Seattle Repertory Theatre
Through Oct 26.
In September 1941, during the height of the war in Europe, German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a visit to Danish physicist Niels Bohr's home in Copenhagen. The specifics of this meeting have always been a mystery, but there is speculation that these two men may have made a history-altering decision concerning the atomic weapons race.
Which brings us to Copenhagen. On an empty circular set, with a giant crosshatched bomber's sight looming upstage, Heisenberg (Laurence Ballard), Bohr (Raye Birk), and his wife, Margrethe (Marianne Owen), jump back and forth in time between the actual 1941 meeting and a post-war meeting in 1947. We are not witness to a historical re-creation of events, but rather a scientific examination of the ideas of those meetings. With thorough dissections of conversations (informed by the principles of "The Copenhagen Interpretation"--look it up), Bohr and Heisenberg struggle to understand the effect their personal relationship had on a war that made them enemies. The shared dialectic is never dry and serves not only to validate the life's scientific work of the two men but their own place in the war itself.
The heavy tone of Copenhagen and the operatic set are much different than what you'd expect from Michael Frayn's more comedic works (like the now-classic farce Noises Off). While freeing the characters to spin around in nothing but theories and time, the ambiguity of the stage may at the same time be working against the actual actors on stage who attempt to ground the conversations for the audience. Occasionally they seem as lost and strewn about as the textbooks haphazardly tossed at the foot of the stage.
Some may try to apply the moral and political themes of this play directly to the current administration's push for war and the general world situation. But more than anything, Frayn's play is an engaging study of how our own self-interests can be changed drastically by the tiniest bit of input (or lack thereof) from the people around us. GREGORY ZURA
Road Movie
Starving Artists at Open Circle Theater
Through Oct 13.
A restless, whiskey-drenched heart searching for the meaning of it all, a long and lonely highway that stretches on forever--gee, I wonder whatever possessed Starving Artists to title this spunky little one-man jobber Road Movie?
True to the genre it's named for, Road Movie is an emotional, symbolism-rich tale of an individual's search for himself. The individual is a "hard-bitten," self-loathing homo with a drinking problem. (Think Jack Kerouac meets Quentin Crisp.) He travels from New York to San Francisco on business, binges rambunctiously, and wakes in the care of Scott, a mysterious, New Agey stranger who nurses his hangover and steals his heart. On Scott's advice, our hero ditches his oppressive New York life, hops into the old Winnebago, and heads west to be with his new love.
Hokey, I know.
But if Road Movie has a moral, it might be that happy endings don't come cheap--if they come at all.
The ease with which Mark Pinkosh portrays each of five characters (two men, two women, and the single most irritating creature in all of God's creation--the loud, gregarious straight lady who hands out rubbers in gay bars) is admirable--his transitions are slicker than goose grease, and his confidence is almost smug. Pinkosh's strong performance is well wed to this emotionally rich and inevitably moving story (hush up--there was something in my eye!).
Everything goes just great, when... BAM! Every baggy old gay cliché in existence comes welling up. Betty fucking Davis, Liza fucking Minnelli, Judy fucking Garland, mustachioed leather queens in wire-brushed Levi's. And trust me--there is absolutely no need whatsoever to resurrect the age-old question, "And just what the heck is STRAIGHT ACTING supposed to mean, anyhow?" Lord. The Village People? Liza Minnelli? Can't... we... all... just... move along? ADRIAN RYAN
In Pursuit of an Inkling
Mind-Shattering Productions at Odd Duck Studio
Through Oct 19.
Are you feeling an ever-growing disillusionment with a capitalistic society that regards profit as an absolute value? Can you locate your chakras? Do you think George Bush is a warmongering retardate monkey-fucker? Is The Celestine Prophecy sitting by your toilet? If your answer to any of these questions is, "Hell, NO, you commie pinko son-of-a-bitch!" then keep your capitalistic keister as far away from this production as possible. If, on the other hand, you have at one time or another chanted positive affirmations into a rose quartz crystal, gone macrobiotic, secretly thought that maybe Shirley MacLaine has a point, and don't mind some less-than-stellar acting, this Bud's for you.
In Pursuit of an Inkling is the (ostensibly true) story of writer/star David Sadka's disillusionment with Western, capitalist society, and his subsequent (ahem) "journey into spirit." This journey begins, of course, in Sadka's childhood (nothing's as teeth-numbingly irritating as an adult doing "kiddy-voice," and Sadka is certainly no exception), then gives a blow-by-blow of pivotal events throughout Sadka's life. Discernible patterns begin to emerge, leading to a series of "synchronistic events" (and an eerily astute comment from a smart-alecky kid at Kinko's). Before long, Sadka finds himself walking about with some shamanistic aboriginals. Lots of drumming, bonfires, ritual nakedness, and didgeridoo-ing later, he's seeing spirits and listening to one hand clapping. He tunes in, turns on, and returns to America to... well, presumably produce this play.
Sadka states very honestly that this is a work in progress--which is good. It's self-indulgent, clunky, and that kiddy-voice thing... like nails on a chalkboard. But I can see exactly where he's trying to go here, and the production has insight, poetry, sincerity, and trippy psychedelic video animation all standing in its corner. Still, rough edges must be sanded, and Sadka's delivery could use more than a spot of polish.
(And for the record, Inkling didn't really insinuate that George Bush is a warmongering retardate. That was just me.) ADRIAN RYAN
