Video Mini-Review: MURDER BALLAD by Sidecountry Theatre at West of Lenin

MURDER BALLAD
Conceived by and with Book and Lyrics by Julia Jordan
Music and Lyrics by Juliana Nash
Directed by Billie Wildrick

Through November 13 2016

Presented by Sidecountry Theatre
at West of Lenin
203 N. 36th St.
Seattle WA 98103
www.sidecountrytheatre.org

Review: Going 15 Rounds with Frank Wildhorn and Emerging Unscathed

BONNIE & CLYDE
Book by Ivan Menchell
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by Frank Wildhorn

Through August 13 2016

Presented by Studio 18 Productions
at 12th Ave Arts
1620 12th Avenue
Seattle WA 98122

www.studio18productions.com

A caveat: I may not be the best person to review this show. I've been known to describe its score as "the Frank Wildhorn score I hate the least." 

It's great to see a production where the book, the score, the cast, and the rest of the creatives all work in harmony to produce a thing of beauty. This, alas, is not that production. Instead, it's one where the company does, well, the very best they can with what's been given them. 

Most of Wildhorn's shows are light on plot, character, and coherency, and full of bombast. And when I say "full," I mean over-long.

To B&C's credit, it is light on the bombast; rather than the overblown PHANTOM-manqué of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL and JEKYLL AND HYDE, or the chaos of WONDERLAND, the bluegrass and country inspired sound of the show gives it a more intimate scale that serves the story and the performers better. 

Unfortunately, what does not in any way serve the performers is the book. The story manages to be too wordy and too skeletal at the same time, with much less there than meets the eye (or the clock). Every character can be expressed in about two sentences - not because they're so clear and well-drawn, but rather, the opposite. How this cast managed to build any internal life at all for "Hates the Banks and Glorifies Outlaws" and "Wants to Be a Star and Falls for Anything in Pants who Charms Her," as the title characters may be called, is a wonder. Not to mention brother "Torn Between Loyalty to Brother and Wife," er, brother Buck, or "Good Christian Woman in an Impossible Situation," or as we know her, Blanche. Even shallower is "High School Boyfriend turned Jealous Deputy," also known as Ted Hinton. (I suspect the thanklessness of this role may have been one of the final straws in bringing Louis Hobson back from Broadway to better roles and to development of far more interesting works in Seattle.)

The idea of the glorification of the outlaw during hard times likely has a genuinely interesting show lurking in it. And it might be as a 2:20 version of this show, with a better book and judicious editing of the music.  But it's not this one.

Struggling with the material, the cast takes some hard punches, and comes through to be much better than the show itself. The guys are very good; the women, even better. 

Zack Summers has recently been strong in large ensembles (ArtsWest's AMERICAN IDIOT) and small (Centerstage's RING OF FIRE); here in his first lead, he has the charm and bravado, not to mention the vocal power and subtlety, to really make Clyde's songs work. There's a can't-win aspect to the role, in that you have to dislike a lot of things about the character and sympathize at the same time; in some ways Zack may be too likable for some aspects of that - as were Jeremy Jordan and Stark Sands before him - but I don't think audiences would get behind a less charming or less attractive Clyde. Brian Pucheu does a fine job with Buck as well, though there's even less to work with.

As Bonnie, Jasmine Jean Sim makes you want to grab her and shake her about a dozen times during the show - which, I guess, means she's nailing the naiveté and vanity of the character. And she sings the living crap out of it. Kate E. Cook gets to sing my favorite number in the show as Blanche, "That's What You Call a Dream"... and totally, utterly does it, and the role of Blanche, justice.  

The rest of the cast has even less to work with, even Randall Scott Carpenter as lawman Ted, and they manage to grab the theatrical jello and get their arms around it.

BONNIE & CLYDE is Studio 18's first production. The energy that partners Matt Lang (director) and Alia Collins-Friedrichs (producer) bring to it, and the fine musical support by the ensemble led by Travis Frank, show great promise. I look forward to seeing what more interesting show they choose for their next outing - so the cast can triumph with the show, rather than over it.

One final thought: given the closeness of the black box theatre, I hope the cast didn't experience what I did during Act II. I feel like I just sat behind a piece of audience performance art. Last time I checked, "drinks are allowed in the theatre" is not the same as "share a burger and fries (including reaching across to dip the fries, scraping the pickles off your burger, and constantly crumpling napkins), reading the net on your phone for the last 25 minutes of the show, and kissing, cuddling, and chatting." I have never hoped so hard a cast couldn't tell what was going on in the audience. Patti LuPone would have shoved the burger down their throats, the phone up their butts, and told them what to kiss...

