Seattle Blog Reviews

Sadness and hope. These are a few of the feelings I experienced watching the story of Crash. Crash Coogan (played by Quinn Franzen) seems to have everything: great grades, cool friends, and a school record for most touchdowns in a football game. When Crash’s Grandfather (played by Todd Jefferson Moore) has a stroke, Crash starts to learn that winning isn’t always the most important thing.

Author Jerry Spinelli, who wrote the book that Crash is based on, has written a powerful story about the challenges that many kids face when growing up, such as friendship issues and family relationships. I could understand and relate to all these challenges. Playwright Y York has done an amazing job of adapting Crash to the stage, using engaging dialogue to tell the rich story of Spinelli’s book. Director Rita Giomi’s clear vision of this play comes across beautifully in her staging. She has also put together an excellent ensemble cast. Crash’s little sister, Abby, (played by Emily Chisholm) is a constant thorn in his side. His neighbor, Penn Webb, (played by Rio Codda) wants to win the upcoming Penn Relays to make his great-grandfather proud. They are joined by Mike (played by Adam Standly) who wants to be friends with Crash, and Jane (played by Kate Sumpter), who Crash wants to be friends with.

August: Osage County, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts, embodies issues of identity, family unity, and disengagement, as well as a cultural perspective on hierarchies of power and gender roles within a family's core values. Angelo Domitri's lighting design enhances Ahren Buhmann's perfectly executed stage environment. Your eye wanders around the stage, discovering some of the characteristics that identify the Weston family.

The play is set in 2007 in the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The action takes place throughout the month of August in Beverly and Violet Weston’s house. Beverly, a once renowned and talented poet (played by Charles Leggett), introduces the story and the characters in the play. His sarcasm is palpable from the start. His very first line, T.S. Elliot’s “Life is too long,” tells us a lot about how humor is used to face the problems, issues, and tension throughout the play.

There is nothing easy about dancing en pointe. Ballerinas and danseurs often spend years perfecting their abilities to dance on the tips of the toes while still remaining graceful in their upper bodies. Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Swan Lake dancers, however, make dancing en pointe look flawlessly easy.

PNB’s production of Swan Lake, choreographed by Kent Stowell, is a classic performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet, with four acts and a brilliant company of dancers. The ballet tells the tragic tale of Odette and Siegfried, two lovers who are determined to break Odette’s curse of being a swan, but are undermined by the menacing Odile, who deceives Siegfriend and forces Odette to forever remain a swan by day.

On the surface, Bat Boy appears to be a show about a half-man-half-bat integrating himself into a silly hick town – an amusing situation that would never happen in real life. But this show has deeper messages waiting to be heard. The bat boy is a loner who has been dehumanized. All he wants is to be accepted by society but sometimes he can’t stop the ‘monster’ that he used to be from coming out. His journey can make the audience realize that everyone has their own streak of wickedness and we shouldn't be so quick to label others as evil. But this production of Bat Boy misses the mark and focuses too heavily on the comedic aspects. Instead of amplifying the real emotions and messages that this musical can support, director Kathryn Van Meter chooses to treat it as a farce. For the most part, each comedic moment is very well done while the serious moments are thrown away through melodrama. Again and again honest emotion is sacrificed for a cheap laugh. This makes for some hilarious numbers (Christian Charity; Show You a Thing or Two; Children, Children) but the audience doesn't leave thinking about their personal demons, the audience leaves thinking about that funny part when the woodland creatures had an orgy.

This production starts off promising. The first scene is visually creative and exciting. The sheriff, Meredith, and Shelley are all funny, talented actors, and quality singers. The cast is short a few male actors but they handle this common predicament remarkably well. The female ensemble members strap on bushy beards and play hilarious hicks. While the majority of the boys they do have are very talented: Bat Boy’s physicality is intriguing and believable, Reverend Hightower is a fantastic singer, Pan proves himself a master of fake fornication, and the audience can't keep their eyes off a certain hillbilly with a handlebar mustache. But as the story develops and requires more truthfulness to support the actions of the characters, the underlying weaknesses become blatant.

Music from the renowned Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, what a hoot! This one and only historical big band takes jazz standards to a whole new level. On a technical level, this show is flawless. Every note, every phrase and every cut off is perfect, even down to the tone of the individual instruments. Trombonist Frank Woser has impeccable tone, vibrant and smooth. Frank plays Tommy Dorsey’s solos, and fills the performance with creativity and thoughtfulness. The solos are the main attraction in this carnival of sorts.

About a third of the way through the concert, Bryan Anthony comes in and sings a few numbers with the band. He is an excellent singer. Even though he is young, his Sinatra-like image makes his songs feel like period pieces. When he starts his first few songs it can get quite loud. It is very distracting and hard to hear the wonderful band, but it gets better after those first few songs. His performance definitely opens up in the latter half, allowing him to really shine like the gem that he is. His act goes further than his voice as well. He knows so much about the popular music back in the day and he shares some of the greats--his heroes--with the audience.

