Author name: Alan Sydney

Past

Thrilling Richard III Weaves Magic Spell

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Remarkably, this gem of a show was not supposed to happen. The Seattle Shakespeare Company had no plans for a Richard III after they had completed reimagining the Bard’s Henry VI trilogy in last year’s Bring Down the House. Yet, the overwhelming momentum engendered by the strength of that production, in particular the outstanding work of Sarah Harlett as young Richard, convinced Artistic Director George Mount and the upstart crow collective to create a sequel. Lucky Seattle! This powerful Richard III is a major highlight for our fall theater season.

Past

2018 Oregon Shakespeare Festival Offers Blockbuster Shows

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OSF is experiencing one of its toughest years. Smokey air from Northwest fires has clouded the Ashland skies for a good deal of the summer. The weekend I was there the company had to move their large outdoor productions into a much smaller high school auditorium. Nearly half the population was walking around with facemasks; the smoke enshrouded town seemingly overrun with bank robbers. The Festival estimates that they will lose 2 million dollars when all is said and done. And yet…the shows, the fantastic shows are still there! Forecasts are indicating clearing skies, so if you have a spare few days between now and October 28, you still have a knockout treat awaiting you in Southern Oregon.

Past

Sweet Land has West Coast Premiere at Taproot

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Sweet Land rode a most unique path toward becoming a full fledged musical. “A Gravestone Made of Wheat” a short story written by Will Weaver, appeared in a 1989 Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday magazine. In 2005, Ali Selim went on to write and direct an indie movie based on the story and re-titled it Sweet Land. Last year, playwrights Perrin Post and Laurie Flanigan Hegge with the aid of composer Dina Maccabee, tinkered with the premise a bit but held on to the primary characters of the story and transformed the work into a musical. Tap Root is now staging the show’s successful West Coast premiere. The focus of the play is on Olaf Torvik, a hard working Norwegian farmer living in rural Minnesota and Inge Altenberg, a German woman who in 1920 has sailed across the sea from Norway to marry the man she has never met. The current concerns about the acceptance of immigrants into our country naturally resonate throughout the evening, but the natural beauty of this unabashedly romantic love story is Sweet Land’s most important gift to its audiences.

Past

Macbeth Re-imagined at Seattle Rep

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In what must surely be considered Seattle’s most innovative theater concept for 2018, adapter and director Erica Schmidt offers a mind blowing new take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In attempting to describe the indescribable effect this play is able to conjure, let me take a cue from those weird witches we meet in the opening of the show by mixing up a magical blend fit for a charmed cauldron. Stir together themes from Mean Girls, The Crucible and an all girl-Lord of the Flies and blend with the text of one of the Bard’s most famous and violent tragedies and you might approach the feelings generated from the opening night of the remarkable Mac Beth.

Past

It’s Wilde Time at the Taproot

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The brilliance of Oscar Wilde is in good hands with Taproot’s delightful production of Lady Windermere’s Fan. The work sits firmly in the troupe’s wheelhouse, and the cast and crew hit a grand slam with it. Wilde’s subtitle for his script written in 1891 was “A Play About a Good Woman.” Co-director Karen Lund observes in her notes that the play explores such questions as “What is ‘good’? How do ‘good people’ behave? Is it all about following the rules? Whose rules?” The impressive quality about Wilde’s genius is that he is able to handle these weighty topics with such remarkable wit and ease. Imbued with the playwright’s insightful dialogue and clever plotting, this night at the theater rushes by like a cool spring breeze.

Past

Blanket of Fear at ACT

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The 21st century challenges faced by Muslims, immigrants, people of color and their loved ones are explored in Blanket of Fear, currently on stage at the Eulalie Scandiuzzi Space in the ACT’s theatre complex. The original production debuted in 2003 and was created by a writing team emerging from the creative ensemble Tribes Project. Though the quality of the production’s acting is uneven, the taut fifty-five minute show offers a number of effective moments highlighting the difficulty of finding truth and justice within the tense arena of counter-terrorism.

Past

Heads Up: Crowns has come to the Taproot Theatre!

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We can open a window of understanding of any culture by closely exploring the rituals they observe in family and religious gatherings. African American spiritual traditions rooted in both Christianity and Africa are celebrated in Regina Taylor’s Crowns. The terms “crowns” refers to the elaborate hats worn by black women to Sunday church services. “Crowns” takes us through a complete church ceremony from the procession to a closing funeral and features a collection of standard gospel tunes. Taproot has assembled a solid group of performers for this show to sing and dance with a contagious joy that is impossible to resist.

Past

Seattle Shakespeare Offers a Stunning Merchant of Venice

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Successfully handling Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and its complex villain Shylock is one of the more daunting tasks in modern theater. The Bard’s intricate web work portraying bitter business machinations, the nature of antisemitism, pursuits of true love and conflicts between mercy and justice provide enough content for a half a dozen plots. A successful staging of Merchant must touch upon all of these facets and somehow link them into a coherent evening of theater. Prize winning director Desdemona Chiang and an outstanding cast more than meet this challenge in their stunning production at Seattle Shakespeare.

Past

Big Rock Rolls into Fremont’s West of Lenin

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Local playwright Sonya Schneider receives a red carpet treatment from the West of Lenin troupe for her premiere of Big Rock. Under the direction of Laurel Pilar Garcia, local actors Meg McLynn, Todd Jefferson Moore and Evan Whitfield do outstanding work bringing Schneider’s script to life. The unique setting of a small island somewhere in the Puget Sound is deftly represented by designer Julia Hayes Welch and beautifully lit by Jessica Trundy. Alas the actual play falls short of living up to the expert care it has been given by the actors and crew.

Past

You Are Right If You Think at Theatre 9/12

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Luigi Pirandello had an immense influence in Europe with his existential dramas and musings. In 1917 he produced Cosi e (se vi pare) setting forth an argument rejecting the acceptance of an agreed upon objective reality. In years that followed this play and the more famous Six Characters in Search of an Author, writers like TS Elliot, Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus would revisit some of the same themes boldly set forth by the freethinking Sicilian writer. Theatre 9/12 leader Charles Waxberg has adapted and directed a thought provoking new production based on Cosi e (se vi pare) entitled You Are Right, If You Think. Here ideas concerning the nature of truth and the importance of respecting our basic humanity and individualism are handled within a dramatic mystery befalling a small seaside community. Waxberg’s troop lays out the tale with admirable focus and skill.

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