Joyful Noise
Taproot Theatre, 781-9707.
Through Oct 27.

Whenever I'm trying to stay awake while driving on long car trips, I belt out what little I remember from my high-school chorale's performance of Handel's Messiah. People who find it bracing to shout, "For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!" at the top of their lungs will enjoy watching kings, composers, fallen women, and scheming men of the cloth crowd Taproot's tiny stage for this delectable revelation of the masterpiece's tumultuous birth.

It's difficult to imagine that this holiday workhorse of Christian devotion could once have caused a stir, but in the 1700s it was still scandalous for any but the clergy to preach the word of God. When Handel cast Susannah Cibber (played by the somewhat pinched Catherine Lee), a well-respected London actress turned 18th-century Monica Lewinsky (following a tawdry adultery trial), The Messiah's success seemed even more unlikely. The resulting story is fascinating, though not exactly dramatic--not only because we know its outcome, but also because this Amadeus-like play lacks a Salieri. There is a conniving clergyman (played with suitable oiliness by Jason Marr), but his machinations to destroy Handel culminate with him tacking a "cancelled" sign on the theater door--hardly a fearsome act.

Still, what Joyful Noise lacks in friction it makes up with froth. Ladies nearly crushed in corsets bubble with double-entendres while witticisms pour forth from hanky-brandishing dandies. The cast is uniformly strong, though special notice must be made of Pam Nolte, an absolute joy as Handel's patron, Mary Pendarves. She's a frosting rosette on this towering marzipan confection. Baroque, busy, and dripping with sugar, it seems impossible that this play would hold together until evening's end--but miraculously, it does. Who wants to quarrel about conflict through a mouthful of sweetness? TAMARA PARIS

Another American: Asking and Telling
Seattle Repertory Theatre, 443-2222.
Through Oct 26.

As a historic document, Mark Wolf's Another American is informative (it's based on 400 hours of taped interviews he conducted with more than 150 current and former service personnel and their families, about the issue of gays in the military) and wide-ranging (according to the program, the series of monologues portrays 18 characters, including women and men, gays and straights). It's also occasionally moving: An old butch dyke remembers her first kiss, its sweetness and innocence, and how she had neither any idea there was anyone else like her in the world, nor any shame, until she was taught to be cautious and afraid of discovery; an HIV-positive man's family suddenly serves his dinner with Styrofoam plates and plastic forks, so as not to get infected.

As a whole piece of theater, however, Wolf's first effort as a playwright falls flat. Despite the good variety of characters--a couple of Latino males, a Greek American military strategist, a Jewish lesbian from the Midwest, a guy called "Mary Alice" by his colleagues, a guy who did drag exactly once--none of these people ever develops or changes in any surprising or compelling way. They remain mere sketches. Another American is a one-person show, and after a while Wolf's accents began to muddy, and his characters became hard to distinguish from one another. Maybe opening-night jitters were partly to blame, but after Wolf said "um" and "I mean" and "you know" so often and in so many roles, I could no longer interpret these verbal tics as conscious attempts to portray an awkward, inarticulate character (or three), but as an actor's fumbled lines. The set and lighting design from the original, Obie-winning off-Broadway production are effectively crisp and spare. I wish the script and the acting had been as polished. REBECCA BROWN

Clue the Musical
ArtsWest, 938-0339.
Through Oct 20.

Just when I thought this show couldn't possibly drag on any longer, it did: another corny, repetitive song; another confusing, illogical, and poorly mapped scene; another flat attempt at humor. This could possibly have been the longest 90 minutes of my life.

The set of Clue the Musical is mapped out as the playing board of the original game, and the audience is actually expected to play--we shuffle a giant deck of cards, select the murderer, the weapon, and the room at random, and begin. This is a passable and moderately entertaining idea--a live murder mystery with several possible outcomes. It's not entirely unique (e.g., The Mystery of Edwin Drood), but it's still a workable concept. So what went so terribly wrong?

In a nutshell? Just about everything.

It's one-dimensional, corny community-theater fare, campy, overperformed, uninspired, and weak. Its "story line" (if you can call it that) is incoherent and impossible to follow. The pretense of playing the game is a ruse, and only ads to the confusion. It is conceivable that this show COULD have worked with some seriously aggressive editing and an outrageous amount of resources thrown at it. But even in the best of circumstances Clue would still be nothing but very mediocre theater.

I can vouch for the talent of Jason Dittmer (Professor Plum), who won my well-deserved adulation in Open Circle's Gorey Stories, and other cast members had their strengths. The lazy writing and lackluster songs were certainly not their fault. So who is to blame? Clue's creators, for writing it in the first place; and ArtsWest, which, in a misguided moment, decided to produce it. I just felt sorry for them all! I'll even overlook the above-average number of opening-night screwups--I don't blame the actors for forgetting Clue's jokes and song lyrics. God knows I have. ADRIAN RYAN