Ursa Major at the Speakeasy Backroom, 2304 Second Ave, 325-6500. Thurs-Sat at 8; (except for the last weekend, which is Wed, Thurs, and Sat). $10 general, $8 students/ seniors. Through Nov 18.
SEATTLE IS a reactive city: Its "progress" is less a function of forward thinking than it is of an unconscious, organic assemblage of ideas nailed into place after the fact. The city's dreams do not divine its future to us, rather they describe its present to everybody else. Indeed, as Jonathan Raban once aptly described, Seattle is "an exercise in conscious theatre."
Grace, a new play written by Seattle playwright C. L. Johnston and directed by John Longenbaugh, is as well. Telling the here-and-now tale of an ill-fated Thanksgiving for three couples united by their ownership of an exploding dot-com company and its attendant narcissistic woes, Grace is shot through with an unwieldy presumption of significance behind the stilted, desperate machinations of today's Seattle. And finally, like the city it is trying to evoke, Grace collapses under the weight of its own ambitions.
Nevertheless, the ensemble's sharp, well-oiled performances leaven the piece tremendously. Steven Lee Shults' Mercer is especially captivating: Cell phone scenes are becoming cliché enough that it registers soundly when someone manages to pull one off with panache. Nicole DuFresne as Lera is also great to watch, especially when she gets that steely glint of righteous but oh-so-hypocritical anger in her eyes. And the moments when all six cast members are throwing conversations around the table almost remind you of a high-flying trapeze act, so nimble are the exchanges.
But in the end, Grace is simply too conscious for its own good, like an argument whose outcome is known in advance. For a play that poses as a criticism of the present state of our city, Grace registers as slight, confused, and overly didactic. Its resolutions--greed destroys the soul; lies attack the truth--are too easily reached to feel inclusive or even realistic, with the result that Grace feels less like a contemplation of its titular state, and more like a reaction against Seattle's lack of it. Simply put, part of the problem, not part of the solution.