Review: RING OF FIRE at CenterStage Theatre

RING OF FIRE
The Musical Story of Johnny Cash

Created by Richard Maltby, Jr.

Conceived by William Meade

Adapted from the Broadway Production by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Jason Edwards

Through February 14 2016

at CenterStage Theatre

3200 SW Dash Point Road

Federal Way, WA 98003

www.centerstagetheatre.com

Funny thing, the jukebox show (and specifically, the songbook show): so many ways to go, and so many ways to get it wrong. 

Some creators choose to weave together a plot and nail songs to it. MAMMA MIA, XANADU, AMERICAN IDIOT, ROCK OF AGES, the forthcoming DISASTER... sometimes it works fine, sometimes less so. (I'm not taking sides on any of the shows I mentioned -- if you'd like to guess where I stand on each of them, have at it in the comments.)

Some opt for biography. Some artists' lives are inspiring or tragically interesting, and other, again, less so. JERSEY BOYS, THE BOY FROM OZ, BEAUTIFUL, MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET, FELA!... There's always the risk that the music will pull you out of the story as much as drive it along.

When all else fails, stick to the music. After all, if you go ALL SHOOK UP!, you want to hear lots of Elvis tunes; BEATLEMANIA, an overdose of the Fab Four. (My own personal favorite of the genre is JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS, a wonderful production of which was co-presented by ACT and the 5th Avenue last season, with one of the leads of the current show wonderful in the cast.) For variety, add dance, as Twyla Tharp did for Billy Joel in MOVIN' OUT and Sinatra in COME FLY AWAY. But for the shortest path to satisfaction, let the music speak.

RING OF FIRE comes darn close to doing so. While it's billed as "the musical story of Johnny Cash," don't expect the warts-and-all biography of JERSEY BOYS. (If you really want a solid picture of that, of course, there's always the excellent film WALK THE LINE, or Robert Kilburn's book JOHNNY CASH: THE LIFE; for a deep backgrounder the Carter Family into which Cash married, read WILL YOU MISS ME WHEN I'M GONE?) The timeline that runs through the show pretty much serves to put the music in context, and if you know about Johnny and June it won't teach you anything new, and if you don't, it won't matter much to you either.

But that's not really a problem here. The show wisely lets the music speak. And it's performed wonderfully. 

Many of the songs in Act 1 are from the early days of Cash's life and his early and middle career, and set the backdrop of gospel ("Old Rugged Cross"), hillbilly (Hank Williams' "Straight A's in Love"), as well as rock 'n' roll and "traditional" country, plus a couple of his sillier pieces, "Flushed" and "Dirty Ol' Egg Sucking Dog." But we also get to see the beginning of the era when the respect for his remarkable talent opened up some of the richer rock and folk-rock of the 60s and later - Tim Hardin's lovely "If I Were a Carpenter" - as well as songs that are on almost anyone's Cash Top Ten - "Ring of Fire."

Act 2 is shorter but holds even more of those "name your favorite Johnny Cash song" songs, from the Folsom era and later, including "Folsom Prison Blues," "Man in Black," "I Walk the Line," and "Hey Porter." And the show wraps with the unforgettable "A Boy Named Sue." My favorite number in the show? I'll come back to that in a moment.

As for the performances... well, let's get one thing out of the way. If you're expecting to hear Johnny Cash's unmistakeable bass-baritone, well, let go of that. Instead, come to hear terrific singers and musicians doing great justice to the Johnny Cash songbook.

As (mainly) Johnny and June throughout the show, Jared Michael Brown and Cayman Ilika are terrific. Brown has been a fixture in the Seattle theater scene since the 2009 Contemporary Classics production of ZANNA, DON'T! He's appeared in ensemble, featured, and lead roles at major venues including the 5th Avenue (SOUND OF MUSIC, PIRATES OF PENZANCE), Village Theatre (IRON CURTAIN), and others. His performance is easy yet charismatic; his delivery is very much Cash's, but his excellent vocal performance is all his own. Ilika is a chameleon of a singer, with a voice that's crystalline and substantial all at once. She's been Mary Poppins and Marian the librarian, Patsy Cline and now June Carter Cash... and shines as all of them.

