A Little Trash Talk from Stokley Towles

Photo: David Baum

One thing Seattle is not short on is beady-eyed, middle-aged guys willing to buttonhole you about their latest fascination; they're just not usually as good at edu-tainment as Stokley Towles.

His shows are exactly the right length, take up different perspectives at the right time, and look under different kinds of rocks. For some of this, you have to also thank his director, Bret Fetzer.

Stokley's latest show, Trash Talk: the Social Life of Garbage (weekends through Sept. 26) "digs into the human side of garbage." Though it features actual trash items, its concern is with us, the trash-makers, trash-haulers, trash-deniers. Presented in three "acts," lasting just about an hour altogether, the monologue opens with Towles recounting conversations with garbage men and women, as they explain how they deal with the disgusting--and delightful--parts of their job. 

It's probably the delightful that's the most surprising--we're all used to creating a separation from trash, whether it's twist-tie bags, or curbside cans, or faraway landfills. But for people who do the job, it becomes as full of rich detail as any other: they geek out over "dumpsters" of a different manufacture or how waste streams are sorted. In a particularly effective moment, Towles talked about a garbage "tea" that's created in a landfill, using a teapot prop, then poured himself a cup of tea from the pot and drank it. The audience grimaced audibly. Just attaching the concept of garbage to the teapot was enough to contaminate its contents.

While the first two acts are more informative, filling you in on who picks up your trash and where it goes, the last is more evocative. Set largely at a transfer station, it's an exploration of our attachments to what we throw away, what objects come to mean to us, or how their value escapes. Something about the moment, standing there at the edge of the transfer station pit, makes people a little crazy.

Without being preachy, Towles nonetheless lets you know that the ease with which we throw things away is, in fact, a problem. It's always difficult to wind up a monologue--hit just the right note that sends people, head exploded, out of the theater--especially when you're talking about social consciousness. Towles and Fetzer manage that here about as well as anything I've seen, with Towles offering a vision, rather than a hectoring demand. To learn what it is, stop by and see for yourself.

To give you a sense of what you're in for, monologue-style-wise, here's a clip from Towles' Waterlines:

Waterlines by Stokley Towles from P. O'Brien | G. Miller on Vimeo.