Limited Perspective

Facebook told me I wrote about the show Come From Away nine years ago today. Here (with some editing) is what I wrote, Regarding Come from Away, at Seattle Repertory Theater, there is something missing from the reviews. There has not been enough written about what the show is about. I hope to start some talking about that. Nick and Diane sing Stop the World while standing literally on the edge of a fault line between shifting tectonic plates, taking photos. They look into each other’s eyes and out over the divide. In the context of them building a relationship in the middle of a tragedy, they beg the world to stop spinning. In one sense you hear them saying, stop the world we want to get off, it’s too much pain to bear. In another sense, they are saying the world is so transcendingly beautiful in that moment, so precious and perfect that they want to stop time so they can experience the moment forever. That really hit me. This number was, to me the perfect summary of the show’s theme ...

There is a Kurt Vonnegut quote that goes, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” It’s from the book, Mother Night where the lead character takes on a false identity to go undercover as a spy in Nazi Germany. Eventually, the false identity becomes the real one.  Pony World Theatre’s Edgar and Annabel, which just closed, turned that on its head.  The play takes place in a country on the threshold of dystopia. The government is eliminating all opposition. Among their tools is surveillance. They are listening, always listening. When their A.I. hears anomalies in conversation, they move in.  To thwart this, the opposition has set up safe houses to conduct their activities. They avoid suspicion by scripting everything the occupants say, literally. The most ordinary conversations are written out, from ‘Hi, honey, I’m home,” to, “I’m going to bed.” This allows them to pass secret messages, and to cover for subversive activities, all wh...