(I say "mainly" Johnny and June: the scaling down of the show from the 14 performers in the Broadway cast to the six in the current show occasionally leads to difficult transitions, such as when Cash and band are auditioning for Sun Records' Sam Phillips, and the role of Cash is handed off to one of the other musicians so that Brown can don sunglasses and play Phillips. A little clumsy dramatically... but not really important.)

The rest of the cast, and the band, include Tom Stewart, Jack Dearth, Zack Summers and Sean Tomerlin - with Summers on drums (and occasional comic outburst) and the other three on various guitars, including acoustic, electric, and bass. They, too, do great justice to the Cash songbook. 

As for my favorite song in the show: surprisingly, it's not one sung by the leads. One of the highest points of Cash's relationship with, and respect for and by, the next generation of performer and the mainstream of rock music was his performance of Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down." While it was recorded by Ray Stevens first, Cash's performance really pushed the song into the limelight; Kristofferson thanks the song, and especially Cash's performance, for allowing him "to quit working for a living." Tom Stewart brought me to tears with his spare, tortured rendition. As did Johnny Cash. He would have been honored, I think.

If there's anything I regret about the show, it's that I was left wishing a few more songs had been in it - "One Piece at a Time," "Wayfaring Stranger," and from later on, John Prine's "The Twentieth Century is Almost Over" and Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle," to name a few. 

I really love it when my biggest problem with a show is that it left me wanting more...

Making Me According to Will

In the Orthodox morning prayers, men thank God for not making them a woman. The traditional explanation is that men are obligated to more commandments of the 613 in the Torah, so are thanking God for giving them more rules. Obviously, especially in my lifetime which coincides so with much of the public life of feminism, this rankles. So many men have taken to saying the woman's morning prayer, which praises God who "made me according to His will."

So here's the thing. When I say "according to His will" - or, more agnostically, "as I am," I mean: not straight. Not cookie-cutter. Not with a script and a program.

I have had experiences that would not only be out of the realm of every one of my straight friend's, relatives', and co-workers' experiences, they would be foreign concepts to them, beyond their lexicons. Or, at the very least, the poorly-understood punchline to a stereotypical joke.

And I'm not just thinking about things like sex club events. I'm thinking of people, people I know and value, whose lives would be beyond the experience of most and the comprehension of nearly all, but who are daily a part of my life.

(Thanks to a lovely and talented friend visiting from Vancouver for being a sounding board for some of this when we went out for drinks yesterday - when I was, to be honest, thinking how lucky I was that we were doing so, and that if the universe were a more just place he'd be spending that time fucking someone instead of discussing queer culture with me. But luckily for me, that's how the time went.)

I'm grateful that class and status work very differently in our queer lives.

I'm not by any means saying that it doesn't exist, of course. Nor am I saying that race, class, or gender don't matter and don't affect anything. That's just crazy talk. Alas.

But what is true, I think, is this: there are added dimensions of status and class - chiefly, but not solely, because sex is involved. And because sex and gender are what makes us "The Other."

Here's one thread of it. I am reasonably certain that none of my co-workers or relatives could comfortably say something like (and I'm choosing the sentence formulation specifically for its cliché elements) "Some of my best friends are escorts/pornstars" - and mean it. I can. Lots of us here can. And be serious about the "friends," and often, "best friends" parts, too. And, of course, I'm not talking about those of us who let a guy pay our bus fare once or twice - though in the greater design, it's more a matter of degree.

Part of it is that, in an arena in which sexual attraction and sexual activity carries cachet, it defines added dimensions of status and class. And those dimensions can - imperfectly - cross class and race lines. And sometimes, gender (or at least gender identity and expression) as well.

It goes beyond the commercial-sex arena, too. There is the guy who lives on near-subsistence wage, but puts on the best parties in town, where the door is controlled by the bouncer equivalent of Cerberus. (Good puppy! Good puppy! Good puppy!) There are, parallel to this, more central to some and extraneous to others, the title and Imperial Court systems.

When social and sexual currency add these dimensions, the way our paths interact become more complex, and richer. Not without their own problems and challenges, of course. But more complex, and richer.

So, yes, I'm thankful for what's added to my life when "some of my best friends, and dearest loved ones, are pornstars/escorts/titleholders/Imperials/etc." and in which assumptions about anything, including race, gender, orientation, class, and status are not automatic or trivially made. 

