Autobiographies

Backwards Ensemble
Theatre Company at Theater
4
Number of people in the
audience: 4

When the artistic director of a small company mounts his own
semiautobiographical play with himself in the starring role, it is
generally cause for alarm. When that starring role is a hard-luck
rogue-hero, the potential for self-aggrandizement runs high. The Rez
as I Saw It, by and starring Caleb Penn, is
self-aggrandizing—sometimes embarrassingly so—but the
material brims with possibility. Penn, and his onstage persona Coyote,
is a wiry and tattooed Irish-American kid who grew up on the Suquamish
Indian reservation in Kitsap County, where he and his brother Squirrel
(the twitchy Ben Burris) take the licks for hundreds of years of bad
history between whites and natives. (It doesn’t help their cause that
they antagonize their bullies, calling them “bitch” and “faggot” in
return.) A basic revenge-and-redemption drama, The Rez builds to
a confrontation between Coyote and Bear (Gavin Sakae McLean), a burly
and generally peaceable pot dealer who can’t help harassing the
whiteys. The whiteys can’t help pushing back.

The components of Penn’s drama, some only hinted at, are rich: the
weird vulnerability of being a white minority on the reservation, the
spread of meth and guns, playful private relationships versus
obstreperous public relationships, the regret Coyote feels for
introducing Squirrel to drugs, hanging out at “the Slab” (a concrete
slab in Suquamish that functions like a plaza), the
remembering and
forgetting and manufacturing of native culture. (Bear begins one
speech: “A needle falls in the forest—the eagle sees it, the deer
hears it, and the bear smells it… or some shit like that.”)

The squandered potential makes The Rez‘s clichés and
posturing that much more disappointing. One scene, where Coyote scolds
Squirrel for smoking drugs, feels like a PSA from 1987. In another
scene, Coyote’s girlfriend is awed by his manly ways: “He’s so funny
and charming and good in bed…” Coyote avenges slights, gives and
takes beatings, refuses bandages for his wounds, smokes and drinks and
stares nobly into the middle distance. Eventually, it’s a guns-drawn
showdown at the Slab that feels like an undercooked knockoff of Boyz
n the Hood.

Let’s consider The Rez as I Saw It a first draft. Penn
obviously has talent, ambition (he’s also a writer for hiphop group
Fictitious), and original, surprising stories to tell. Dialing down the
histrionics and allowing the characters—especially
Coyote—to be more human would make the play harder, not softer. I
hope to see more, and better, from Caleb Penn.
BRENDAN KILEY

Seattle Repertory Theatre
Number of people in the audience: 526

It is impossible to separate Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia. They
are—for me, anyway—one and the same. But Fisher is trying
like hell to distance the two, and her Wishful Drinking only
contains about five minutes of Star Wars–related material.
The rest of it—jokes about divorce, sex, and Debbie
Reynolds—is aimed exclusively at the postmenopausal crowd.

Fisher (understandably) has a love/hate relationship with her
Star Wars fame, begrudgingly acknowledging that, were it not for
George Lucas’s enduring space opera, the audience wouldn’t be there:
“Forty-five years ago,” she says, “George Lucas ruined my life.” But
from the moment Fisher waddles onto the stage, channeling Liza Minnelli
and Rip Taylor, belting out “Happy Days Are Here Again” while tossing
glitter into the crowd, it’s clear this show is not intended for
nerds.

Five minutes into the show, the house lights come up and Fisher
begins an awkward Q&A with the audience about a bizarre 2005
incident in which she woke up next to the corpse of R. Gregory Stevens,
a gay Republican political consultant. (The autopsy concluded that he
died of heart disease compounded with cocaine and oxycodone.)

Fisher genuinely wants to make her fucked-up, drug-addled life
entertaining. She’s an engaging storyteller with a commanding stage
presence, but her stream-of-consciousness segues border on incoherent.
The four people in the audience without AARP cards looked a bit bored,
but Fisher killed with the gray-hairs. (Katie Jackman of the Rep says
Fisher’s ticket sales are the strongest the theater has seen since Lily
Tomlin’s 2000 appearance.)

Fisher drops a few contemporary yuks into her act—including a
Brangelina reference and groan-inducing punch lines like “My father
smoke[d] four joints a day… we call him Puff Daddy”—but for
most of the show, Fisher goes for laughs through self-deprecation and
quick punch lines about her grandmother’s dildo and her own “galaxy
snatch.” (Blargh!) It all feels like watching your mom get drunk at a
family Christmas party and barfing up embarrassing family stories.

Still, I’m a helpless Star Wars nerd, and the all-too-brief
five minutes Fisher spends cracking wise about George Lucas and Star
Wars merchandising, explaining her disappearing/reappearing British
accent in the holy trilogy, reciting the “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi”
speech, and shouting “nerfherder” at the top of her lungs almost makes
the other 115 minutes worth it. Almost.
JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE