Peerless is the work of Korean-American playwright, Jiehae Park. She places Shakespeare tragedy, Macbeth, in a modern high school setting where students are ferociously competing for acceptance letters to “The College”. When the letter lands in the hands of D, a white male, Asian twin sisters M and L begin to question what he had over them and what lengths they must go to prevail over this instance of white privilege. Peerless seems to point to the notorious cap that Ivy Leagues place on the number of Asian students they accept.
The twin sisters, played by Maile Wong and Corinne Magin, are obsessively ambitious and dangerously driven high school students. With the help of costume designer Isabella L. Price, Wong and Magin were able to portray the twins unfaltering allegiance to each other’s academic success. With each costume change M and L maintained their head-to-toe matching ensembles. This also aided their ability to manipulate and deceive everyone around them. The stage was a slanted, triangular-shaped, piece of cement. M and L frequently used the triangular shape to corner their enemy, D, using the sides of the stage to close in on him. Dressed in the same outfit, backs to the audience, they were perfect mirror images. They channeled the twins from The Shining.
Christopher Qulici plays D, M and L’s enemy. Qulici delivers a goofy performance and fulfills his role as the seemingly harmless character. Throughout the play Qulici bops around the stage, busting out dorky dance moves and confiding his many personal issues in the twins. He is sweet and mild and provides the perfect contrast to the twins to emphasize the cold-hearted ambition that govern their actions. Dirty Girl, played by Erin Bednarz, made several brief and ominous appearances throughout the performance, fulfilling her role as a Weird-Sister-type character. If she wasn’t lighting up in a classroom or dancing across the stage, Dirty Girl was delivering disturbing psychic messages to the twins. Staying true to the play’s origin, Macbeth, it is unclear whether the play’s outcome is the work of Dirty Girl or whether it was M and L’s fate all along.
Towards the end of the show it became a little hard to not get lost in the play’s many twists and turns. A lot of alliances were made and a lot were broken in a relatively short time span. However, the entire the play from the very beginning was moving at this same speed. In their first scene together, the twins perform their lines with lighting-fast delivery and even finish many of each other’s lines. The world of Peerless is a fast-paced one which made it all the more exciting to witness.
The people of Arts West achieved humor and tragedy all the while compelling the audience to ponder the racism and white privilege still prevalent throughout society. From laughs and chills to life and death, this show has it all.
Peerless, by Jiehae Park. ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery, 4711 California Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98101. Thursday-Saturday 7:30pm, Sunday 3pm, January 18-February 11. Tickets and info: www.artswest.org or (206) 938 0339