Condo Millennium is a Rock-Solid Investment

I was all wrong about what to expect with this show, but it turned out oh-so-right. (Thumbs up have arrived, too, from UrbnLivn and Michael Upchurch.)

Marya Sea Kaminsky

I walked into Condo Millennium (at NWFF, tonight and May 15) expecting a one-woman show from Marya* Sea Kaminsky, who has been busy reinventing theatre in Seattle the past decade (co-founding WET, starring in My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Rep, teaching at Cornish, directing...and then there's the 20 solo shows and counting).

But Kaminsky wrote and directed the show, based on "live interviews with Seattle politicians, activists, developers, children, comedians and residents at large," and doesn't appear in it. That might be a let-down, except that her 7-member cast is so able-bodied. They in turn all take on multiple roles, so it feels like a cast  of thousands by the end of the night.

Condo Millennium couldn't be more at home than at NWFF, since it was inspired in part by the rapid gentrification of the Pike/Pine corridor during the real estate run-up. And while real estate may seem an unlikely subject for theatre, very soon it becomes clear that real estate is drama to the bone. There's no "Condo BAD! Artists SMASH!!" here, just actual day-to-day details elicited from past and present condo owners, and their neighbors.

In the early going, after introductory comedic stylings from Brett Hamil, Kaminsky spices things up with a low-tech, rapid-fire history of Seattle, and a game show that captures the sense of irreality that came with the boom, and has yet to subside (How many condos were built, exactly? How many are empty, exactly?). There's also a musical number/dance break (Korby Sears, score and sound design), and constant video commentary (Reed Nakayama), both beautiful and spoofy.

This is a photo I like, and it seemed like a photo should go here. Pretty, huh?

Gradually, out of feuding condo boards, not knowing if an apartment is being sold out from under tenants, or trying to remember what used to be "there," the story of a larger community struggling with change emerges.

The heart and meaning of the piece is this oral history that accumulates, from people you may know (Dennis Saxman, Tim Keck, Linda Derschang), and people you may not (a "street pharmacist," an ultra-gay, 18-year-old Los Angeleno and wannabe real-estate-bust profiteer, a crane operator whose mother has lost her home, a homeless, possibly-no-longer-meth-using woman down at the Market).

I thought that I'd seen most of the fresh faces in Seattle theatre by now, but Kaminsky rounded up talent mostly new to me: Josh Aaseng, Pearl Klein, Carrie McIntyre, Phillip E. Mitchell, Carolyn Marie Monroe, Charles Norris, Gina Marie Russell. They are almost too good at evoking the physical and vocal mannerisms of the interview subjects--Aaseng's gift for accent is eerie--but on the whole they avoid pure mimicry in favor of a candid, Polaroid-style portrait. At times, the responses gleaned from a rote interview leave you a little stunned. 

*pronounced like the wind's name in Paint Your Wagon