Recent Stories with tag hans altwies

Hans Altwies, Amy Thone, Bhama Roget, and Denis Arndt in God of Carnage at the Rep (Photo: Keri Kellerman)

"What you have to understand," my friend told me over drinks after the show, "is that this is a very French play."

I spent much of the next day pondering exactly what that means. Without setting out to, over the course of a month I've now witnessed four performances that could be described as very French in one way or another. First there was the brilliantly entertaining French Project, live at Northwest Film Forum. Next, there was Intiman's new adaptation of Molière's A Doctor in Spite of Himself. Last weekend brought the (debatably) amazing Christian Rizzo to On the Boards, and the opening of Seattle Repertory Theatre's 10/11 season with Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage (through October 24; tickets $15-$59).

If any of these performances were going to storm some metaphorical theatrical Bastille and kickstart a Seattle-French revolution of its own, the one least likely to do it is Carnage, which is also probably the one that most erroneously fancies itself capable.... (more)

Amy Thone and Brenda Joyner from "On the Nature of Dust". Photo by MJ Sieber

Tonight is the official opening night of New Century Theatre Co.'s third staged production, On the Nature of Dust (at ACT Theatre; tickets $25), and for the last week they've been receiving heaps of praise in previews from Seattle Met, Seattle Magazine, the Weekly, and the Times, to name just four, on the strength of their first two shows. It's the sort of praise that just plain raises the stakes; Seattle Magazine even dares to ask, "Can NCTC’s third production, On the Nature of Dust, hold up under all the hype?"

Sadly, that's the wrong question. On the face of it, NCTC is, of course, going to deliver. On the Nature of Dust features a who's-who cast of people like Amy Thone and Betsy Schwartz; these are the sort of people who are a pleasure to watch perform, regardless of what they're doing. No, the real question—and it's one that has consequences for the theatre in Seattle overall—is whether NCTC is going to establish themselves as a company willing to take risks by producing work that challenges audiences, or whether they're going to settle into a comfortable, independent version of the relatively risk-averse regional theatres where these actors established themselves.

NCTC burst onto the scene in late 2008 with their stunning production of Elmer Rice's 1923 play The Adding Machine. Not only were the performances incredible—led by founding members Paul Morgan Stetler and Amy Thone—but the scenic design by Jennifer Zeyl, which found inspiration in Rice's Expressionist contemporary Fritz Lang's films, achieved a rare sort of synthesis. Whereas most big productions feature sets that are essentially visually engaging backdrops, Zeyl's design was a fully integrated component, the play's themes and aesthetic working seamlessly together to deliver a wallop of a play.... (more)

Hans Altwies in An Iliad. Photo by Chris Bennion.

In 2007, Boston psychiatrist Jonathan Shay won a MacArthur fellowship for his work explicating Homer's Iliad in terms of a combat veteran's post-traumatic stress disorder. Titled Achilles in Vietnam, his book explored the character of Achilles as warped and eroded by an extended military campaign.

It's a brilliant tour-de-force, unveiling an Iliad you've likely never seen before. Readers have to wonder, given the regard in which Achilles is held, what his problem is. He's touchy, sulky, a hero who won't fight. Shay takes you through what nine years of military service entails: arbitrary orders from commanding officers, the randomness of death, loss of brothers in arms, and the wear of living in tents, out in the weather, away from home.

He contrasts The Iliad with Vietnam's endless bitching about REMFs, the steady degradation of morale, how units kept track of who got sent out on patrol, the ethical breakdowns that came from small bands of men operating at a survival level. Suddenly, Achilles and Agamemnon barking at each other over who gets the war "prize" Briseis comes into focus.