Filipino American siblings Edith (played by Sara Porkalob) and Kenny (played by Jose Abaoag) are forced into the adult world after being abandoned by their father after their mother’s passing. Edith is a fierce, powerful, strong-willed 12-year-old who, while old enough to handle a BB-gun and to protect herself and her brother, is still young enough to carry on extended conversations with a stuffed-frog companion.

The only other person in their lives is Benji (Tim Smith-Stewart), Kenny’s nerdy friend who wishes for them to be more than friends. The two teenagers explore what it means to be in a relationship, while growing up in a farm during a time when people make mix tapes for their crushes.

Pentecost. At first it seems like a show about a fresco and the two people who find it, but later the audience is immersed in the social and cultural tensions of war torn central European countries. After leaving the show, I was left speechless, not necessarily because of the script or the actors alone, but because of the complex nature of the issues within the show.

Many of the actors stand out. Brian Culbertson as Mikhail Czaba and Sunam Ellis as Yasmin come to mind for their engaging acting, especially keeping track of multiple languages and maintaining an accent the entire time in an understandable and engaging way. They also express the theme of being people from war torn countries and dealing with the repercussions of war. These two actors paint a clear picture for the audience through their portrayals of the characters.

Seeing Nick Flynn on February 13th was a perfect palette cleanser for the saccharine day that was to follow. Chocolate and unbridled affection are the chosen dessert and emotion, respectively, for the day, but this lecture on “The Intersection of Poetry & Memoir” was an intriguing, bittersweet morsel, leaving my ears and heart wanting.

Sweet, because I have new holds at the SPL waiting by Flynn: Another Bullsh*t Night in Suck City, The Captain Asks for A Show of Hands, The Ticking Is the Bomb, and Blind Huber.

Book-It’s Anna Karenina begins with a whirlwind of characters, plots, and secrets dancing before the audience’s eyes. Overwhelming at first, this intricate culture collage melds together with each character, plot, and secret, highlighting a different facet of the tragic life of Anna Karenina.

Anna, played by the elegant Emily Grogan, is a wealthy Russian woman married to Karenin (played in a delightfully quirky manner by Andrew DeRycke) with a cherished son Seriozha (played by Montserrat Fleck for the opening performance). Unexpectedly, she falls in love with her friend Kitty’s husband-to-be, Count Vronsky (the dashing Scott Ward Abernethy) as the burly Levin (David Anthony Lewis) begins to pursue Kitty. Anna and Vronsky’s love becomes the theme of the play, spinning plot after plot into a Russian soap-opera with a tragic twist.

The bayous of Louisiana are some of the treasures of the United States, rich in culture and wildlife, but are not often publicized in today’s media. One of this year’s Academy Award contenders, Beasts of the Southern Wild, brought us a mythical view of an isolated, yet vibrant, bayou community. Sharon Linezo Hong’s My Louisiana Love brings us a harsher reality of the conditions in the bayous.

My Louisiana Love traces Monique Verdin’s poignant story of love, both for her people and her home. Hong’s first full-length documentary is made more intimate through her use of home footage, recorded by Verdin and her partner Mark Krasnoff, and later by Hong herself.

Next To Normal is a Pulitzer Prize winning rock musical about a middle-aged mother, Diana Goodman (played by Beth DeVries), diagnosed with bipolar illness, and how her illness affects the rest of her family. Her husband Dan (Auston James), daughter Natalie (Keaton Whittaker), and son Gabe (Kody Bringman) all appear to live normal lives, but are, in fact, nowhere near normal.

Balagan Theatre, which has brought a wide range of amazing musicals to Seattle, including [title of show] and Avenue Q, Spring Awakening and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, has again done a great job with this production.

Beauty through fashion photography is the focus of the Henry Art Gallery's new exhibit, Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty. Out [o] focuses on the many nuances of beauty using studio, fashion, and pop culture photography by artists from the 19th to 21st century.

I had the opportunity to walk through the gallery with curator Deborah Willis and a small group. The fluid and open gallery perfectly frames each photograph, which are juxtaposed with multimedia further enhancing the subtleties of Willis' ideas about media, and how different forms of beauty interconnect with each other.

Stephen Greenblatt walked onto the stage of Benaroya Hall with the air of a man who is accustomed to being in the spotlight. Fairly short with a dark suit, a slightly receding hairline, and a penchant for puns and jokes, he seemed more like your friend’s father than a Harvard professor, New York Times bestselling author, and winner of both the 2011 National Book Award and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction. Greenblatt poked at the projector remote.

