A Ritual at Seattle Public Theater

A Ritual
If I had written about Letters from Max, a Ritual, now on stage at Seattle Public Theater last night, I might have said I didn’t like it. I would have said there were missing pieces that made it a mere nice story, but not a complete play. You might have been surprised, because from my writing about theater, it seems that I like everything.
The show is about words in various forms: letters, poems, inquiries, challenges, pleas, laments and more. On the website of the playwright, Sara Ruhl, it says, “This play shares letters and poems passed between Sarah Ruhl and her former student Max Ritvo, as he candidly discusses terminal illness and tests poetry's capacity to put to words what otherwise feels ineffable.”
This morning, it came unlocked. The most important words are the last two of the title, “a ritual.” Sarah Ruhl really means it. Writing, sending, receiving and reading of letters is Sarah and Max’s life-sustaining ritual. The show is staged to show the ritual nature of a poetry reading. Each time it’s done, the actor speaks into a microphone on a stand and holds a book in their hands, exactly the way you’d see it at Elliot Bay Books or the Couth Buzzard, or anywhere else. There is a wedding. Rituals.
These rituals are arranged around death, and the prospect of death. Director Amy Poisson adds a ritual that puts this at stake for you, if you see it and decide to participate. The program reads,
“If you’re here with cancer in your life, either directly or indirectly, please feel our love and open arms … Please join us in adding your loved ones’ name to a slip of paper and putting it in the bowl on stage, and light a little ball of light …”
As the show opens, the actor playing Max takes the bowl with the names and the lights and places it upstage center, where it sits throughout the performance, always there in the background, filled with light, and reminding you of what we are sharing through this ritual called live theater.

Pictured: the set

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