Tag Archives: bret fetzer

Theatre

For better or worse, Family Affair feels like, yes, family

Since the Spring of 2013, Jennifer Jasper’s Family Affair has occupied the third Wednesday of each month in the Rendezvous’s intimate Jewel Box Theater. Jasper is beloved in local fringe theater scenes and their audiences for her autobiographical, one-person shows like I Can Hear You…But I’m Not Listening. She’s also a naturally funny storyteller. Family Affair is her cabaret night of storytellers who, given six minutes at a time, will relay a story involving family in one way or another. I went last Wednesday night and had a more than enjoyable evening. In her opening remarks, Jasper explained a handful of lineup changes – too many to call the evening “curated” (and thank @almightygod for that).

On Sloane Crosley’s book I Was Told There’d Be Cake, Jonathan Lethem has a blurb where he says, “What makes her so funny is that she seems to be telling the truth, helplessly.” That’s what I had in mind whenever Jennifer Jasper was on stage.

But there was a great roster of readers and performers on Wednesday night. Jose Amador spoke first about his relationship with his Catholic mother. Bret Fetzer read a short story about rabbits, carrots, and more that was hilarious and moving at the same time (and actually went on for about 12 minutes as he was taking the place of two people who canceled. Fetzer’s wife Tracy Leigh and Abigail Hustsell performed an Elmo-like puppet show about being gay. Emily Golden told a story of a family cat affectionately named Shithead (or Shead, in formal situations). Paul Mullin told a story, which he described as nonfiction, about his stepfather having a stroke and familial panic it causes.

Between each story, Jasper told the audience about one way or another she related to the story that was just performed. Empathy explains why the night was so enjoyable. In the middle of the show, Jasper relayed a story about talking to her mom about raising money to take her production of her newest play, Etymology, to New York and her mother being dismissive and asking questions like, “Are you paying for the hotel rooms for everyone? That seems like a good deal for them, there aren’t that many lines.” It flashed back to my own dismissive mother who would ask me questions like, “Are you still writing for that website for free?”

Paul Mullin noted that some stories had traits or themes that ran through the performances by coincidence. His piece and Emily Golden’s both have stepfathers named “Bill”; his play and Jose Amador’s family both deal with Catholicism, etc…

The evening closed with Jennifer Jasper having an audience member (in this case, Tracy Leigh) draw a story from a box called “Jasper Jewels.” It has dozens of cards with stories written them. Jasper said that she never performed any of them and some she probably doesn’t remember. This one, the card said “Father – voicemail – Kotex.”  She told that story that was too painfully recognizable to have been anything but a direct retelling. Though I know it’s not the best way to review a show, it was really something that needed to be seen to believe. It as hilarious and painful and oddly moving, mostly at the same time.

The next Family Affair is on Wednesday, August 22 at the Rendezvous ($10, cash at the door, 21+), and there’s another one at Bumbershoot August 31 at 6:45pm on the Theatre Puget Sound Stage. I would recommend not missing either.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Five Questions With Matt Smith

1 Comment

SPF #5 coverage continues! Matt Smith is a Partner on the web based Cookus Interruptus, a Communciation Consultant for organizations, and a world class fundraising auctioneer, and in addition to co-managing improv retreats with Rebecca Stockley, his new solo show All My Children, directed by Bret Fetzer, opened Wednesday at Theatre off Jackson and plays tonight and May 3 and 5 (tickets $17).

1. Where did you grow up, and how did you end up where you are now?
I grew up on Capitol Hill in Seattle.  I went to St. Joe’s. How’d I end up here?  A series of miscalculations. Har har. I love Seattle.  I love that that John and Babe and Michael Shepherd are opening The Totem House as a new Red Mill, with Fish & Ships.  When I lived in New York I always told people I could never stay away from Seattle for long. That was before the first vote against public transportation here in the ’70s.

2. Which performance, song, play, movie, painting, or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?
The first thing that comes to mind is the film  A Woman Under the Influence.  There’s a scene that made an indelible mark, and I don’t know why.  Peter Falk is on the phone at his construction site trying to talk his wife down, saying “Who loves you, baby?” in the most loving way.  That scene has been cut from the version available on DVD,  I rented the film just so I could see that scene again after 40 years or so, and it was cut out.  It felt like I was watching a film “I” was in, only to discover that I’d been cut out.  Which, of course, has happened.

3. What skill, talent, or attribute do you most wish you had and why?
I wish I was smarter, and stronger.

4. What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.
I am a fundraising auctioneer. I talk to people on the phone about their fundraisers.  I go to auction meetings. I walk my dog. I write a little. I ride the ferry, where I play Pac Man, limiting myself to one game per trip. I teach an improv class at Freehold.  I am also a partner with Cookus Interruptus.  I scheme with Cynthia Lair as to how we will change the world and get rich through this web based cooking show / soap opera. I talk to big companies about how the principles of improv, and sometimes they bring me in to tell them more. I rehearse with Bret Fetzer and we eat lunch together.  That’s a particularly  long day.