In Shay's telling, the personality torched by PTSD is the drama of The Iliad--the fiery fall of Troy is that destruction writ large, but war's cancer has already eaten into the head and heart of almost everyone involved. Return to The Iliad after that, and you pick your head up from the book as if you've been looking for hours into a reflecting pool, black with blood and glistenng with bone. When you read in Robert Fagles' translation:

With that, just as Dolon reached up for his chin
to cling with a frantic hand and beg for life,
Diomedes struck him square across the neck--
a flashing hack of the sword--both tendons snapped
and the shrieking head went tumbling in the dust.

...you know the visual acuity comes from battle stress. How many years later did Greeks wake up in a sweat, dreaming bits of The Iliad?

At the world premiere of An Iliad at the Seattle Rep (through May 16), I got the impression that creators Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson took the opposite tack. Where Shay draws you deeper into the text, they ceaselessly comment on it, tell you how relevant this next bit is, share a bit of research they uncovered, and in the process talk over most of what you came to hear.... (more)

Tuesday night just past seven, I wandered into Ballard's Copper Gate, a 64-year-old Scandinavian bar on 24th Avenue NW. I'm no doubt late to this, but the Copper Gate's an odd but incredibly charming place: immaculate and well-lit, with a copper-topped bar built into a replica of a Viking boat, the relaxed, mostly middle-aged crowd of diners sat sipping wine and eating Scandinavian classics, surrounded by classy erotica. The walls are covered in places with vintage nudes and tame fetish shots that are somehow sexy but not dirty. It turns out that when new owners took over several years ago, they found the former owner's wife's stash of pictures, and took that as inspiration. A painting of a pretty young lass on the main wall, I was told by a helpful bar manager, has been there since the bar opened, and is supposedly the erotica-collecting woman herself back in the day.

The point is, as pretty much everyone who's written about it has noted, the Copper Gate, for all the naked ladies, is still the sort of place you could take your grandma (and I'm pretty sure there was one there). And much like the main bar, "the Pussy Room" in back is not nearly so dirty as it sounds. That said, you get to it by walking through a narrow, rounded passage painted deep red that leads to a room blocked off by red velvet curtains. Ahem. Pussy Room, indeed!... (more)

They call them "awards," but The Seattle Times' Footlight Awards are more or less a best-of, year-end wrap-up of what notably happened in Seattle theatre. And since they've hit pretty much everything large and small, I'm not going to bother doing my wrap-up. Instead, I'll just add my two cents to theirs.

Mike Pham and Rachel Hynes of Helsinki Syndrome in "The Importance of Being Earnest." Photo by Amber Wolfe.

Most of the plaudits go to the big companies--the Rep for Opus and Equivocation (though the latter was imported from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), the Intiman for Abe Lincoln in Illinois (fair enough), and ACT for Rock 'n' Roll (really?). The big, notable exclusion from the list of mainstage shows is The Seafarer, which was a powerhouse of show. Russell Hodgkinson and Sean Griffin get mention for their performances in the show, but what about Hans Altwies? Also, the Rep's Betrayal blew a fair number of people's minds.

In terms of the big performances, there's a dearth of women represented. Yes, Anne Allgood is amazing, we all know. But surely Jennifer Lee Taylor and Betsy Schwartz deserve to be called out by name for their work in Orange Flower Water. The entire ensemble gets credit for that show, but the female roles are far more challenging than the male, and without their brilliant performances that play would have collapsed under the tedious weight of its overwrought plot. Oh, and no mention at all of Hana Lass, who impressed nearly everyone with back-to-back performances in Crime and Punishment at the Intiman and The Tempest at Seattle Shakespeare? First, Misha Berson tries to make her a poster child for local actors who can't find work, and now this?

On the "fringe" side (which has apparently become synonymous with "small" and "independent"), it feels a bit crowded. Everyone agrees that Strawberry Workshop's The Elephant Man was incredible, but with a cast consisting of David Pichette, MJ Sieber, and Alexandra Tavares, you might as well be at one of the regional theatres (if only they hired more local actors). The Community Theatre's Wrecks, a collection of Neil LaBute shorts staged at the Balagan, is a nice choice but feels out of place.... (more)