Through Feb 29.
Experimental theater is supposed to be edifying, but who woulda thunk it could be such fun? John Kaufmann, for one, and thank God for him. The inventor of linger, Starball, and now Line One makes inventive, spontaneous work that is totally, totally entertaining.

Like other Kaufmann joints, Line One is a beautifully choreographed ride on the edge of utter chaos. Six actors wearing earpieces and cell phones take calls from a variety of anonymous people who answer questions, make music, or narrate their way through the city, performing missions. The actors--a great ensemble--switch on and off with their cell phones, channeling the callers and repeating everything verbatim. The night I attended, we heard people recalling past beaus, finding and reading love letters that had been hidden somewhere in a house, and going for a drink at the Cuff.

There isn't nearly enough space here to describe what kinds of funny, bizarre things happen when actors channel disembodied voices on cell phones, but it's freaking awesome. Line One has got brains, guts, a wild streak, a great sense of humor--it's the kind of show I'd like to ask out on a date.

Go see it. You'll be sorry if you don't. BRENDAN KILEY

Mansize

On the Boards

Through Feb 29.
The new solo one-act from The Stranger's own David Schmader is the story of a closeted ex-academic who is fired from his post as tutor to "jocks in jeopardy" when it is discovered that he's been fulfilling more than just their craving for great American literature. Expelled from the garden of academia, the character must readjust to life on the outside, the world of Favre over Foucault, chat rooms ("those slaughterhouses of grammar"), and the inelegance and inanity of first dates. "Previously, everything in my life had been neck-up; now it was time to figure out what the hell was going on down south," explains the character in the clipped, mildly awkward delivery that characterizes the reluctant socialite. "Figuring things out" takes the form of first tokes, first encounters with seminal rock band Pavement, first bottles of Robitussin downed, and (my favorite) first musical cat-greeting. As the academic slowly learns the glee of "hanging out," his diction becomes less precise and more vulgar; his posture relaxes, his hands suddenly know what to do with themselves.

Schmader is a writer's writer, certainly, his turns of phrase so fast and gleaming they seem to launch themselves into the stratosphere, but he is also a talented physical comic with an impeccable sense of timing. The only problem with Mansize, in fact, is that... well... it's not. The show clocks in at just about a half-hour, and there was a widespread sense of indignation when the lights came up. How does an intellectual make it in the real world? Where is the resolution? Where are the answers? Where is Act II?! Schmader admits this play is a "nugget"; answers forthcoming, perhaps, or maybe not. But--to paraphrase the character's defense of Pavement, a band that hides pop melodies under "buckets and buckets of sludge"--isn't it more interesting when the answer is not easily apparent, when one must find one's own meaning in the thing? (Yeah, I know. I think it's a cop-out, too. But Mansize is still piss-your-pants funny, and you should see it.) KATE PREUSSER

The Time of Your Life

Seattle Repertory Theatre

Through March 7.
The first thing you'll notice is a gigantic iron beam projecting into the audience like a... well, let's just say it's a bit phallic. And what's wrong with that? Armenian immigrant William Saroyan was so full of himself that he neatly sidestepped machismo and brimmed with the sheer joy of life. His particularly American vitality bursts out of The Time of Your Life--so it's fitting that director Tina Landau has given the play an exuberant production, stuffed to the gills with musical numbers, bubbling performances, and all kinds of theatrical flash.

Set in 1939, The Time of Your Life follows the miscellaneous high- and lowlifes who wander in and out of a San Francisco bar, playing pinball, calling up girls, and arguing politics. At the play's axis is Joe (the excellent Jeff Perry), a mystical drunk possessed of apparently bottomless wealth that weighs heavily on his conscience. He amuses himself with toys and chewing gum and, in a similar spirit, plots to unite his sweet, oafish protégé (Patrick New) with a melancholy hooker (Mariann Mayberry)--but what starts on a whim has to finish with a fight as the darker side of human nature seeps in like poison.

I could argue that Landau's theatrics unbalance a play that's already an ingenious display of dramatic plate-spinning; that the elaborate staging gets fussy, obstructing Saroyan's simple grace; that skillfully manipulating certain moods hems in viewers seeking their own individual responses to a play that celebrates autonomy--and I'd be right, but it doesn't matter. What this production lacks in soul it makes up for in pep, pop, and zip, and you'd be a fool to miss it. BRET FETZER