Limited Perspective

  My quick reaction to PHOEBE IN WINTER Produced by Strawberry Theatre Workshop Written by Jen Silverman Directed by Kate Drummond The Concord Theatricals blurb of the play says, “When three brothers return home from a distant war, they prepare to settle into their old lives. But … a war that was once far away now threatens to reignite inside their home.” This is not the first piece of media to explore “the war comes home.” When it does in this play, it’s dark, it’s comic and it’s darkly comic. It starts to feel like a poem. There are these short, sharp stanza-scenes. The language is heightened, as the emotion is. Each of them ends with a flourish, a wow moment. I literally said “wow” out loud at least once (I’m that guy.) The meaning and implications go in many directions and you’re not sure where, but you get swept up in the excitement and energy generated. About two-thirds of the way through, there is a shift. Maybe, to mix metaphors, it’s like a new movement of a symphony, a ne...

Something happened.  It was transcendent. Lorenzo Pugliese as Frankie Valli was singing the big number, Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You. “I love you baby!” he sang. The crowd – and it was a crowd at that point, not a theatrical audience – was in a frenzy.  Time and space were bending. Individual identities became fluid. This was not Mr. Pugliese in front of me. It was the real Frankie Valli. This was not the Village Theater in Everett. This was, like, the Sands Casino in Las Vegas in nineteen-sixty-whatever.  Pugliese/Valli came down the stairs at stage left and worked his way along the front row. I’m not kidding. It was like he was someone else. It was like the crowd were all someone else. I was someone else, somewhere else. We all floated there. Together.  Later in the show, when The Four Seasons are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Tommy DeVito, one of the group, says,  “Listen, fellas. I wanna tell you something. This is the greatest award you...

In the director’s notes in the program for Same Time Next Year , produced by Heart Repertory Theatre and now playing at the Sammamish Valley Grange Hall in Woodinville, Jane Ryan writes,    “I didn’t think I would want to direct it because it is about an extramarital affair and I’m happily married to my true love for 45 years. But many of my friends told me how much they love this play, and folks I would meet recounted their fond memories of seeing the play or the movie.” This is perfect. It’s the same attitude of the characters, George and Doris. They wouldn’t have said ahead of time (would they?) that they wanted to have an affair, but when it presented itself — there it was and it looked so good they couldn’t resist. They live with that tension through the ups and downs of their lives for 25 years and we get to see it play out in two hours on the stage.  BJ Smyth (George) and Erin Michele Gabbard (Doris) do a beautiful job with these characters and their relationship. ...

Everyone is guilty of something ...  You know those birthday cards you get from your office co-workers, the ones that have a picture on the front of a wacky collection of characters – there they all are, in all their weird uniqueness. The opening scene of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None at Renton Civic Theatre is like that. And it’s great. This murder mystery opens with a sort of butler and maid (already there are suspects!) preparing an island home for an important event. Then the guests begin to arrive in small groups. It’s a delicious kind of exposition. You get a little bit of time to take in the whole personality of each of them. After all eight arrive and, along with the butler and maid, stand there arrayed across the stage, you have your complete greeting card tableau. When one of their number drops dead, and they realize their lives are on the line, they go at each other. Perhaps more than the mystery itself, it’s this clash of personalities that makes this sho...

I don’t think I’ll experience the infinite in time. Seems unlikely anyway, So I’ll have to do it now.  Pascal says  The sure way to bet is that there is a god.  But I think I can hedge it  By seeing heaven that’s here.  Just in case. 

I’ve seen several plays in the past few weeks that integrate other art forms. Letters from Max at Seattle Public used poetry and letters. Max and his teacher, Sarah make sense of Max’s impending death from cancer by writing to each other. The original poetry, written by the playwright and attributed to the character Max, provides a perspective that neither conversation nor action could give. Audience and actors lose themselves in the rhythm and depth, together. Blue to Blue at Annex through April 12, incorporates the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Beryl is adrift in the wake of her mother’s death. Two characters are described in the program as a Greek chorus, but function more like a different Greek character, Charon, by ushering Beryl across the river of grief. They do this by producing snippets of Dickinson’s poetry. It’s essential to get Beryl to where she needs to be. The third show, Cornelia’s Visitors, by eSe Teatro is still playing. You have a chance to see it at West of Lenin tho...

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 o...