Author name: Mark Douglass

Past

My Mañana Comes—Or Will It?

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A good play brings up many themes you can talk about. Elizabeth Irwin’s latest effort My Mañana Comes at ArtsWest, reaches that status under the direction of Matthew Wright and a brilliant cast and creative team. The themes bounce off one another like the banter of four men doing the best they can to live on the sub-minimum wage plus shift tips they receive working the back-of-house at an upscale Manhattan restaurant.

Theme One: there is no such thing as unskilled labor. The cast is never idle

Past

Water by the Spoonful—Love in Small Doses

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When children have a long stretch with a fever or illness they can become dehydrated. To re-hydrate them requires a teaspoon for water or soup every five minutes. Perhaps the title of Quiara Alegria Hudes’s soul-searching drama, Water by the Spoonful, serves as a metaphor for all people struggling with questions of recovery, illness, loneliness, trauma, identity and loss. We all can use care, love, attention, and connection in small doses—all the time.

Past

The Real Memorandum: Trust No One

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On a typical day at the office, Managing Director Josef Gross (played with appropriate increasing bafflement by Galen Joseph Osier), arrives at his desk, opens his Apple MacBook and begins to sift through his inbox. He comes across a memo in a new language, prints it, reads it out loud, has a WTF reaction, and proceeds to search around his offices to find out what it is written in and to get it translated. The language is Ptydepe. …

Past

Wizzer Pizzer—A Campy Romp through Rainbow-Tinged Themes

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Oz is a magical land. Since 1900 when Frank Baum published the original The Wizard of Oz anyone with the faintest acquaintance with this American cultural treasure will recognize it. Roll that into the gay culture’s fetishizing of Garland and her solo performances, stir in a bushel of camp, pore in a religious cult running a reparative therapy clinic; blend well. What you get is Wizzer Pizzer: Getting over the Rainbow …

Past

Four Dogs And a Bone is a Snarly Delight

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What Theater Schmeater has done with John Patrick Shanley’s 4 Dogs and a Bone should be enshrined as a movie. It begs for permanence so that one can return and savor its delights. Alas, this sharp, biting, witty, and funny gem is theater, not a movie, so go see it live. Be alert to all the clever funny nuances director Julie Beckman unearths in the script. This isn’t too hard, when the audience laughs or gasps—that’s your cue to join in.

Who are the four dogs, what are they fighting for and what are they fighting over?

Past

Weighed Down by Mud: A Plea for a Decent Life

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New City Theater has put Mud back into Seattle’s theater mix. Under John Kazanjian’s the play has a continual feeling of roughness, and lack of completeness, which is congruent with the themes of the play. The company did a terrific job using Fornes signature pause at the end of each of the 17 scenes. This stop-motion tableau slows down time and allows the audience a break to absorb and feel the impact of such bereft lives. Seventeen is a prime number, and variations of the root concept of prime, such as primal, primacy, and primate, can be found in every scene.

Past

Flushed: Knee Deep in the Afterflow

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The official title of this one-man show at New City Theater—Flushed: Into the World of Water Treatment—doesn’t quite capture what this production is about. Stokley Towles answers the question: “after we flush, where does it all go?” with a 50 minute talk that moves back and forward in both time and geography. This is bigger than just water treatment. Towles delves into things too common for most of us to take much notice, and by delving and researching and coming back to share what he discovers he becomes both a pioneer and a mirror.

Past

August Wilson Documentary Opens Film Festival

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The 12th Edition of the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival appropriately began with a tribute documentary about August Wilson. August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand celebrates the 70th year of his birth. Wilson’s family was in attendance, and Constanza Romero, Wilson’s widow, encouraged Seattle to accept August as one of our own. She said he was very happy living here. They had fallen in love but lived in different cities and had to choose between here or Portland. Seattle had a stronger theater community, and that was the tiebreaker. Sorry Portland, they moved here, and yes, he’s one of us now.

Past

The Comparables—Gender Equality or Secret Handshake?

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This show wonders “What does it take to be a high-ranking woman in the business world? Is their success defined by a different set of criteria than men? And, how are women helping or hindering themselves and each other in their rise to the top?” This show has focus and sparkle because the cast has mutual trust and the writing and direction has cut out anything that does not serve. The opening night was packed and it deserves a sold-out run.

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