Let’s DO call it a comeback! 

After what was a less than stellar season last year with sophomoric productions like “The Callers”, “Bed Snake”, “The Mormon Bird Play”, and “Milk, Milk Lemonade”,  I was starting to have my doubts whether Washington Ensemble Theatre (aka. WET) would ever return to their glory days when they produced some of the most artistically progressive and intellectually substantive theatre in Seattle.

But it seems that the small theatre company has done some maturing over the summer, along with making some good connections with the larger venues in the city, — a liaison that has undoubtedly helped to line their pockets, and thus allowing them to come back strong with an excellent first show in their 9th season: “The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls,” written by Meg Miroshnik and directed by Ali El-Gasseir.

From the moment we walk into the house and get our “passport” stamped by the appropriately impersonal, yet sexy, customs agent, we begin a magical journey into a post-Soviet Russia where realism and the fantastic cohabit. We join “Annie” (played by Samie Spring Detzer), a 20 year old American girl (or should I say, “woman”?) whose Russian family left the country years ago. Annie has traveled back to her family’s homeland as a student of business in order to perfect her “rusty” russian accent and to make some professional contacts.

Annie stays with her “Auntie Yaroslova,” (played by Macall Gordon), a school girl friend of her mothers who has some peculiarities to say the least. In particular, she seems all to keen on fattening up her already pleasantly plump American boarder with insanely delicious russian pastries and soups. The problem is, however, she never leaves the apartment; so where does all that food come from? 

Annie also meets some other russian girls (played by Libby Barnard, Shannon Olivia Campbell, Aimée Bruneau, and Leah Pfenning) during her journey, and whose lives eerily mirror the dark qualities of traditional russian folktales. There are bears, witches, scorned prostitutes, jealous wives, rich lovers, and many interesting stories along the way. And in the end, Annie arrives in Russia as a young, naive, and spoiled young girl; but she leaves it as a full-fledged young woman.

The entire design team (Amiya Brown, Marnie Cumings, Katie Hegarty, James Schreck, Devin Petersen, and Megan Tuschoff) should be proud of their work. They took the tiny space on 19th Ave. E. that is WET and transformed it into an authentically feeling russian world filled with all the sights and sounds one would expect.

The show is well-directed by El-Gasseir and his assistant director, Drew Highlands. El-Gasseir makes use of shadow puppets, projections, mobile partitions, and other inventive stagecraft to move the show along quite nicely.

My only negative comment is that it does take a bit of time at the beginning for the show to really get interesting, and some of the stories are easy to “zone out” on, but otherwise it is a very fun show — innovative, substantive and engaging — and all the accents are good, and most importantly, comprehensible!  With a running time of nearly two hours, an intermission would be nice, but I understand that that is more of a question of the facility itself than it is a conscious directorial choice. (ie. No bathrooms!).

In any case, kudos to WET for what I AM calling a comeback! I hope they maintain the momentum for the rest of the season! Fingers crossed …

“The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls” shows through October 22nd at Washington Ensemble Theatre. 608 19th Ave. E. on Capitol Hill. Tickets are $15-$25. www.washingtonensemble.org