s adaptation and Jane Jones’ direction creates a cacophony of voices from time to time, from the beginning bustle of World’s Fair Seattle hubbub forward. It’s a bit cinematic in style, and it does make it a bit hard for those who can’t decipher the speaker or the short sentences, at times. There is also a well-done theatrical technique to throw us back and forth in time (without using sign titling) that takes two or three iterations to get used to so we know the “when” we’re looking at.

Classic Albee takes stage for first time at Seattle Rep

(l to r) Amy Hill, Aaron Blakely, Pamela Reed and R. Hamilton Wright in Seattle Repertory Theatre’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Photo: Alabastro Photography

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Seattle Repertory Theatre

Through May 18

The explosive, immersive, three hour drama, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, by Edward Albee is on stage now at Seattle Rep. If you thought August: Osage County was caustic, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet, sister. This play will blister your paint and warp your wood. The games played by George and Martha make Russian roulette look silly.

This is an American classic that practically became classic the minute Albee stopped writing it in 1962. It won the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play. You may know it best from the 1966 movie starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal and Sandy Dennis. Here, the four dynamic talents are R. Hamilton Wright, Pamela Reed, Aaron Blakely and Amy Hill.

This production is lovingly mounted by director Braden Abraham, with delightful set by Matthew Smucker with massive help from the Seattle Rep scene techs. During the two intermissions, you might take time to look at the academic flotsam and jetsam collected on multiple floor to ceiling bookshelves, as if jammed in there over years. Lighting by L.B. Morse and sound by Matt Starritt perfectly accompany the evening.

eSe Teatro hard at work promoting and educating Latino actors

Charise Castro Smith

On April 13th, on a relatively balmy afternoon at ACT Theatre, eSe Teatro artistic director Rose Cano managed a new effort to introduce Latino actors to the Seattle theaters for consideration in near-future productions.

For the first ever NW Regional Latino Auditions, approximately 45 mostly local actors, but also from as far away as Chicago and Los Angeles, strutted their stuff before a powerhouse list of regional companies: Seattle Repertory, Book-It Repertory, ACT Theatre (host company), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Miracle (Milagro) Theatre Group, Latino Theatre Projects, Washington Ensemble Theatre and a few more. Washington Ensemble is mounting Charise Castro Smith’s play, The Hunchback of Seville, opening June 5th.

Each actor was given the standard three minutes to perform and many presented two short pieces. The mix of pieces ranged from very contemporary to classic Shakespearian and Spanish plays. Many of the performers chose to perform pieces that mixed Spanish and English to show their ability to perform in both languages. A number of performers were young men and women who are studying at Cornish or UW.

Acting up a (financial) storm in "Bethany"

Emily Chisholm in Bethany (photo Chris Bennion)

Bethany
by Laura Marks
ACT Theatre
through May 4

The new play, Bethany, at ACT Theatre moves so quickly and with such power that by the end, you may well feel a bit punched in the gut. Playwright Laura Marks likely does not expect you to like the characters in this play, but you can identify with them.

Director John Langs takes a spare script and amplifies moments with quiet scene play that illuminates the inner life of these characters, caught in 2009 in the devastation of the Great Recession. The play might be realistic and it might not. It teeters on the edge of the fantastical or allegorical with a (typically beautifully wrought) modern kitchen set design by Carey Wong, sometimes-haunting lighting by Andrew Smith and kickass sound design by Brendan Patrick Hogan.

(Side note: BPH's sound designs are things of beauty. It's not that the sound design is so well done that it does not fit the production, but that they fit the production so aptly and amplify it so deliciously that I just have to bust out and say so every once in a while!)

See "Shackleton" first, before NYC gets ahold of it

Valerie Vigoda and Wade McCollum (photo by Jeff Carpenter)

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me

Balagan Theatre

(at Seattle Repertory Theatre)

Through May 3

A hallucinating new mother/musician conjures explorer Ernest Shackleton via Skype to help her weather the winter storms of her failed relationship and her disappearing job in Balagan’s newest show. Ernest Shackleton Loves Me (in a co-production with both Seattle Repertory Theatre and ACT Theatre) is a tour de force performance from both of its two stars!

ESLM is well worth a visit. It’s a dense sound-and-light, rocking, lyrical extravaganza, with a bit of hootenanny thrown in.

Valerie Vigoda is both the lyric writer (book by Joe DiPietro and music by Brendan Milburn) and the hallucinating musician who creates the music right in front of us through the use of automated keyboards, sound looping, playback, an electric violin, and even an old reel-to-reel tape recorder! Vigoda is a wonder as we watch her swiftly and deliberately latch on her violin and flip switches and sing! She has a gorgeous voice, too.

