Tag Archives: sarah ruhl

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Theatre

ACT’s New Voices Showcase is the Real Glee 3D

The Love Markets

It’s summer and things are supposed to be quiet theatrically, but not at ACT Theatre. If you have a $25 ACT Pass, this August must feel like a golden age.

You no doubt already saw Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room (our review), maybe popped in for Ian Bell’s anonymous memoirs Seattle Confidential, then last night was the show tunes showcase New Voices, August 17 is short film showcase Rawstock (featuring women filmmakers Karn Junkinsmith, Michaela Olsen and Bri Meyer, and Kristen Grey-Rockmaker), and the 19th brings back Nick Garrison’s neo-cabaret The Love Markets, performing Summer Nacht.

But wait, as they say, that’s not all. Still to come is the Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, with staged readings of In You for Me for You by Mia Chung (“two sisters from North Korea escape one harsh and unforgiving reality only to enter another very foreign world”), directed by Sheila Daniels; and  The Whale by Sam Hunter (“a poetic, disturbing and strangely beautiful journey through the life of a small-town shut-in named Charlie”), directed by Andrew K. Russell.

Last but not least, there’s The Beebo Brinker Pulp Cabaret, inspired by the Beebo Brinker pulp fiction series and set in a 1950s Greenwich Village underground gay-bar “rife with pin-ups, intelligent burlesque, live music and an interactive cast.”

If you can make $25 go further than that, you are the Warren Buffett of theater-going. New Voices, by the way, is a one-night-only experience, but they will return this December, and I am here to tell you that if you own even a single CD of a musical or have a ticket stub to Glee 3D, this is your night. Circle the next showcase in red on the calendar.

I walked in, as per usual, a little vague on what to expect. I guess I thought it’d be something like Village Theater West, singing workshop songs. That was enough to tempt me downtown, but in fact the program included Diana Huey (just back from The Glee Project semi-finals), Ryah Nixon (through with a year of touring with 9 to 5 The Musical), Vicki Noon (Wicked, Mamma Mia), and Louis Hobson (Next to Normal, People in the Picture).

18 songs were on the program–many in the bouncy, up-tempo rock musical “key” and making use of a seemingly newfound affection for profanity-studded lyrics. The Bullitt Cabaret was teeming with ingenues and Dauntlesses, and their proud parents and theater friends. (Both shows sold out.)

Musicals are the great over-sharers, aren’t they? Something about bursting into song in public goes over better if that’s, in fact, what you expect from having hung around with people cast in musicals. They really do that. Many of the songs opted for simple interior monologue, or could easily have been pop songs (more anthemic than dramatic). Disney musicals have really done a number on subtext.

But more than a few were stand-outs: the Lowdermilk/Kerrigan “Avalanche” flipped the metaphor movingly; Chris Jeffries “America” was gorgeous, with a descending figure on the cello that sticks in you and aches with loneliness; Kitt/Yorkey “Hey Kid” (aka “Hobson’s Song”) wryly observed reluctant fatherhood; Burkell/Loesel “I Really Really Love You” pulled no comic punches in its ode to stalkers; and Withers/Jackson “Old Mr. Drew” took TMI to searingly nonchalant heights.

In between songs, host Brandon Ivie hopped onstage and purred his way through frequently hilarious and always amiable introductions, with R.J. Tancioco pulling Paul Schaefer-like duties at the piano. Sadly the program doesn’t list who sang what, or I’d be able to regale you with who was brassy and who sounded like caramel.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

In the Other Room, or the vibrator play Electrifies ACT

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Mary Kae Irvin as Annie, Deborah King as Mrs. Daldry, and Jeff Cummings as Dr. Givings, in "In the Next Room, or the vibrator play" by Sarah Ruhl, at ACT Theatre (Photo: Chris Bennion)

In her 2009 work, playwright Sarah Ruhl had the recipe for the perfect title: vague, yet it tells you exactly what it’s about. As directed by ACT mainstay Kurt Beattie, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (running through August 28) is an “uproarious” comedy of manners about a woman’s place, the industrialization of the female body, and the twinning of technology and pleasure.

For the most part, In the Next Room is a light-hearted Victorian romp. In “a prosperous spa town outside of New York City, perhaps Sarasota Springs, [at] the dawn of the age of electricity; and after the Civil War; circa 1880s,” kindly Doctor Givings takes care of women (and the occasional man) who have been diagnosed with hysteria, using his new medical instrument, the Chattanooga vibrator—a real device, mind you—to reduce their anxiety and tension via violent, shuddering paroxysms. But what of the good doctor’s wife? Doesn’t Mrs. Givings deserve to get a good paroxysm every now and again too? The answer, of course, is yes, everyone should receive mind-blowing full-body orgasms on the regular. Except the Victorians! Socially scandalous wackiness ensues.

