Enchanting storyteller/writers Scot Augustson, Bret Fetzer and Kelleen Conway Blanchard have brought their love/hate relationships with their felines together with their brilliance with the written word. The evening of Animal Saints and Sinners: CATS! CATS! CATS! runs only three nights at 18th and Union. If only I could have gotten to this review sooner. But alas, here is my rave and my delight, along with hearty encouragement for more evenings in company with these (self-named) eccentric authors.
The brief evening of just one hour brought three stories, all with feline hero/antiheroes at their center. Hands down the kitty queen of the evening was Ms. Blanchard’s Serial Kitty. With a story that ominously begins, “I was born in an alley….,” Blanchard slyly weaves us into the first person of the feline story teller, a murderous cat that goes unwillingly from one adoption (or rescue! They were trying to RESCUE you, Mister!), to another, till he finally, and begrudgingly, falls in love with a miserable little girlchild just as evil as he. Blanchard’s stony, shiny, wide-eyed delivery channels Mister Killer right through and I must say I want to hear/read/see from this writer. Prrrrrrr you vindictive thing, you.
Bret Fetzer sent a video, in which his own cat has a tiny offscreen cameo that nearly steals the show. Fetzer’s The Cat Who went to the Other Side conjures a Little Black Cat as the only creature who could cross unhindered from “this side” to the “other side.” Two brothers are inexplicably separated by the borderland, and this, and other kitties perhaps, are the healing creatures. We are reminded in this story that, “all cats can talk, but they just see no reason to.” Knowing laughter all over the room. Augustson’s The Visions of St Alice was a horror story for any cat lover. (No, Kelleen’s murderous protagonist isn’t horrifying, somehow we totally understand him). After the death of her owner, kitty Alice is put into a science lab where all kinds of unfortunate creatures were being subjected to, well, you know, science. Riddled with ripe and rosy alliterations, Augustson’s story is scattered about like the toys of a kitty who hasn’t yet chosen her favorite. Is she Alice in Wordland? Auguston and Fetzer, always reliable wordsmiths, needed focus and editing to sharpen their odd and marvelous tales.
No matter, this trio of writers could keep going all summer at 18th and Union. People will come. A little pastry at the new place next door, a Seattle sunset, and great stories about kitties. How can you beat that? Well, a few dog tales would for sure bring ‘em in….
Animals Saints and Animals Sinners, July 7-9 at 18th and Union. 7:30 pm. 18thandunion.org. Accompanying photo is of Ms. Woolfe’s cat Wonder.