Author name: Marie Bonfils

Past

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

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Suffer the Little Children to Come to Me. And I do mean SUFFER!!!!!!

Often at Christmas time, we are bombarded with traditional tales about compassion for the less fortunate. Besides the Biblical tale of the pregnant Mary and Joseph, having to give birth in an unhygienic stable without an epidural, there is also the Christmas Carol about Bob Cratchit’s family, who Alfred Doolittle would describe as the “Deserving Poor”.

However, the true test of “Christian” that is to say Humanitarian values is whether one can feel compassion for the “Undeserving poor.” We all know it is easy to feel compassion for people like Tiny Tim and babies born in stables, but can we feel compassion for the “Undeserving Poor”?. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, now playing on Saturday and Sunday matinees at Seattle Public Theatre addresses just this dilemma.

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The Lion in Winter

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Post Punk Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II

At this time of year, theatres and cinemas are filled with sentimental fare celebrating Christian values of redemption, generosity and family values. For people who come from fractured families, it is often a time of depression and angst, as individuals who don’t see their families feel lonely and isolated and those who do, often feel worse.

Such is the Plantagent family, the ruling family of the Angevin empire ( that is to say present day Great Britain and most of Western France) at Christmas 1183. The Lion in Winter, produced by 12/48 projects, at Ballard Underground, might perhaps be therapeutic for individuals from fractured families because it provides a rather comic touch to sibling & parental rivalry with witty dialogue and very high stakes.

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Emma by Jane Austen

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“I am going to make a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”

Said Jane Austen about Emma, the heroine and namesake, of her last novel to be published in her life-time. Opening this weekend, Book-It Repertory Theatre, produced a narrative theatre version of Emma, whose audience expressed their amusement so vociferously Jane Austen might have thought it vulgar.

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It’s a Wonderful Life-Solo Performance

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America’s Equivalent to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

Although there have been adaptations in several media of Frank Capra’s classic film It’s a Wonderful Life, ArtsWest’s seems to be the only solo performance adaptation. One actor played the hero, George Bailey, as well as all the other parts, including the guardian angel who tries to prevent him from committing suicide when his there is a business crisis.

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A Christmas Carol-Live Radio Play

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One of the hidden secrets in Seattle is West Seattle itself; a lower density, less frenetic community with less traffic, and its own little hidden secret: Kenyon Hall. Built in 1916, it has a very old-fashioned small town feel to it, so it was a perfect setting for the 12th Night Production of A Christmas Carol-A Live Radio Production, which opened on Friday night, Dec. 4th.

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As a Beaver and an Artist

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Snappy Dialogue Diluted by Performance Whatever

Whenever a reviewer is assigned a “show” described as a “bizarre performance art” involving “clowing, improv, movement etc. ”, one puts the brakes on one’s expectations and does not exactly expect a well-made play. Given that limitation As a Beaver and an Artist, was in fact not only extremely entertaining, containing some excellent witty dialogue, but expressed, through black humor, profound truths about human existence and more importantly, the uncontrollable changes occurring in life.

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Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertholt Brecht

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Best Brecht in Town at Seattle Shakes

Seattle Shakespeare Company, opened a spectacular production of one of the most celebrated and visionary plays of Berthold Brecht: Mother Courage and her Children at Seattle Center on Friday. Written in exile in 1939, right after the Nazi invasion of Poland, its theme warns the profiteers of war that they themselves will not be spared its disasters no matter how crafty they are. Its setting, the 30-Year’s War, a long drawn out series of wars in the 17th Century, created untold destruction in German territories and depleted most of Europe economically, not unlike the aftermath of World War II.

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CODENAME:KANSAS, Witch Hunter

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Copious Anger not Love

Like the other Copious Love production I reviewed CODENAME: KANSAS, Witch Hunter, reminded me of the Flanders and Swan’s song “P** P* B**** B** D******” or “Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers” whose refrain is “Let’s talk Rude.” Flanders and Swan satirized the use of gratuitous profanity among the British intelligentsia ( in the early 60’s) and compares it to children swearing for attention.

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Reefer Madness-the Musical

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The Leafy Green Assassin of Youth

Reefer Madness originally was a 1936 movie, financed by a church group, to warn parents, not about demon rum, as this was after prohibition had failed, but against marijuana use. The film coincided with an attack by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics, culminating in a Federal tax in 1937 which was opposed by the AMA, N.B. it has been listed in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942, during which time it was prescribed for labor pains, nausea and rheumatism.

In the 1970’s the film became a cult classic of misinformation as the baby-boomers embraced marijuana as a pathway to spiritual enlightenment. Kevin Murphy, Dan Studney turned this campy movie into a musical, which opened at Seattle Musical Theatre this past Thursday.

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Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel

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To See or Not to See, What are the Consequences?

Six days after the death of renowned Irish playwright Brian Friel, a truly awesome production of his play, Molly Sweeney, opened in Seattle at Theatre 4, produced by KTO Productions. With an extremely strong language-based script, this three-person stage play could easily be a radio play, as the visual element is almost totally unnecessary.

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