“Is this thing working?” he asked, fiddling with it for a second, before, "ahh!" The projector flipped its slide, revealing the name of his lecture: The Survival of Dangerous Ideas: Lucretius, The Renaissance, and the Modern World. Then, without even pausing to formally begin his lecture, Greenblatt jumped into his introduction , which followed the history and culture of militant Christian orthodoxy. Yet the historical portrait that Greenblatt painted for the multitudes of people who came to hear him speak at Benaroya Hall was fascinating and amazing because it was deeper than just dates and namedropping. Not only can I safely say that I exited the auditorium feeling smarter and more educated about the world around me, but I can also say that I genuinely enjoyed the lecture.

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg tells the story of a couple with a young daughter who has severe cerebral palsy. This dark comedy follows the couple as they attempt to use humor to avoid addressing their situation. As the show progresses, the tension mounts and their careful way of life begins to unravel.

This show marks the premiere of Thalia’s Umbrella, a new Seattle theatre group. The acting in Joe Egg is amazing, with a strong ensemble cast of Leslie Law, Terry Edward Moore, Susan Corzatte, Carol Roscoe, Brandon Whitehead, and Aidyn Stevens. The actors’ high energy and focus keeps the show moving forward. Often it feels that when accents are used in shows it is distracting and awkward but the cast of Joe Egg proves that this is not true in their case, often Moore portrays different characters within a scene or monologue and is able to switch effortlessly between a few dialects. The chemistry and emotion portrayed by the actors is never unbelievable or distracting.

“In Sanskrit, Turanga means the universe spinning through time, and Lîla means the cosmic play of love and death,” explained Seattle Symphony music director Ludovic Morlot, discussing Olivier Messiaen’s (“MESS-yohn”) Turangalîla-Symphonie. This may sound excessively grand, but it describes perfectly Seattle Symphony’s first-ever performance of this 20th century masterpiece.

Turangalîla is rarely performed, and the reasons are evident; it’s long and physically exhausting, requires an uncommonly large percussion section, features a solo piano and the rare ondes Martenot (“ohnd MAR-ten-oh;” more on that later), and as a contemporary piece, is hard to market to wider audiences. However, judging by an almost-full house and the instant standing ovation, Morlot, the Seattle Symphony, and guest soloists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Cynthia Millar did not have much trouble with these obstacles.

Daydreaming of what could be. It’s something we all do. Usually you wake up and forget it all together. How do you remember something you know you’re going to forget? You write it down, in paragraphs, in sentences, in phrases, etc. Gustav Mahler takes the phrases past word and into the linguistic expression of music. He turns words into a tone which we all know and understand but few truly speak. He turns this daydream into a nostalgic swirl of worldliness, vulnerability, and a childlike playfulness. He places this swirl into a cone of deep emotional expression and then lets you indulge. All of this work to turn a daydream into an ice cream cone of creation, so that the feeling never fades.

Review of Jack and Diane at Northwest Film Forum by Anika M.Twilight-y. Not in a good way.Jack and Diane tells the love story of two teenage girls with the added element of their inner monstrous transformation. I am unsure of the original intent of director Bradley Rust Gray because this movie seems to lack commitment and development within its plot, themes, and characters and all together looks like a mess of repetitive scenes loosely strung together. Jack and Diane, played by Riley Keough and Juno Temple, are two poorly developed characters that meet by chance in New York City. After spending one night together they decide, through no apparent emotional connection, that they are completely in love and need to drop everything to be together. The angst that these characters perpetuate is almost suffocating at times, an interesting caricature of the stereotypical teen relationship, just like Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in Twilight. While the angst behind the relationship is established right away and woven throughout the entire movie, the initial connection between Jack and Diane is never made, forcing the viewer to ask "Why is this worth it?" and "What do you see in her?" Because of this I find it almost impossible to really care about the success of the relationship.Did I forget to say that there is a strange monster werewolf gore subtext that is never fully pursued but rather hangs there as an "Oh yeah, I’m here too" fly on the wall? Yeah. They seem to have a mess of hair growing inside of them as their relationship rapidly progresses and at times a grotesque monster appears while they dream.Throughout the entire movie, metaphors and societal commentary are thrown about, making it hard to decipher and consider a core theme or idea. While some of the story and ideology is innovative and intriguing, the approach is confusing and ineffective. If the goal of the piece was put more into focus the story might have been more interesting and provocative, but to me it seems noncommittal and convoluted. Should you avoid this movie all together? No. It will get you thinking about something. What exactly I’m not entirely sure.Jack and Diane plays for three more night at Northwest Film Forum:Tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday, November 27 - 29 at 7:00 and 9:00 PMMore info at nwfilmforum.orgWatch the trailer:

Review of Avenue Q at Balagan Theatre by Sam H-A.

