Don Juan
Seattle Repertory Theatre, 443-2222. $15-$44
($10 for anyone under 25). Through April 13.

The story of Don Juan has been told many times: The sexual libertine beds women and defies moral propriety until, literally, the forces of heaven send him to hell. Like many Hollywood movies, it's fundamentally hypocritical--audiences can pretend it's the moral righteousness, not the sex, that draws them to the story. As if to test this, the French playwright Molière pushes the tale to extremes. His Don Juan not only mocks marriage, but shrugs off everything society holds sacred, be it religion, honor, familial bonds, or a good credit rating (though "shrugs off" may not be apt, since the rake justifies his rebellion in extensive monologues). He isn't even much of a horndog; his excessive seduction and adultery are more acts of iconoclasm than lust. This Don Juan is, in fact, obsessively moral, though his morality is wholly contrarian. When, in the end, Don Juan finally gets cast into the fiery pit, it's the most perfunctory act of divine wrath you'll ever see--clearly, Molière didn't give a damn.

Director Stephen Wadsworth has gone to great lengths to emphasize Molière's moral debate, most notably in his casting. Though Adam Stein, as Don Juan, displays a well-sculpted physique in an early scene, he makes no effort to be sexy or charismatic. His seduction of a peasant girl seems as perfunctory as his later damnation will be, more of an obligation than a desire; it's as if being charming would distract the audience from the point. What Stein does express is intelligence--he navigates the libertine's detailed arguments with clarity and fervor--and an I-don't-give-a-damn arrogance. Though relentlessly didactic, the rake's arguments have a scintillating wit and precision. In a time of repressive social mores and corrupt abuses of power, Don Juan may have been a liberating voice.

Unfortunately, now, in the 21st century, he comes across as a wealthy man who, thanks to the immunity of his class, beats up peasant boys with impunity and seduces naive girls with empty offers of escape from their poverty. In his actions, this "rebellious" Don Juan seems less like Che Guevara and more like William Kennedy Smith--all of which, combined with the austerity of Stein's performance, makes Don Juan hard to like. Most people prefer to like a character they have to spend a lot of time with--otherwise, they don't care what he has to say, and they're not likely to find him funny. For these people, Don Juan is going to be a very long evening. In theater, as in life, a charming smile seduces more people than a well-phrased bit of reason.

However, Wadsworth's approach feels true to the play, even though it may not make for a satisfying performance. In an era when art is thought of as a purely emotional experience (Steven Spielberg is our premier director), focusing on intellect takes a kind of courage, or at least an admirable foolhardiness--qualities that Molière doubtless shared (he wrote Don Juan just after his religious satire Tartuffe was suppressed by the authorities, and he surely anticipated this play would suffer the same fate). Don Juan is not, as the program claims, Molière's masterpiece; but it is a genuinely intriguing curiosity, as perverse and willful as its hero, and since it may not be performed again, you may want to take a chance with its philosophical pleasures. BRET FETZER

The Man Who Was Thursday
Taproot Theatre, 781-9707. $18-$26;
students/seniors get a $2 discount. Through April 20.

The opening of The Man Who Was Thursday draws some compelling parallels between its era (the peak of the British Empire before World War I) and ours: Trouble in the Middle East, an increasing gap between the rich and poor, and--most significantly--bursts of sudden violence, in their case committed by self-proclaimed anarchists. From there, the plot begins: Poet Gabriel Syme (Troy Burke) has been recruited as a secret policeman, and is pitted against a cabal of anarchists. Syme infiltrates their ranks and cunningly gets elected to their highest council, a group of seven each named for a day of the week. In the guise of Thursday, Syme attempts to foil a scheme to murder the Russian czar and the French president; and in the guise of a spy adventure, Thursday tries to create a grandiose religious metaphor.

For most of its course, John Longenbaugh's play (faithfully adapted from G. K. Chesterton's 1908 novel) romps along, full of sinister villains, unveiled disguises, a sword duel, and wild chases by car and hot air balloon. The energetic actors throw themselves into their parts with glee and skill (though their accents occasionally obscure the ornate Edwardian grammar). The costumes, makeup, lighting, and especially the sound design are excellent. It's a charming clockwork, in which the execution of clever plot mechanics supersedes any genuine human character (much like murder mysteries, which Chesterton also wrote).

Unfortunately, when Thursday shifts into its allegorical mode, the audience is asked to accept that these two-dimensional characters have experienced profound suffering and have deep spiritual yearnings. Longenbaugh has toned down some of the explicit God-Devil language of Chesterton's novel, but the allegory--and the story's resolution--makes no sense unless you're already invested in a Christian view of the world. If you're not, the play's debate about order and chaos, which it equates with good and evil, becomes a quaint relic--an analogy made senseless by the orderly crimes of Nazi Germany and the mathematics of Hiroshima. BRET FETZER

CORRECTION: In last week's review of Chooze Your Own Adventure, Book 2: Outer Space and Beyond, we stated that the choices offered to the audience had no effect on the plot. In fact, some choices had a significant effect, while others did not; the production is true to its premise. Which raises the question: If a show that is supposed to change every night feels like it doesn't--is that success or failure?