All Creatures Great and Small Want you Dead!!!
Well, just when I thought 18th and Union Theatre had presented the best comedy show in town, they came up with another one, Animals Attack! Almost True Stories, by Scot Augustson, Kelleen Conway-Blanchard and Jennifer Jasper. The genesis for this particular gem was in 2016, when Kelleen contacted Scot and Jennifer and said, “Hey! Ya wanna do something about animal attacks?”
That something became a reading of stories about very weird and I mean VERY weird animal attacks with some improvisation and audience participation thrown in. It was a delightfully funny evening with some of the most creative writing I’ve heard in a very long time.
Before the show starts, the audience watched a power point presentation of various wild and domestic animal attacks from the covers of 1940’s paperback books. On the night I saw the show, the talented and hilariously funny Keira MacDonald filled in for Kelleen and introduced the show, various “acts” followed as Keira, Scot and Jennifer read mostly macabre stories about animals. It is incredibly difficult to describe because their stories were a mixture of glee and triumph, but also untimely death, all at the same time, delivered in the most engaging manner. Sometimes the actors were even wearing cutesy animal masks!
At the end there was a sing along to another power point presentation prepared by Shawnmarie Stanton. That is one of joys of 18th and Union shows, there is usually audience participation in the small intimate space, so one leaves with a feeling of having bonded with the rest of the audience.
The highly sophisticated writing style was a mixture of Edgar Allen Poe suspense mixed in with Charles Addams imagery. Particularly intriguing were all the sexual innuendos in the animal attacks which kept cropping up in all of the stories.
With only one more performance to go, this show is a must see, I have never seen or heard anything else like it ever and the audience participation is worth it.
Animals Attack! Almost True Stories. 18th and Union and Radial Theater Project. 1406 -18th Ave. Seattle, 98122 (Central District, just North of corner of 18th and Union) Mon. Feb 13. Tickets: www.18thandunion.org