Theater Schmeater

Through June 21.Wayne S. Rawley has wrought a small artistic miracle. He has adapted and directed Chekhov's talky masterpiece The Seagull. And, after a century of being described as a comedy, it's actually funny.

Not impressed yet? Don't underestimate the magnitude of his feat. Seattle has been cursed with a wealth of stuffed Seagulls over the years--most of them, by report, wretched failures. To not only mount The Seagull, but to rewrite it, and do it well, takes admirable audacity.

Besides moving Chekhov's theatrical condemnation of the beautiful people on holiday from Russia to California, Rawley's Seagull is remarkably faithful to the original. In an 1895 letter, Chekhov described his play as "a comedy with three female parts, six male parts, a landscape, much talk about literature, and five tons of love." Among Hollywood's celluloid titans (instead of the grandes dames of Russian arts), the same proportions apply--with ingenious twists. Rawley updated the mopey, vodka-swilling bailiff's daughter into a pot-huffing goth, and the cheaply philosophizing country physician into an amalgamated caricature of pop doctors Phil and Drew.

With all the modernizations, spoiling Chekhov's delicacy had been Rawley's biggest fear. "In some instances, I had to rough it up--I'm afraid a purist would say I'm a bull in a china shop," he said. The purists be damned. Rawley's version, in fact, sets Chekhov's subtextual nuances in bold type without sacrificing their subtlety--the Oedipal complexities, the vagaries of lust and ambition, and, most of all, the humor. What we used to deduce between the lines, Rawley has scrawled in bright red house paint on the barnyard door.

Rawley said he's in love with his cast--and he should be. The ensemble gives a pitch-perfect performance, bringing the new Seagull to swearing, sweating, vibrant life. Jim Winkle is particularly hilarious as the endearing, potty-mouthed Uncle Sulley, and Laurie Jerger Johnson makes a moving stoned-youth malcontent. Schmeater regulars Brandon Whitehead and Roy Stanton also exercise their predictably stellar comedic talents as a pathetic video-store clerk and boorish ex-military bailiff. Despite the great acting, however, the script remains the biggest presence.

An impressive rewrite, Rawley's Seagull nimbly achieves what good adaptations should. Appealing to Chekhov fans and newbies alike, it pastes funny and relevant flesh onto the poignant skeleton of the original without violating its anatomy. "I think Chekhov would rather have his work enjoyed," Rawley said, "than have dusty, boring productions where everybody's ogling the samovar." Amen to that. Brendan Kiley

How I Learned What I Learned

Seattle Repertory Theatre

Through June 2.In American Hunger, Richard Wright's posthumously published follow-up to Black Boy, the then-preeminent man of African American letters wrote that after reading Marcel Proust's 3,000-paged novel/autobiography Remembrance of Things Past, he was crushed by a sense of hopelessness, because he "wanted to write of the people of [his] environment with an equal thoroughness...." Proust's novel covered a distinct section of French life with unprecedented detail, and in the process preserved a whole way of life that might otherwise have faded out of memory. What Richard Wright wanted to do for his environment (South Chicago/rural Mississippi) in his novels is precisely what the current preeminent man of African American letters, August Wilson, has done for his environment (the Hill District--a black neighborhood in Pittsburgh) in his cycle of award-winning plays. August Wilson is black America's Proust.

Wilson's new one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned, returns to the Hill District, where Wilson spent the first 33 years of his life before moving to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he began his writing career, and later Seattle, where he moved on a whim in the early '90s. Though the show examines the larger social history of black Americans--as well as Wilson's present life as an accomplished writer dealing with modern, but still humiliating, forms of racism--most of the performance is focused on the mid-'60s, the years that shaped who Wilson is today. In his early 20s, he left his mother's home, found and lost his first jobs, began borrowing books from the local public library, and developed deep friendships with local poets and musicians.

Wilson, who is now in his late 50s, returns to this part of his life with the ease that Mr. Rogers settles into his TV home. Wilson welcomes us to his neighborhood, his past; he hangs his cap and coat on a hanger, and sits in a comfortable armchair, which--along with a side table, a barstool, and two music stands, one of which holds an illustration of Wilson--makes up the set. But it's not the set that matters, it is August Wilson himself, who communicates his stories not with the faith of a preacher or the force of a politician, but with the empathy of a poet. And this is precisely why How I Learned What I Learned is great: Like Wilson's important plays, it's informed (indeed, warmed) by a profound humanity. CHARLES MUDEDE