Limited Perspective

HEART Repertory Theatre   delivered this this show, the point of which is: we are, all of us, alone in the dark, broken and unfixable. What they added was an interpretation of the Tom Wingfield character that I would not have expected, bringing humor and lightness, but not enough to lift everyone up and out. You can't really sit with a happy ending for a while, like you can with the ending of a show like this. It's affecting. Runs through September 13 in Kenmore. 

Strength is a unifying theme of Vietgone, a co-production of Pork Filled Players and SIS Productions now playing at Theatre Off Jackson. The setting is 1970s Vietnam, Arkansas and roads, deserts and oceans in between. The story follows the lives of four people forced to flee or evacuate to Fort Chaffee from Saigon after the military collapse there. Everyone seems caught in circumstances calling for impossible choices. Quang, a helicopter pilot in the South Vietnamese army, along with his fellow soldier Nhan has flown many, many evacuees – among them mother and daughter Huong and Tong – to the safety of a US aircraft carrier. Quang plans to refuel and immediately fly back to save his wife and two young children. He’s informed, though, that the chopper has been pushed over the side to make room for planes to take off and land. Instead of going home, he’s relocated to the refugee camp at Fort Chaffee. But Quang is determined to return to Vietnam to rescue his wife and children Tong and he...

A quote you see going around lately is, “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” Passage, a 2020 play by Christopher Chen will be on stage in September at 12th Ave Arts, produced by Yun Theatre and directed by Christie Zhao, with that exact idea at its heart.  In June, the show had a three-day run as part of Strawberry Theatre Workshop ’s Directors Festival, also at 12th Ave Arts and also directed by Zhao. I saw the earlier one and I look forward to the next. Waiting for the show to start, some friends and I made what turned out to be a discovery. Upstage, there was a platform that would have been circular but for an irregularly shaped slice cut out of the round pie. The missing portion was downstage.  We guessed it was likely that at some point those sections would come together to complete the circle. Then we joked that maybe the platforms never come together, even though they so obviously fit and that would be a physical manifestation o...

Here's something that was half-finished that I found on my Facebook, presented here because I think there is something to it. It was a magic weekend of theatre-going. I saw Lear(s) at the Slate, produced by the Shakesperiment. And I saw Outdoor Trek: Day of the Dove at Blanche Lavizzo Park, produced by Hello Earth. There are connections between the two. Lear(s) was a telling of King Lear, with the lead played by three different actors, one for each stage: tyrannical Lear, crazy Lear, and dying Lear. It was a genius move – a move that could only work live theater. Television nor film nor graphic novel could pull that off. Tyrannical, crazy, absent Leaderless Even the well-meaning are overwhelmed Collapse, chaos, betrayal Day of the Dove, the same thing happens. It is contrived that the crew of the Enterprise and the crew of a Klingon ship are all onboard the Enterprise. There is endless war among equally matched factions with no recognized leader over both. No recognized leader. ...