Open Circle Theater
Through Feb 28
If this were high school, Blood Wedding would be voted “most
helpful” or “nicest personality” or some other euphemism for “we’re
trying really hard to think of something nice to say, and
it’s not easy.” Open Circle has poured its heart into this achingly
sincere and tragically inept production of the 1930s Garcia Lorca play
(a poetic, symbolist story about a blood feud in the Spanish
countryside and a wedding that only makes things worse). The set is a
painted, ocher landscape; company member John McKenna has composed a
score that is part music box and part lullaby; and the 12 actors
remember all their lines. But that’s just not good enough.
Blood Wedding‘s opening-night performance was anemic and
slow, the acting flat and listless. Before the first act was over, the
audience began laughing at Shayne McNeal as the hapless and wide-eyed
groom who realizes his new wife (Annie Jantzer) has run off her with
old lover (Aaron Allshouse). It was hard to tell whether McNeal was
trying to be funny or just failing to be serious. The real-life tragedy
of Blood Wedding was so overwhelming, I couldn’t bear to stay
for act two. BRENDAN KILEY
Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse
Through Feb 22.
The specter of fanatical evangelical Christianity—the logical
fallacies and destructive ends of which are the subject of Deborah Zoe
Laufner’s play End Days—already, even in this very early
post-Bush era, feels laughably deflated. It’s a moldy crust of a
menace, now that we suddenly live in a nation where the president says
things like “We will restore science to its rightful place and wield
technology’s wonders.” Even though it’s a newish work, End Days comes across as vaguely, quaintly dated. Charming, absolutely. Funny,
sure. But urgent? Not anymore.
Rachel Stein (Carolyn Marie Monroe) is a grumpy goth teen whose
family is trapped in a paralyzing post-9/11 tar pit. Dad (Keith
Dahlgren) worked in one of the towers—”files of paperwork from
people; they don’t exist anymore”—and now sleeps at the kitchen
table in dirty pajamas. Mom (Heather Hawkins), an Orthodox
Jew-turned-atheist, has very recently developed a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ and expects the rapture next Wednesday. When their
new neighbor, Nelson (Anthony Duckett), starts hanging around, upending
the family malaise with his manic crush on Rachel, unconditional
enthusiasm, and security-blanket Elvis jumpsuit, the Steins slowly
begin to wake up.
The play pits science against religion in a fairly simplistic
face-off (“Why would you believe in God when believing in science is so
thoroughly awe-inspiring?”), but does so with a refreshing sensitivity
to people of faith: Sylvia Stein isn’t a moron or a villain, she’s just
wounded and frightened. The best part of End Days is the
appearance of Jesus and Stephen Hawking as spiritual/scientific
advisers to Sylvia and Rachel, with the same actor (Evan Whitfield) in
both roles. Hawking, in his singsong computer voice, dispenses
sarcastic astrophysical wisdom in between shilling his books. It’s a
funny gag, but an unfair contest. Science is already winning. LINDY
WEST
ArtsWest
Through Feb 15.
Lisa Kron’s Well announces itself as “a solo play with other
people in it.” A 2006 Broadway hit, the original production starred
writer and performer Kron, a founding member of the deeply funny ’90s
theater troupe the Five Lesbian Brothers and creator of acclaimed solo
plays. Even better, the show featured Lisa’s mother, Ann, played by an
actress planted in a La-Z-Boy recliner amid a functional approximation
of a suburban-Michigan living room. At the center of Well‘s
plot: the “chronic fatigue”–like allergies that have reduced
Lisa’s mother to a sniffling blob for the majority of her life,
allergies that initially threatened to take over young Lisa’s life as
well.
The daughter’s struggle to heal herself of what her mother cannot is
the engine of Well—a story that onstage-playwright Lisa
hopes to underscore with a tale of her mother’s uncharacteristically
vigorous, hands-on integration of their 1960s neighborhood. Lisa tells
us she wants to create “a multifaceted theatrical exploration of
sickness and wellness and family… or something,” but her grand scheme
to marry the two plots corrodes as we watch. Even Lisa has to consult
index cards when onstage questions about the meaning and purpose of her
play arise, usually from her lovingly interrupting mother, whose
cross-checks and objections to her daughter’s remembrances shatter the
playwright’s autobiographical omnipotence and power the show into its
supplementary life as a deconstruction of the art of memoir.
Hailed for its wit and innovation, Kron’s slippery, backtracking,
corroding narrative was so successful that it’s now performed across
the country. At ArtsWest, the role of Lisa is filled by Kate Witt, who
does her best to embody the playwright/narrator/character, but in her,
chipper quirkiness comes off more like an enthusiastic, well-rehearsed
flight attendant. Luckily for all, Therese Diekhans as mother Ann Kron
hums with the lived-in idiosyncrasy that Witt chases so laboriously.
Fighting the good fight among the ensemble: Terra Joy Jones, a recent
Cornish graduate cast as everything from a little kid to an elderly
woman, who dispatches her roles with intelligence and humor to burn.
But without the anchor of a viable Lisa, the slippery Well never
finds its footing. The onstage bumps and breakdowns that must have lit
up the original grow increasingly forced and repetitive in ArtsWest’s
production.