5. Why solo performance? What made you decide to pursue this show in this form?
No one would work with me… har har…I started out, at age 31, wanting to do stand-up.  I immediately discovered improv, and lost interest in doing stand up. I worked with a big group (Theatre Sports), then a three-person group (Seattle Improv: me, Roberta Maguire, and Ed Sampson) , then just me and Ed for 5 years or so, and after that Bret agreed to direct a story I wanted to do about living in Japan.  People often say, “Oh, it must be so hard to be up there on your own.”  Not true.  It’s much easier than working with others.  What’s lonely is when you tour, and you go to the dressing room of a big theatre, and there’s a large basket of fruit and flowers, just for me. My heart sinks. I prefer the crowded back stage of a SPF fundraiser at ToJ. These are a blast, by the way.  Come next year.  Bring some money.

Theatre

Solo Performance Fest #5 Kicks Off at Theatre Off Jackson

The always amazing Terri Weagant, one of the artists in this year's SPF at ToJ.

Every person in the theater has a few formative moments, I think, those performances that in their sheer surprising and moving power made us become who we are, got us addicted to this ever-dying, ever-disappointing, anachronistic beast of an art form. The reason we stick with theater is precisely because of those moments–it’s like an addiction.

For me, one of the three or four performances that sticks out in my mind took place in 1997 or ’98, in a tiny little community theatre in Hillsboro, Ore. A friend of mine was a member of the company, Hillsboro Artists Repertory Theatre, and it was their fundraiser evening, a mixed showcase of mainly musical numbers ranging from a sassy take on How to Succeed in Business from the clearly gay but possibly not-yet-out kid, to a few ballads, to…you know, the typical mix of heartfelt tripe.

And then came the closer. I’d been told in advance that he was a character: an older retired man who’d been something on Broadway in his day (which I assume means no one), who’d been very generous to the company (probably a few hundred dollar donation), and was tolerated as the colorful character who was ever so slightly gauche with the teenage ladies. So he was invited to close out the revue, but when he came on, instead of launching in to a number, he just…talked. Told a story. Sang a few songs. And it was one of the most captivating things I’ve ever seen.

I still remember the set-up to the last number. It was, he explained, a song from a nearly forgotten Broadway musical of an earlier age, in which an older man and a younger man both fell in love with a young woman, who of course wound up with the more appropriate younger man. But here’s the trick: the song he was about to sing was the old man’s lament, and when, during previews (Catskills?) the woman went for the young man, the audience started booing. So the show closed, the ending was scrapped and rewritten, an lo and behold, now the young woman went for the older man.

I have no idea what musical it’s from, and the melody and lyrics have long since vanished from my memory. Hell, the story’s too neat and clean to be true. But I still remember him telling it. It was one of the single finest demonstrations of the most basic and profound power the theater has: a person, in front of an audience, keeping them rapt and leaving them ultimately profoundly moved by just telling a story.

That’s one of the reasons that, despite my countless misgivings, I am and will remain a big supporter of solo performance. In the theater world, solo performance is more often than not a bastardized catch-all: a creative outlet for bored actors who fall back on monologue cliches, or worse, a weirdly commercially viable form of theater. I know more than one artist who relies on a salable solo show to make half a year’s living working the North American or European fringe fest circuit.

But there are definitely some solo performances that defy the term. One of the best pieces of theatre to come out of Seattle in years was Keith Hitchcock’s Muffin Face, a solo show that doesn’t feel like one. Nor does whatever the hell it is Mike Pham did onstage at the last NW New Works in I Love You I Hate You. And then there are the Charles Smiths or Paul Budraitises or Jose Amadors of the world, and yeah, even cynical, seen-it-all me has to admit, solo performance is a powerful and vibrant form

Tonight marks the opening of the fifth installment of Solo Performance Festival down at Theatre off Jackson, which runs through May 7. The festival is a little sparser than last year, but the programming is tighter. It kicks off tonight with the inimitable Lauren Weedman, an LA-by-way-of-Seattle performer, in No…You Shut Up!, which explores adoption. (Don’t let that touchy-feely description fool you–Weedman’s amazing.)

Local fave Terri Weagant (who not so long ago owned a production of the solo show to end ’em all, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe) presents a original piece, Karaoke Suicide is Painless, “a multimedia karaoke comedy that explores the correlation between air guitar and personal choice.” Up-and-comer Jerick Hofer tries to step up Seattle’s take on queer solo performance (a form that always gestates in Seattle but in NYC is amazingly fertile) in Turning Parlor Tricks. And long-time Seattle theatre mainstay Bret Fetzer directs Matt Smith in All My Children.

The “Best in Shorts” evenings are always a mixed bag, to be honest, but are worth it for the truly dedicated because that’s the sort of format you’re going to see something amazing in, the type of 10-minute performance that three years later might blow your mind at On the Boards. And this year, a new tidbit has been added with “Voir Dire,” a mixed evening of storytelling from Seattle writers and performers, which continues to expand the base.

We’re going to be covering the festival throughout, so more information will come in the near future. That said, I caught most of the festival last year and was amazed at how often truly amazing little shows played to small audiences. I always worry that saying something like that will throw up red-flags, but I just want to be honest: this is the sort of thing that people shouldn’t miss. Theatre people who care about the form obviously need to be there. But non-theatre people who have little patience for tedious “acting” in big shows will be be surprised–most of these artists are here because they’re tired of traditional theatre productions, too. If the Rep and ACT and Intiman are the NBA, then SPF is March Madness: balls-to-the-wall, one chance only so bring your A-game theatre. Tickets are a steal at under $20 a show, and beer’s cheap on-site.