John

Something quite different is going on at the ArtsWest Playhouse this spring. The award-winning playwright Annie Baker’s play John is having its Seattle premiere here and it’s a very strange trip indeed. The Playhouse’s welcoming staff reminds incoming audiences that the show runs three hours with two intermissions. When so many new works seem intent on compacting their production into one fast paced act, Baker wants the time to provide the needed space for her four fascinating characters and us to explore the otherworldly bed and breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the eerie and unsettling setting for her play. Baker’s plot that unfolds like a troubling dream performed by a cast that director Erin Murray describes as “out of this world talented” make for a very memorable night of theater.