Quick! That time of year for Live Girls

 Kasey Harrison, Matt Aguayo, Allison Yolo (photo by Steven Sterne)

Quickies 15
Live Girls! Theater
(at Theatre Off Jackson)
through May 10

Live Girls! Theater is presenting its 15th Annual iteration of Quickies, the short play program written only by women. It is always a well-produced evening, with choreographed and planned set changes that are integrated into the entire evening rather than apologetically or unapologetically and unartfully done in half light.

This year the offerings themselves are not as strong as some years, though a couple of them are very strong and well done. There are seven plays, four in the first act and three in the second. Also, you might win a prize after intermission for paying close attention to the first four plays! The theme this year was science and magic.

"Annie" is who again? The Horse in Motion debuts strongly and strangely

Kaillee Coleman, Elaine Huber and Chris Lee Hill (on the table). Photo credit Allyce Andrew

Attempts on Her Life
by Martin Crimp
The Horse in Motion
(at University Heights Center)
through April 27

The debut production from The Horse in Motion, a theater company mostly of UW grads, is definitely for recent UW grads. This is not to say it's not for others, but the edgy, character-less, roaming, episodic nature of this script by Martin Crimp is totally suited to the college crowd and those who like intellectual and even circular argument.

Attempts on Her Life, in script form, apparently does not even instruct who should speak what lines, or where the scenes take place, or time, or much else. It's the perfect vehicle for capturing the imaginations of this crew of theater-loving performers. So, they infuse the production with a variety of video images, locations, and moments, and spread them out throughout the University Heights center (it used to be a school).

With ‘low tech stage magic,’ "Chaos Theory" brings the apocalypse to Annex Theatre

(courtesy Capitol Hill Seattle)

 (DangerPants Photography) Keiko Green and Jana Hutchison

Maybe Courtney Meaker writes plays about the end of the world because she grew up in small-town Tennessee and had to hang out with a lot of people who didn’t hate homosexual people, they just hated homosexuality. Courtney says that she majored in creative writing and theater, but had never written a play before coming to Seattle.

Meaker

Her work Chaos Theory begins a one-month run Friday at 11th and Pike’s Annex Theatre. (April 18-May 17, 8pm)

“Writing a play felt a lot more rewarding because you could experience it in a lot of different ways, where you never know if someone is going to read a short story,” Meaker said. “It was a more fun thing to write than a short story.”

Chaos Theory is Courtney’s second full length play. Last year, Macha Monkey produced Buckshot.

Courtney says, “Chaos Theory is about Franny. She has just been left by her partner and her friends are trying to coach her through a break up. By the end of this time cycle (first scene), her friends decide the only option left is to give her a book about chaos theory and parallel dimensions to pull her out of the dumps.

“From there, the story unravels as an exploration of how we define our world. It messes a lot with genre and storytelling and different conventions. There might be a laugh track or things might fall from the sky. The core is very basic that everyone goes through feeling like you’ve been abandoned.”

Penetrating look at beauty and its pervasive effects on our culture

 Lisa Marie Nakamura, Ruth Yeo-Peterman, Kathy Hsieh and Sara Javkhlan in "Impenetrable Women" (photo by Rick Wong)

Impenetrable
SiS Productions
(West of Lenin)
through May 3

SiS Productions is presenting Impenetrable, a play by Mia McCullough, and it's a timely and important exploration of the impact of beauty in our culture. McCullough took a newspaper report about a real billboard erected in the suburbs of Chicago, depicting a bikini-clad woman with arrows pointing to areas she could improve with surgery, and fictionalized it into a challenging and provocative story.

As directed by Charles Waxberg, the play starts off with an even more challenging hurdle: many of the beginning speeches are presented directly to the audience. This has an interesting effect of first pushing the audience backward toward creating a bit of a defensive wall, and perhaps making it harder to identify with the characters. However, eventually in the 90 minute presentation, the story is made clear and many of the inner emotions and personal reflections have been opened to us.

The cast is strong, including Kathy Hsieh as a suburban mom who feels like her beauty has been compromised and is struggling to understand how to both empower and protect her bookish, loner daughter (Sara Javkhlan, a young and talented girl who we hope to see more of), Lisa Marie Nakamura as a manager/barista at a Starbucks who puts out an exterior of toughness and sarcasm masking some pain at being maligned as "fat," and Ruth Yeo-Peterman as the young woman who is the subject of the picture and has been so damaged by being seen as "pretty," that she dons a burqua in order to cover herself up.

Also, two men help the story along: Shane Regan in a nicely understated and offhand performance as the love-struck photographer who feels "out of her league" and behaves somewhat badly toward the model in response, and Erwin Galan as a French-speaking Arab spa-owner, who both attracts pity and ire for his lack of understanding for the effects of posting this divisive billboard as an advertising device for his spa.

"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.