DAVID SCHMADER
Brendan Kiley only watched the first half of Blood Wedding and he still reviewed it? Am I the only person that sees a credibility problem here? An art critic has very few responsibilities. He does not have to be polite, does not have to sugar coat anything, and doesn’t have to know anything about art or even like art for that matter. But the critic does have a responsibility, if journalistic integrity means anything to him, to actually witness the art that he reviews. If he didn’t see ALL of it, he didn’t see ANY of it, and he shouldn’t be reviewing it. Anyone who has studied Lorca would tell you that with his plays invariably the first half is (by most modern sensibilities) light, pretty melodrama, but the second half abruptly takes a turn into Weirdsville. With Open Circle’s Blood Wedding, the post-intermission foray into the surreal may have been even worse than the first act, or it may have been brilliant. There are a few dozen people who know which it was. Kiley isn’t one of them, because he wasn’t there. It’s like judging the Wizard of OZ only on the black and white parts. It’s like going to a Mexican restaurant, ordering a burrito, leaving before the burrito arrives, and declaring in a public forum that the restaurant only serves chips and salsa. Yes, the first act was awfully rocky, but the second act was quite moving in places. You know how I know? I actually watched it.
I agree he should have stayed, but it is the theaters job to keep people there for the whole thing. If the fist half sucks enough to make me want to leave, you aren’t doing it right.
As a paying audience member you have the right to walk out of a play you find unbearable. As a journalist (who’s seat was forfeited for the sake of the review) you owe it to the public, and the artist, to endure the whole terrible mess.
While the work itself may be horrible, perhaps there is a brilliant piece of acting worth noting. Perhaps the design is exquisite. Perhaps it all sucks and should be avoided. At least give us more than, “The set is a painted, ocher landscape; company member John McKenna has composed a score that is part music box and part lullaby; and the 12 actors remember all their lines.” This is a horrible description of the play, good or bad. The least you can do is attempt to draw an analogy to some topic in modern theater. Hell, I know college freshman that would have at least tried to throw in a Peter Brook quote to justify their thoughts on why the play was bad.
While personal opinion matters (obviously it matters a great deal to The Stranger), that opinion should not overwhelm the journalist’s duty to inform the public of all of the play’s qualities. Mr. Kiley hardly speaks of the play in any detail, doing little more than relaying a few vague impressions he probably wrote on the back of a bar napkin. I’m fine with a critic panning a piece of art (it’s what makes our society wonderful) but I do not approve of such sloppy journalism. It would have been better for everyone had you simply not printed a review.
I think it’s time for someone else to write the theater features. Obviously, Mr. Kiley has better things to do.
Look, people. I promise you Blood Wedding is nothing you want to see even 10 minutes of. Blather on all you want about how I owe it to the actors or the director of the Great Ethics God in the Sky, but I’m serious—you don’t want to see it.
And if you’re so godamned sure I’m wrong, then go sit through the fucking thing. You’ll be sorry. I promise.
Mr. Kiley – You can complain all you want about how much you didn’t enjoy this show, but its your job!
I know if my boss gave me a project that I found aweful and because of that, I only did half the work and then faked the report due on the work and then bitched when someone called me on it, I’d be fired!
I demand that the Stranger set a policy that their reviewers will stay thru the whole show. If the Stranger won’t support such a policy, then I hope all theatres expect reviewers to pay for their own tickets!
I’m very disturbed by Mr. Kiley’s obvious lack of regard for his job and the individuals who worked very hard to bring this and any other production to opening. If he doesn’t want to see it, then send another reviewer.
Signed, someone not at all associated with Blood Wedding or OCT
Brendan Kiley’s review of The Wizard of Oz:
“What a piece of crap! This is supposed to be magical? It took place entirely in Kansas. Plus it was totally in black and white – what is this, 1928? There was one passably good song about a rainbow, but I couldn’t sit through it and left after 12 minutes. After asking everyone around me what I thought, I decided it was crap! Gave me quality time to go home and shoot squirrels.”
If you read other reviews of “Blood Wedding,” you will find that the words ‘misguided,’ ‘awkward,’ ‘limp and languid,’ and ‘terminally anemic’ have all been used to describe it. From the critics standpoint, this show obviously was not that great — Brendan definitely wasn’t in the minority here.
Furthermore, look at other reviews of shows that that were walked out on: guess what, those sucked too!
You can debate the “ethics” of a theatre critic walking out on a crap show all you want, but the fact remains that a disturbingly high percentage of theater companies and artists in Seattle are getting away with a whole lot of safe, unspecific, unadventurous and, to be frank, at times utterly inept bullshit these days. You may not agree with the review – and that’s fine, that’s essential to the theatre – but at least someone has the balls to call us out on the shit when they think they see it.
Yes but they have to see it to call us out on it. Do you really thing that petulant reviewers lambasting shows because they are rewarded for doing it will improve theater? Quite the opposite, I imagine. If a reviewer wants to walk out halfway through a show, that’s fine – just don’t review it. If your job is to write about something, man up and sit it out, or find another job. It’s despicable to say “my time is so vaaluable that I can’t stay and do my job.” Plus there’s nothing brave or ballsy about a reviewer who loves giving bad reviews or a paper that is addicted to them (i.e. “bravely” stating “We hate everything!”)
This has been a frequent problem with Stranger reviewers over the years. Saying you left half-way through isn’t enough to qualify you to review a show. It’s highly unprofessional and incredibly juvenile. Same as it ever was. At least he didn’t show up drunk and yell at the actors during the show. That actually happened once with a Stranger reviewer. As did a review that was printed before there had been a full run of the reviewer’s friend’s show. Sigh.
I don’t know why any of you should care about what Kiley says or doesn’t say. He doesn’t check his facts, he isn’t talented…all he does is complain and point his lofty opinion out to people just to get a rise out of them. At least he does that well.