Review: JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL & LIVING IN PARIS at ACT

JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL & LIVING IN PARIS
Music by Jacques Brel
Production Conception, English Lyrics and Additional Material by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman
Through May 17 2015
A Co-Production of ACT -- A Contemporary Theatre  and The 5th Avenue Theatre
at ACT
700 Union Street
Seattle WA 98101-4037
www.5thavenue.org / www.acttheatre.org
The common wisdom about BREL (so shortened to suit my laziness - the artist himself will be named in mixed-case as "Brel") is that it is a revue, a show without a story.

The common wisdom ain't so wise.

Director David Armstrong understands that the key to BREL -- and to Brel -- is that this is not a show without a story, but rather, a show with over two dozen stories. Brel's work here is like a finely crafted volume of short stories, with sharply drawn characters and vignettes not surrounding the songs as in a book musical, but within each of them. And, in support of that idea, he has cast a troupe of five performers (well, six, actually -- with one mid-run swap) who are terrific singers, but even more, wonderful actors who know they are creating characters and telling stories in song.

Brel, a Belgian singer-songwriter whose career spanned almost precisely the middle half of the 20th century, had terrific impact by himself on the tradition of the chanson and on European cabaret. But even more, many of his songs became more familiar to us when performed, especially in English translation, by a long roster of performers including (taking a deep breath here) Karen Akers, Marc Almond, Joan Baez, Theodore Bikel, David Bowie, Glen Campbell, Belinda Carlisle, Ray Charles, Judy Collins, John Denver, Neil Diamond, Marlene Dietrich, Céline Dion, Sheena Easton, Marianne Faithfull... and that just takes us through the F's - for a more complete list, check the Wikipedia article. He was cited as a significant influence by many writers including  Bowie, Alex Harvey, Leonard Cohen, Almond and Rod McKuen -- the last having written some of the most frequently performed, but sometimes a bit too free-wheeling, English translations of his work.

Brel's work is rich in story but also in character, in sentiment but also in irony and sarcasm. (In fact, some interpretations by other translators who are tone-deaf to the searing sarcasm of Brel's lyrics miss the mark by being sincere to the point of being maudlin -- it's hard to believe that the much-derided "Seasons in the Sun" could have come from Brel's "Le Moribond" until you see that the original lyrics mock the missed lover and friend for the affair with which they betrayed the dying singer.) And Armstrong and the cast evoke that edge -- in Cayman Ilika's initially shy, but ultimately anything but shy, turn in "Timid Frieda" to Timothy McCuen Piggee's review of his own mourners from his bier in "Funeral Tango" to Eric Ankrim's and the other male singer's (Louis Hobson in the first half of the run, followed by Matt Owen) turn on "Girls and Dogs," to name three examples.

When you have songs that are themselves rich miniature plays or monologues, you need more than fine singers - you need terrific actors who are fine singers. Such is the BREL cast -- performers who are at home on the musical as well as non-musical stage, with a range of unique voices. The manic, almost explosive energy of Eric Ankrim serves as a perfect bookend in the second half of the run to the sensitive but joyous edge of Matt Owen. While Louis Hobson is a fine singer and actor, Owen found both harder edges and broader humor in the songs - while Hobson's "Fanette" was mostly wistful, Owen found an underlying bitterness to it. Piggee brings to his songs the extravagance and depth of character he brought to his performance as Belize in Intiman's ANGELS IN AMERICA last summer, but does so with several characters in three-minute chunks, from the corpse in "Funeral Tango" to  the sailor in "Amsterdam." 

The contrast is the strongest between the equally wonderful female voices - Ilika's sweetness, sadness, and rage illuminate every song she is in, and unique style and sound of Kendra Kassebaum makes "I Loved" and "My Death" wondrous, but nowhere near as much so as one of Brel's most familiar tunes, Ne Me Quitte Pas." (You may be familiar with Rod McKuen's oft-recorded version, "If You Go Away"; to me, that translation buries much of the genuine desperation in treacle, so the choice to make it the only song that is sung in the original and perfectly-accented French was a great one.)

The convergence of direction, performance, and stagecraft enhance the production in many ways - from the minimalist platform-and-elevator set, to the sparing but on-the-mark use of projections, to great costuming choices that add to the narrative and thematic richness -- from "Timid Frieda's" on-stage change, to the sport-on-sport costumes in "The Bulls" that combine football, bullfighting and, ultimately, combat into one crowd-fueled jingoistic binge, to the UN-costuming that strips the emotion of "Next" bare. This is a production that is full of great choices.

Staging twenty-six Brel songs end-to-end runs the risk of suggesting repetition, and there are places that the similarities between songs are strong -- especially between the full-company opener, "Marathon," and the penultimate "Carousel." But that sense is overcome by the strength of the numbers and the performances. The show ends with the full company performing what is probably Brel's most-sung piece, and the most anthemic and non-narrative, "If We Only Have Love"; after the dark and bitter and biting journeys we take earlier in the show, it is uplifting and cathartic, a beautiful way to leave the theatre.

