Bureaucratic Vanity in Imperial Russia
For those of us who love 19th Russian literature, the last few months in Seattle have been a wet dream. The Seagull Project produced Chekhov’s The Three Sisters at ACT, Theatre Machine produced the seldom seen play The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky and now Ghost Light Theatricals has thrust us all into the stratosphere of delight with stage adaptations of two short stories, The Nose and The Overcoat, by Gogol.
Superb Female Painter Reduced to a Victim
Blood/Water/Paint, by Joy McCullough-Carranza opened on Friday at Theater-off-Jackson. Produced by Live Girls!, a company dedicated to new works by women, it was didactically written with a supposedly feminist agenda. However, this story about Artemisia Gentileschi, did not seem to attempt to “empower” women but seemed to emphasize their victimhood.
Laughter Unlimited at the Schmee
One sign of mental health for both individuals and societies is the ability to laugh at themselves. It shows a healthy acceptance of one’s flaws and strengths as well as a healthy acceptance of reality. In Seattle, it helps all of us deal with the smugness, the Republican driven city council agenda disguised as bleeding heart liberalism, enlightened diet of the month, wacked-out theories of child-rearing, alternative this, alternative that and all the other agendas floating around Seattle.
Dog of the South, Judd Parkin’s adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1979 novel, opened at the Center Theater on February 14th. This comedic play centers around military-history-buff-turned-college-student Raymond Midge (Christopher Morson), whose wife, Norma (Shannon Loys), has just run off with his nemesis, Guy Dupree (Joshua C. Williamson) – and his blue Ford Torino.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The famous quote by Frenchman Jean-Baptist Karr, which translates as “the more it changes the more it stays the same”, could have been the subtitle of Zapoi, Quinn Armstrong’s interesting original script, which opened on Friday, January 30 at the Annex Theater.
Down and Out in Nizhny Novgorod
The most famous play by Maxim Gorky, The Lower Depths, was produced by Theatre Machine, in the most appropriate theatre space in Seattle-the old immigration jail, now called theLab@INScape. Used for Kafka’s The Trial, it has a sordid, sinister creepiness about it making it highly suitable for a play about the lumpen-proletariat of pre-Revolutionary Russia.
The “Girls” at Work are Not What You Expect.
As a compliment, Oscar Wilde would not call The Secretaries, which opened at Theater Schmeater, “a well-made play”. Although sometimes referred to as Surrealist, I would call it Expressionist. That is to say, it does not rely on realism, nor a structured plot, but rather creates a lot of extremely emotionally-charged images, as it ambles through the “initiation” period of a new secretary, in the all-female office of a lumbering company in rural Oregon.
Jane Austen meets Shakespeare: Morality Tale told through comedy .
Desdemona Chiang, has directed perhaps the best show Seattle Shakespeare Company has ever produced: Measure for Measure, which opened on Friday January 10th at the Center Theater at Seattle Center. Defined as a comedy because it has an almost fairy tale-like happy ending, it is also a serious morality tale, dealing with many Christian and universal themes such as mercy, atonement, chastity, the consequences of lust or what in previous generations was called “sin”, the irony of hypocrisy and the perniciousness of rigidly enforced justice.
Not Quite Convincing Play about School-bullying
Ghost Light Theatricals presented a Seattle premier by Sean Graney, about a very topical subject, school bullying in 4th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide at the Ballard Underground on Friday night. Although the play within a play had a moral message, as well as a solid production, unfortunately the lack of authenticity in the plot, language, setting and characters was too jarring to make much of an impact.
If Men Could Get Pregnant, Abortion Would Be a Sacrament.
One of the best subjects for humor in life as in comedy is hypocrisy. One of the most embarrassing situations for politicians, espousing the right-wing social agenda, is the behavior of their children, which can seriously derail their careers.