It’s not a perfect play, and compared to the recent staging of Ruhl’s first work at StageRIGHT, both the play and ACT’s staging are a little too on-the-nose. Brendan Kiley is right when he says that “Ruhl will never be known as America’s subtlest playwright.” Take the doctor’s surname “Givings” as a prime example. Oh COME on. Adding to that, Matthew Smucker’s otherwise awesome and dexterous set—conveying the simultaneous activity within two rooms without doors or walls—is marred by the inclusion of a birdcage hanging over everything. Yes, yes, a woman at this time was a bird in a cage, Ive read Ethan Frome and The Awakening in high school too, thank you very much. There is a wet nurse subplot that doesn’t add much besides a further comment on the treatment of women’s bodies as machines, and the play closes on a scene that’s a lesson in show-don’t-tell. All that being said, half the fun of seeing this work at a mainstream theatre company like ACT is the audience reaction: for whatever reason, faked orgasms onstage set them all atwitter.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Theatre

Just a Wonderful Summer Weekend in Seattle

Living in a city for a while can get you jaded. I’ve been in Seattle for going on ten years now, so I’ve felt my share of frustrations–but then again, no place is perfect. However, lately I’ve been seeing Seattle with fresh eyes and really appreciating our little burg for what it is. The recent Frank Bruni piece made me realize just how lucky we have it when it comes to amazing locally produced food. The current heatwave over most of the country makes me thankful for a July with temps in the 60s and 70s instead of triple digits. And last weekend made me appreciate the diverse cultural experiences Seattle has to offer. (Block party, this does not mean you.)

STAGEright is a young theatre company, both in the sense that the troupe has only been around a couple years (since November 2009) and that most of the actors are fresh out of college. Working out of the Belltown Freehold Theatre space on a sparse window-filled set, they’re mounting an intimate production of Sarah Ruhl’s The Melancholy Play (through July 31). It’s an early work from the Pulitzer-winning playwright, as evident by some of the script’s broader strokes. Ostensibly, it’s the story of a young woman named Tilly who suffers from severe melancholy that somehow makes her look so lovely everyone she meets instantly falls in love with her: tailor Frank, hair stylist Frances, nurse Jane, and even her therapist Lorenzo—until she suddenly gets happy and everyone finds her insufferable. And while the acting at the beginning was a little shaky, the cast quickly found its stride without a dud in the bunch. Special props to Megan Tyrrell, playing Tilly, who is just as charming and lovable as the part requires, and Mike Jones, who in playing the role of suave indeterminately European Lorenzo, has very little room for error. It is refreshing and exhilarating to find a young company able to pull off the work of a playwright as complicatedly playful as Sarah Ruhl.

Meanwhile, it was just a light rail ride from downtown to a whole new world, i.e., Columbia City. And the more I go to Columbia City Theater, the more I appreciate everything about the venue, from the friendly folks who work there to the openness of the space, and of course, the wide range of acts that grace the stage. This night was no exception, with a lineup of Tony Kevin Jr., Kris Orlowski, and Youth Rescue Mission. (Pro tip: If you’re ever trying to figure out who’s in a band, it’s always the guys wearing hats.) Orlowski does the heartfelt singer-songwriter thing capably, and was also gracious enough to bring up members of Tony Kevin Jr. a few times to serve as backup and provide just a few more harmony vocals. Though Orlowski is relatively new to the scene, he had a big established pack of superfans, at the front of the crowd, singing their hearts out with Kris.

There was also a group of superfans who knew every lyric from Youth Rescue Mission, a high-energy versatile four-piece new to town, improbably hailing from Montana (in that I cannot think of a single other band from Montana) with a great debut (stream or buy at their Bandcamp page). They’re a flexible group, with members switching up instruments and each taking their turn providing lead vocals, and in that way–as well as in the range of song types and structures–they’re reminiscent of Broken Social Scene. And/or they’re The Head and the Heart if THatH actually, consistently, lived up to the hype. (ZING?) All Cameras On was also at the show, so let’s hope a whole bunch of mobile phone video footage gets uploaded and edited for our viewing pleasure real soon. For now, here’s a taste of Youth Rescue Mission playing “Thursday After” in their living room.

Never you fear; you too can have a similar night o’ Seattle culture of your very own. The Melancholy Play is at the Freehold till July 31. Another Sarah Ruhl work, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, opens at ACT on July 29. Kris Orlowski plays Bumbershoot this Labor Day weekend. Youth Rescue Mission plays the Triple Door’s Musiquarium on August 4–and they are also playing Doe Bay Fest. And heads up: another awesome new local act, Pickwick, plays Sound on the Sound’s fifth anniversary show at Columbia City Theater on August 5.