Review of Amarillo at On the Boards by Melissa C.Beautiful, creative, and moving. These are the words I use to describe Amarillo. The use of sand, water, clothing, cigarettes, point of view, multi-media, dance, color, light, movement, and voice were nothing short of perfection.In Amarillo, the tale of the illegal immigrant making his way to the U.S. and back is told almost entirely in Spanish with English translations projected on the back wall along with live-streaming and prerecorded video. That is not all that the back wall is used for. The actors jump at, climb up, talk to, and dance with this large, symbolic piece of concrete. I would like to think that I know why they interacted with the wall in this way, but every moment in this piece, every prop they used, and every line they said could be broken down and analyzed for meaning. In the end you didn’t need to know exactly what was going on for the emotion to strike home. Not only is it an incredibly well done piece, but it holds a message that is really important for people to hear – especially young people. Our country needs to change its perspective on illegal immigration and that starts with the us. This piece made me see that we need to understand the plight of the immigrant – not make them the enemy. We need to work together to find solutions – not decide that the only solution is elimination.However, even with this awakening, I still have some questions. I’ll admit that, with my very sheltered world view, I cannot possibly comprehend what would compel someone to illegally cross the Mexican/American border. I don’t understand how the promise of a country that has massive unemployment, is hugely discriminatory against Latinos, and does not try to make life easy for immigrants could outweigh the sorrow of leaving your home and your family and the risk of death when crossing the border. I also don’t understand what I can do to help. Obviously I don’t want these people dying out there – people who are willing to do whatever it takes to get the privileges that I was born with. But I don’t see how I can change anything. Is the idea that our border should just be open and any one should be allowed in? Or was the idea purely that we should stop looking at immigrant control as a political issue or an economic issue and start looking at it as a human issue? I wish that they had made it through the desert. That they had brought it closer to home, and addressed an issue that I could help correct. Because I feel that there are things that can be done right here in are communities. Often that the border never goes away in America today. The talk back after the show was a perfect example of the never-disappearing wall. There was no proper translator onstage and only about half the audience spoke Spanish while all those being interviewed spoke little English. I sat back, interested, as I watched the attempts at communication breed frustration. Even in this situation, where we desperately want to hear each other and understand each other and communicate, it was extremely difficult.In a way the show was ironic because it brought down that wall. The many different forms of communication that were present made language an afterthought and the personality and emotion the actors brought to the stage made them sympathetic to someone from any culture.Hermoso, creativo, y en movimiento. These are the words I should use to describe Amarillo.Amarillo is closedNext up at On the Boards: Kyle Loven's Loss MachineDecember 5 - 10Read more about Kyle Loven in his TeenTix Crush of the Month profile

Review of The Glass Menagerie at Seattle Repertory Theatre by Joyce R.Photo by Alan AlabastroThe contents of The Glass Menagerie are few; one room and four and a half characters: Tom Wingfield, Laura Wingfield, Amanda Wingfield, the gentleman caller, and a picture of Mr. Wingfield, staring at them through it all.With so little to work with, it’s expected that not much happens, and that’s partially true. In the one room where everything occurs, there are no epic quests, no passionate loves, and no valiant heroes. Rather, this room houses beautiful lighting that looks like silhouettes on sunsets as we watch reality unfold while the characters see only their dreams.Whether it’s Amanda Wingfield, the mother, dreaming of her lost past and her daughter’s future gentleman caller, or Tom, dreaming about his escape, they’re all deluded, they all see a reality that isn’t real.Photo by Alan AlabastroYet regardless of the illusion that this family lives in, there are moments in The Glass Menagerie that are so relatable and tangible and so uncomfortably close to the heart that the knee-jerk reaction is to swat them away. Swat away the pestering mother, Amanda Wingfield, and not bother to look for the love underlying all her actions. Swat away the distressingly fearful sister, Laura Wingfield, and not bother to see the perceptiveness hidden in her silence. Swat away the selfish Tom, and ignore his underlying longings that are so similar to our own.Swat them all away and choose to ignore how similar they all are to ourselves.We are like Tom and Laura and Amanda. We sacrifice, we quietly wish, and we fear. And like them, we all live in our own illusions in some way.The Wingfield family eventually learns that dreams aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Playwright Tennessee Williams wasn’t fond of the happy ending (as evidenced by his other plays, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and this play isn’t an exception. By the end, this sad little family that lives in their dreams is coldly brought back to reality.It doesn’t exactly bring the warm fuzzies, but it’s life.Photo by Alan AlabastroAnd that’s why there will be many different interpretations of The Glass Menagerie, because it’s a play so chock full of life; full of recognizable moments that happens secretly in households when no one is around; full of the things you think about before bed, when no one is listening. This play tastes like life and even if it’s not conventionally enjoyable, The Glass Menagerie forces a mirror in front of your face, that’s what makes it so worth seeing.The Glass MenagerieSeattle Repertory TheatreThrough December 2