Watching a lot of theater and dance—like I get to do for my job—gives you a front-row seat to Seattle’s collective unconscious. Patterns begin to emerge, and from the comfort of your velvet chair, you can begin to diagnose our anxieties, joys, pains, and pleasures. In the last year of reviewing theater and dance for The Stranger, I noticed a teddy bear figuring prominently in the final scenes of two radically different plays, more than three productions involving straight-up incest, and at least five actors drinking a full glass of water onstage. What does that say about our city? Seattle was really thirsty for its Daddy last year.
When you attend a play or a dance, you’re engaging in an ancient tradition. You’re back at the fire pit, a real human being watching other real human beings evoke whole ideas with a gesture, complex emotions with a glance. It’s a communal activity that brings us closer together, and something deep within us, something that goes all the way back to the caves, really needs it. But we’re also acquisition hounds who love a gimmick.
To that end, I have created a bingo card, another communal activity that brings us together. Watch a bunch of theater/dance this season and you will likely see all of these things at one point in time. First person who gets a verified bingo gets to be my theater/dance date to a show of their choosing in the spring season. E-mail me: rsmith@thestranger.com.
If you watched a bunch of theater/dance last season, you likely saw a lot of Romeo and Juliet (there were an obscene four different versions of Romeo and Juliet last year—FOUR!). You likely also saw a lot of work exploring race, gender, and sexuality. Given the more exciting shows this season, it looks like we’re far from done thinking about that stuff. There’s a lot, and a lot of it looks very good, but here’s what I’m personally looking forward to the most.
