Parlor House: Panic of 1893 by WhatNot Theatrics


I’m afraid of the water.  Even when I get into a normal swimming pool, I take forever to lower myself in, one inch at a time, until I am finally submerged.  Parlor House Panic of 1893, by WhatNot Theatrics at Theatre Off Jackson was like that for me.  I slowly settled into it and when I got all in, the water was fine; more than fine, actually. I am still buzzing about the show.

The conceit is, it’s 1893 in Seattle and you have entered into a Parlor House, where “seamstresses” work.  They are quick to point out the lack of sewing machines.  As I walked in, there was musical entertainment and the women walked around the room.  I would make quick eye contact and then look away, slightly embarrassed to be interacting with an actor, or with an actor playing a prostitute, or with a prostitute.  Who knew!  The show was working its magic.

Soon I noticed several men around a table conversing loudly.  It seemed important.  There was an empty chair at the table, so I sat down.  They were arguing finance.  One, a banker, insisted that the current financial situation, with its reliance on silver, was unsustainable.  I asked the banker to clarify things for me and he did.

One man’s son was on his first visit to a Parlor House.  As soon as I left the table, I went to eavesdrop on him and the seamstress.  I saw an opening and broke into their conversation.  She said she had loved her four years of working there.

After that, I sat down at a table with three other audience members and asked what they were seeing.  They were all similarly enthralled and fascinated.

The show develops kind of slowly.  I got the sense that I might have been missing things.  A couple of times, things would get heated and Madame would call for a musical number.  These were handled really well.  The burlesque numbers managed to be PG rated but still sexy.  The actors had it perfectly calibrated. 

The costumes were perfect also.  There really wasn’t much else to define the period and the costumes did all the work and did it well.  They put me exactly in the right time period.  And with the multiple layers, they allowed the burlesque numbers to be revealing without really revealing anything.

Back to the story, I went down a hallway and encountered another seamstress.  She told me that some of the women had been disappearing from the streets.  Now I was really into it.  I reported this back to my three comrades, who were still at the table.  “Oh, is this a murder mystery?!” they asked.  I didn’t know, but maybe! It was thrilling to not know.

By this time I was long-since all-in, without even knowing quite when the moment hit.  I ended up playing poker, and talking to as many of the actors as I could, and talking to other audience members.

Finally another loud conversation in the middle of the main space was happening.  I tuned in to it.  It became clear that it was a monologue by the Madame, turning the tables on the men, and it was in rhyme.  It was so well written, and an unexpected treat.

If there is a narrative to Parlor House: Panic of 1893, I don’t think I could relay the whole thing to you.  At the same time, I am certain that doesn’t matter.  What matters to me was I had this experience of being in this place, at this time, with these specific people, and I got to see perhaps the beginning of a new day in their world.  I felt like I was there and I cared about what was happening.  Isn’t that what theater should be?

I have acted in immersive/interactive shows.  I love the form.  But until I saw this one as an audience member, I never realized the added impact of being able to interact with other audience members.  As I engaged with the other audience members, we were participating in augmenting this invented world, making it more real.  We were actively, consciously assisting each other in creating the suspension of disbelief (I am not a fan of that term but I will leave that for another day – and you get what I mean.)

Please!  More interactive and immersive theater!

Note:  I did not take a program, so I am sorry for not being able to name anyone.
Note: The photo is of my name tag, which was a signal to the actors that I was OK with them interacting with me.

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