Penguins is Scot Augustson’s dark, shockingly funny
late-night serial comedy chronicling a gangland war between priests
and nuns. In advance of this spring’s much-anticipated Episode
2, Annex is remounting Penguins, Episode 1: Heaven the Hard
Way, directed by Bret Fetzer and featuring a uniformly sharp cast.
As I wrote in my gushy original review: “Penguins comes on like
a hard-boiled crime thriller, with gangster priests, gun-toting nuns,
and a bottomless well of depravity.” It’s quite wonderful.
(Annex Theatre, 1100 E Pike St, www.annextheatre.org. 11 pm, $10.
Through Dec 19.)

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...