Rick's
13322 Lake City Way
It's summer when audiences simply up and disappear. While potential ticket buyers paddle their high-priced kayaks after their totem animals, fringe theaters gamely perform to thinly papered houses of dutiful parents while the larger houses pack the seats with lightly embalmed corpses from local funeral homes. But there's one Seattle "theater" shrugging off the season's financial woes by offering patrons what they really want--and it's not a mighty orca blasting salty water out of its blowhole.
The formula to its success is startlingly simple. Night after night, Frank Colacurcio Jr., the undisputed impresario of Rick's, blithely rakes in cash hand over sweaty fist by encouraging--nay, demanding--that his talented cast perform without their pants on. After reading rave reviews by several of our more culturally inclined city council members, I headed off to this unassuming little shack in lovely Lake City to experience the magic of the "oldest profession in the arts" for myself.
Unfortunately, since the show has become so popular, it was very difficult to find a spot to park. Nonetheless, I finally managed to squeeze in between a stretch limo and an El Camino. (Note to the Colacurcio family--perhaps it's time to expand the lot?) Once past the dusty velvet ropes, I was ushered through the palpable darkness to a small table. In a clever twist on dinner theater, Colacurcio has pared the proceedings down to "drink theater," and I ordered my obligatory $5 nonalcoholic beverages from the preternaturally smiling waitress. Blinking like the recipient of an experimental eye transplant, I finally made out a sea of unsmiling male patrons grimly focused on a small stage where, bathed in a light that could only be described as lurid, the young actors performed their interpretive movement with impressive vigor.
Clad in diaphanous costumes and shod in towering Lucite footwear (reminiscent of cothurnus, the high wooden shoes worn by performers in the ancient Greek theater between 400 and 500 B.C.), the actors have only three minutes (or roughly the length of a popular song) to communicate their commedia dell'arte-style character. A naughty Catholic schoolgirl, an athletic and amoral surfer chick, and the ever-popular bisexual punk rocker with a dildo in her lunchbox--each comes vividly to life and then takes her pants off. But after an oh-so-brief glimpse into the character's internal world, this wide-open door snaps shut and she slides off the pole--show over. While each performer is immediately followed by another and then another--each eventually pantsless--I could not help but lament this cursory character development.
However, Colacurcio more than makes up for this directorial stumble with a bold and experimental approach to audience interaction. After leaving the stage, each performer interacts with the patrons in a highly stylized form of physical and verbal improvisation. While this conceit is far from avant-garde (Living Theatre ring a bell?), judging from the deeply satisfied, nearly glazed looks on the faces all around me, it's a theatrical conceit that still retains the power to touch a chord deep within us all.
