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.
SOAP- Sandbox Collective ‘s Annual One-Act Play Festival, Four days of Three one-act plays :
Las Cruces by Vincent Delaney. Directed by Julie Beckman, Delaney weaves a finely tuned story with equal parts humor and pathos as he transports us to the New Mexico desert. Not far from the casinos and the spaceport, Sheridan is camped out, hiding in a gutted trailer. Everyone knows he’s there, but no one knows why. Except maybe a card player named Soledad
To Mourn or Not to Mourn
Written by Dan Dietz, produced by Theater Simple, Tilt Angel asked the very difficult emotional question: How does a red-neck Southern male, who deals with his emotions by perpetually hiding them in anger, effectively mourn the death of his estranged wife after a 20+ year marriage, when she died unexpectedly, in an airplane crash, the very day she left him.
Whackjob by James Jordan as revised with Dan Gildark—both long-term members of the Boondogglers—sputters in many directions. Attending the final preview before its opening on Dec. 4, I found this production directed by Gildark, who also plays the lead, a mash-up of news, science, video projection, and theater.
What’s behind this?
Beckett en français était formidable
The Seattle Beckett Festival opened this week at West of Lenin with Life=Play an Evening of Short Works and Rarities by Samuel Beckett. Of the four plays presented, two were absolute duds, one was reasonably entertaining and the fourth, La dernière bande ( Krappe’s Last Tape), presented in French, reached into the stratosphere of delight.
” Life was happening to me at an alarming rate and it was not of my making”
Was among the numerous witty and profound quotes that made me laugh and cry at the same time as I sat through 25,000 Post-A New Construction at West of Lenin, an outstanding solo performance by veteran actor Jim Lapan.
Soliloquy and emotion leave a lasting impression in Mia McCullough’s Impenetrable. Charles Waxberg directs the fractured, multi-perspectives as thoughts and feelings
Royal Blood is a play for the living. This world premiere from playwright Sonya Schneider, directed by Laurel Pilar Garcia
Jesus Wept!!!!!
The musicians, Owen Ross and Annie Jantzer, in Book-It’s new Circumbendibus series show Jesus’ Son were excellent. Adding live music with many different instruments and a vocalist was perhaps the only pleasant thing about this production.
Jus’ got home from Illinois. Got to Sit Down and Take a Rest on the Porch
The inaugural production of Theater 22, THE 5TH OF JULY by Lanford Wilson, opened at West of Lenin October 4th. Taking place in 1977, that is to say, after the end of the Vietnam War, but before the Reagan years brought prosperity to the baby-boomers, 5TH OF JULY deals with the baby-boomer’s adjustment to adult life, marking the symbolically definitive end of the 60’s. The focus of the adjustment was letting go of the effects of Vietnam, both for the wounded soldiers and those who protested the war.
