Too much Angst,
K. Brian Neel’s solo performance world premier The Luring Well, opened at 18th and Union this weekend. Termed a “Ukele Horror Song Cycle,” in which “Two Midwest kids discover a bottomless well in the woods and proceed to throw bad things into it: a feral cat, a menacing bully, a cruel teacher, a true love” had its merits but was just too ängstlich (full of angst) for me.
Battle of the sexes: A Nouveau Riche woos a Do-Gooder.
The date, 1995, when David Hare’s play Skylight, now playing at ACT theatre, first opened in London is highly significant, being the twilight years of the glorious reign of Thatcherism. In many ways, the play, ostensibly about whether a couple will rekindle their relationship, is actually a metaphor for two different perspectives to the Thatcher years. Right down to the Tesco “carrier bag” the details and especially the wit are very English, but it has universal resonance
An Evening of Improv, Sketch and a One Man Show
Seattle’s French language improv troupe, Les Seagulls, will present a double bill, Soirée HUMOUR (An Evening of Comedy) on Sat June 16 in Kirkland. The first part will be a new creation at the cutting edge of improvisation and sketch comedy featuring Sebastien Plisson, Clarisse Podalin, Katya Samoylenko, Julien Bouétard, Cédric “Caribou” Barnet, Jérôme Vasseur, and Jonathan Garcia.
La compagnie d’improvisation de Seattle, Les Seagulls, présente Soirée HUMOUR’ deux performances dans une soirée en français à Kirkland, samedi le 16 juin. La première moitié de la soirée, Les Seagulls présentent leur nouvelle création à la frontière entre improvisation et sketchs. Entrez dans un univers insolite et original, avec une distribution de francophones: Sébastien Plisson,, Clarisse Podalin, Julien Bouetard, Katya Samoylenko, Jérôme Vasseur et Cédric Barnet, et Jonathan Garcia.
The Language is the Thing
The real stars of Seattle Shakespeare Company’s current production of Shakespeare in Love, the stage adaptation of the 1998 Tom Stoppard Marc Norman movie of the same name, are actually the set designer Craig B. Wollam and George Mount, the director.
Crewmates starts off full steam ahead, goes off course.
For those of us who have had to navigate courtship and relationship foreplay with foreigners, Crewmates, the off-night play at Annex Theatre, in the Pike/Pine Corridor exposes all the embarrassment, missed signals, cultural differences, conflicting expectations and hilarity of such relationships. Just to up the ante Crewmates’ author, Sameer Arshad, did not depict your average, American undergraduate on a junior year abroad courting a European (which is relatively tame) but a young man raised in a strict Muslim family, and a biological Japanese young lady adopted by a Filipino-American couple.
Visual Onomatopoeia
The opening of the Bilingual ASL-spoken English production of A Midummer Night’s Dream made theatrical history last Saturday at 12th Ave Arts. In my humble opinion, this co-production of Sound Theater Company and Deaf Spotlight will be seen by future theater historians as the beginning of a major theatrical innovation.
Zany adaptation of 19th Century Melodrama
It is difficult to categorize, exactly what Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon, was. First of all, Artswest’s current show, was a “genre bending” adaptation of the 1859 melodrama The Octoroon by Dion Boucinault, a scion of a prominent Protestant family of Huguenot descent from Dublin, who had immigrated to the U.S. The Octoroon, was itself adapted from a novel Quadraroon, written by another Irish Protestant immigrant to the U.S., Thomas Mayne Reid.
Testosterone infused Battle of Cockerels and Cocks
Map Theatre’s latest production, Year of the Rooster, by Olivia Dufault, at 18th and Union, is not about the Chinese Zodiac, but about the blood sport of cockfighting, both the actual roosters who fight in the ring, and the owners who behave like roosters, challenging each other for social dominance outside the ring.
Neo-Nazi Netwits and Teutonic Twits on Broadway
Any actor, who takes on the role of Max Bialystock in the The Producers, has a tough act to follow. But, Nathanial Jones in Seattle Musical Theatre’s current production of the musical adaptation at Magnuson Park, was every bit as irreverently funny and commanding as the original Max Bialystock-Zero Mostel. Under the direction of Alan Wilkie, author Mel Brooks’ comedic one-liners were delivered with rapier sharp timing, keeping the audience laughing the whole time.
