Author name: Alan Sydney

Past

Saroyan Brilliantly Reconstructed at Washington Hall

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William Saroyan once described his 1939 award winning play, “The Time of Your Life” as “a circus, an essay, a vaudeville…a comedy, a tragedy, a lecture—anything you want it to be. It was way out there, radical and all over the map for its time.” Saroyan’s spirit should be smiling broadly over the wild shenanigans conjured up by director Ryan Guzzo Purcell and the Williams Project for its production of his work currently on display at the Washington Hall. In his program notes Purcell explains that he wants to “blow some dust off, find what remains and make room for something new” for this American classic. You really should see for yourself how successfully the director and his team meet their dramatic goals.

Past

Sound Theatre Company Stages US Premiere of Peeling

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Playwright Kaite O’Reilly requires that “peeling”, a one-act she wrote in 2002, be performed by deaf and disabled actors. She has rejected a number of US theaters’ requests that would not honor these parameters. Seattle’s Sound Theatre Company was ready and willing to provide the needed authentic casting and so has the privilege of staging the US premiere of this thought provoking and unique dramatic experience. The work somehow blends Beckett’s sense of the absurd and Ibsen-like stringent calls to action with the grandeur of a Euripides’ Greek tragedy. This off-the-wall mixture produces a dynamic night of theater.

Past

Bright Star Lights Up Taproot Theatre

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The Taproot Theatre has been bringing quality shows to the Greenwood neighborhood for years, but rarely has it produced a blow the doors open, buckle-up energy, Broadway quality show such at it has going on now with Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Bright Star. The path these two musicians and storywriters took to creating an award winning Broadway musical is quite circuitous. The pair was inspired by the folk song “The Ballad of the Iron Mountain Baby” which narrates the mostly true story of a baby who in 1902 was left for dead when discovered by a William Helms near the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway. In 2013 Martin and Brickell produced a bluegrass album that touched on the themes of this tale. That record went on to form the basis for their musical that hit Broadway in 2016.

Past

The Last World Octopus Wrestling Champion Has World Premiere

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Let’s make one thing very clear from the get-go: Seattle’s very own Justin Huertas is one of the most imaginative and original playwrights currently living on this planet! The Last World Octopus Wrestling Champion, now in its world premiere at Arts West, is filled with enough wildly creative ideas to fill four or five scripts. Here, Huertas employs sci-fi/fantasy ideas to work as a vehicle to present very real human dilemmas involving maternal love, gay and lesbian relationships and just general youthful angst. “Octopus”’ is enacted by a highly talented five member cast and director Mathew Wright has packaged a fast moving, spirited and often heading spinning one act. Though the work feels a bit cluttered in certain spots, Huertas continually provides thought provoking and insightful takes on a whole range of modern concerns.

Past

Tiny Beautiful Things Dazzles at Seattle Rep

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In her program notes, director Courtney Sale bemoans the arduous task she is given of staging Tiny Beautiful Things. In an imagined letter to the author Cheryl Strayed, Sale writes, “I am a bit terrified and a little angry you aren’t a play like I know a play.” Her concern is well founded: how in the world do you turn the give and take of Strayed’s advice column into a coherent stage production? Turns out Sale needn’t have worried. Playwright Nia Vardalos has done a marvelous job of adapting Strayed’s 2012 book into an effective stage piece. With the aid of a topnotch cast, the Seattle Rep’s Tiny Beautiful Things is a one-act play filled with moments of hilarity as well as heart tugging drama. Its hundred minutes fly by in a wonderfully entertaining night of theater.

Past

A Delightful Kim’s Convenience Premieres at Taproot

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The confounding conflict between the natures of love and duty that swirls within the members of so many families is the driving force of Kim’s Convenience, a charming one-act play from the Korean-Canadian playwright Ins Choi. That these forces collide in a struggling immigrant family only ups the stakes in the inherent give and take that consume parents and their children when they search for some balance between deeply caring for each other while still working under the onus that stringent expectations be met. Choi has these battles take place within the wonderfully entertaining Kim family, gamely running a convenience store in modern day Toronto.

Past

Curious Incident Arrives at the Village Theatre

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Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time quickly became a staple in high school English classes not very long after its publication in 2003. The highly original novel is a first-person narrative mystery told by Christopher Boone, an autistic British fifteen year-old, living in the small town of Swindon. Haddon employed some wonderfully creative devices to help capture Christopher’s unique perspective on his world including illustrations, maps and a batch of entertaining parenthetical observations. Ten years later, playwright Simon Stephens brought the work to London stages using a variety of dramatic techniques to again convey Christopher’s very different take on our world. Flashing strobe lights, mobile blackboards that serve as television screens and some really effective group choreography all help the audience begin to appreciate how autism can affect perception. The Village’s production led by director Jerry Dixon, choreographer Sonia Dawkins and sound designer Brent Warwick successfully meets the challenges of this very demanding script, bringing Christopher’s world alive.

Past

We Will Not Be Silent–Speaking Truths in Dangerous Times

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One of the most challenging tasks each of us may face on this earth is deciding when to finally say “no” to perceived evil. When we see the world going wrong around us, who will be strong enough to resist and say “Stop!”, no matter what the personal danger and risk? David Meyers explores these challenges in recounting the true story of Sophie Scholl and The White Rose rebellion in his moving new play, We Will Not be Silent. The compelling one-act is having its Seattle premier at the Taproot Theatre this spring.

Past

A Doll’s House Part 2 Arrives in Seattle

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Playwright Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House Part 2 came to Broadway in 2017 and garnered eight Tony Award nominations. Pamela Reed, playing Nora Helmer, heads up an outstanding cast for the show’s Seattle premiere at the Seattle Rep. The play’s action is set fifteen years after Nora walked out on her family in Ibsen’s groundbreaking Victorian era masterpiece, A Doll’s House. While enjoyment of the Rep’s current offering wouldn’t be curtailed if you haven’t seen or read Ibsen’s play, some familiarity with the work can only add to your appreciation of this thought provoking new show. However you approach the evening, you will be confronted with tough questions on the role of husbands, wives and marriages that really have not been definitively answered in the last 140 years.

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