BREL is a show I've hoped to see for more than half my life. I am not disappointed.

Review: LIZARD BOY at Seattle Rep

LIZARD BOY

By Justin Huertas

Through May 2 2015

Seattle Repertory Theatre

155 Mercer Street
Seattle, WA 98109 

www.seattlerep.org

(I should note up front that I can't make it through this review keeping to the convention of last-name references; the cast and director are theatre artists I know and whose work I care about greatly, and that last-name thing was feeling incredibly stilted as I wrote it, so it's first names from here on out.)

"Sit down and write about LIZARD BOY while it's fresh," I tell myself. And then, I think: LIZARD BOY will never be anything but fresh. It's handmade without being twee, authentic without being emo.

Set in what Marvel Comics famously called "the world outside your window" -- a Seattle of Dick's burgers but also of dragons emerging from Mount St. Helens, of Grindr hookups but also of super-powers -- the show is fantastic without ever being artificial, larger than life but also exactly the size and shape of real life.

Justin was commissioned by the Rep to keep diaries while playing cello on the SPRING AWAKENING National Tour, with the goal of having them turned into a play. The heart of the show evolved from a tour diary to a coming-out tale, then (as the author describes it) "a coming-out tale, but with super-powers." Through readings and workshops to its current fully-staged form, LIZARD BOY has grown bigger and richer and deeper without ever giving up an iota of its joyous hand-crafted spirit.

Trevor, the lizard boy of the title, was one of a half-dozen children trapped on a Tacoma playground during the battle during which the dragon was battled to its death. Its blood conferred super-powers on five of the six -- but left Trevor only with green, scaly skin. Often shunned but occasionally fetishized as exotic, Trevor has resigned himself to a life alone with his sketchpad, his music, and his dreams -- leaving his refuge only one night a year, for the MonsterFest that commemorates the night of the dragon, when revelers dress up and he can be taken for one boy in a lizard costume among thousands.

The search for his date of the previous year on Grindr yields an awkward contact, and an even more contact not-quite-hookup, with William A. Williams' Cary ("like Sissy Spacek?" "No, Cary Grant."), and through a web of crossed signals and horny sweetness, they approach, withdraw, and end up heading to the Crocodile to hear the singer Siren (Kirsten deLohr Helland), who Trevor recognizes on the cover of The Stranger as the girl of his dreams -- literally -- and the girl in his sketchbook. 

It's not giving away much of the plot to reveal that Siren, as well, was one of the Point Defiance playground kids, or that her powers and agenda move the plot to the awesome battle that ensues. In the readings and workshops, the script at this point simply said, "An awesome battle ensues" -- it is a testament to the superb staging instincts of director Brandon Ivie, and the sheer presence and power of the cast, that the battle covers the entire surface and every level of the stage, and no performers or musical instruments are harmed in the process.

Oh, did I fail to mention the musical instruments? From the moment you enter the theatre, the stage is pretty much covered in the objects -- "instruments" is much too narrow -- that will provide the score. Everyone is not only acting and singing but also playing -- Justin mainly on cello, Bill mainly on guitar, Kirsten on everything from melodica to piano to ukulele, with kazoos and random percussion objects being played by all (including Bill's beatboxing), and instruments smoothly being moved from stage to hand to hand. It's not a dance show, but the flow of the instruments is pure choreography.

I know I haven't mentioned the songs yet -- only because I can't say it all at once. Justin has crafted songs that lay the characters bare, move the plot to places it couldn't go in any other way, and heighten the emotional ante, all at once. They're great pop songs; they're great rock songs; they're great theatre songs. Justin's and Bill's terrific voices more than serve them well, and Kirsten's astounding instrument (as in many shows before) is a jaw-droppingly powerful wonder. The songs have one of the most important characteristics of great theatre songs: they are at once specific to the plot and universal to anyone in a situation anything like it. (Granted, without the exact complications of super-powers and dragon blood.)

In his career so far, Brandon Ivie has worked on some very traditional types of shows (A CHRISTMAS STORY, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN); but his passion (as reflected in the NEW VOICES concert series he has conceived and put together) has clearly been for newer-style, more "fringe-y" works, such as NEXT TO NORMAL and JASPER IN DEADLAND, the latter his New York directing debut that is about to be re-staged at the 5th Avenue. He has helped this cast of friends fully realize the work with love and skill.

It's always a little bit of a red flag when people say things like "you've never seen anything like it" or "it's unlike anything else" -- it always makes me want to ask, "Yes, but how good is it?!" So I won't go there, because LIZARD BOY doesn't need me to do so -- it's an awesome, real, pure adventure in the theatre.

But I will say this: one of the best and rarest experiences in the theatre is the feeling that, even through years of craft, weeks of rehearsal, precise direction, and performance after performance, you are watching a bunch of friends creating something new every time. Like Trevor, you're seeing the work of an awesome man but also a boy. In our being privileged to share in that act of creation, we remember the best child-like reason that we call them "play."