I can't imagine living a life in which none of the following have happened, just to name a handful:

- Hearing a certain trans adult entertainer used as a punchline, and being able to turn to the person who did it and say, "He's a neat guy, actually - had a coffee date with him last year."

- Hanging out with a few friends in "the business" and chatting about the important things in their lives, which for the conversations about which I'm thinking included pianos, arts administration, intermediate education, and comics.

- Possibly being the only person ever to broker a three-way conversation between a pornstar/escort (I'd say "pornstar/escort/law student" but that would make it a little too obvious), a theatrical producer, and an award-winning comics/TV/play writer in which the commodity that would change hands was neither sex nor cash, but rather, a (blank) novelty flash drive.

- On a different subject but one under the same umbrella, knowing a member of my co-ed college fraternity whom I called "brother" in the sense we used where everyone, whatever the gender, was a "brother," but who subsequently could be taken as a brother in the most all-male club as well.

- Being in a small group that heard the current president of the World Bank start a sentence with "when we shut down Pfizer."

And that's just scratching the surface of the richness of experience that being queer has brought me.

So, thank you, universe, genes, hormones, whatever, for making me as I am.

Review: Green Day's AMERICAN IDIOT at ArtsWest

AMERICAN IDIOT
Music by Green Day
Lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong
Book by Billie Joe Armstrong & Michael Mayer
Through October 11 2015
at ArtsWest
4711 California Ave SW
Seattle WA 98116
www.artswest.org

I've been staring blankly at the screen for a few minutes trying to figure out how to start. Part of me wants to analyze the material, the music, the performances, the direction, the staging. Part of me wants to lay bare my reaction to the energy and emotion and fire of the experience. It's as though my left and right brains want to go all Siskel and Ebert on its fine theatrical ass. So before I jump in and let my hemispheres duke it out, I'll say this: both sides of the corpus callosum aisle give ArtsWest's production of AMERICAN IDIOT a high thumbs up.

People are talking about this production. They tend to fall into two main camps: "I hate the music (or, more extremely, the music is everything wrong with the theatre today) but the production is amazing" and "I love the music (or, more extremely, this is what stands a chance of keeping musical theatre alive) and the production is amazing." I'm squarely in the second camp: I've loved Green Day since they were a local punk band in the Bay Area when I lived there in the late 80s and 90s, and when the album of AMERICAN IDIOT came out, saw it as a major leap forward for an already-powerful, thoughtful, creative band. The close thematic integration of the songs on the album make it clear that the work was written with an eye to other media and modes of presentation - not as thoroughly rock-operatic as, say, The Who's TOMMY or Pink Floyd's THE WALL in the fact that plot and characters aren't right there in the material (and the band didn't show all its cards about the narrative - it was likely not fully developed until the decision to take it to the stage and the participation of Michael Mayer) - but much more so than randomly strung-together jukebox shows like MOMMA MIA or JERSEY BOYS.

Let's get the (small) complaints about the work out of the way to start with. The plot is, to put it generously, lean. There's a punky off-scansion and loose rhyming to the lyrics that probably makes many Sondheim aficionados cringe. And it's not exactly a Bechdel test all-star, with the key women's parts existing to support the voyage of the central male trio.

But their story is both universal and specifically current - as current today, in its way, as it was when it hit vinyl (ok, MP3) over a decade ago. In post-American-dream America, Johnny, Will, and Tunny try to make their way being "how I'm supposed to be / In a land of make believe / That don't believe in me." They set out to leave suburbia for the city to find their souls and purposes, but Will finds out his girlfriend Heather is pregnant, and stays behind for a life of beer-weed-and-TV couch-potato resentment. Johnny and Tunny head out and each is seduced by what he sees as his icon: Johnny, under the spell of the nihilist drug-dealer St. Jimmy, replaces the numbness of suburbia with the numbness and soul-agony of addiction, Tunny, following the physically perfect, adored, and driven Favorite Son, replaces it with the numbness and physical agony of war.

I won't follow the plot to the end; suffice it to say that loves are born and lost (Johnny's with Whatsername and Tunny's with the Extraordinary Girl who nurses him to health), lives are changed, and the tension between love and rage that has defined Johnny's (and, by extension, everyone's) existence gives birth to a hope for the future that is new.

The magic of AMERICAN IDIOT, though, is not its story. It starts with the music. But where it really comes together is in the execution: the astounding, raw, bare, beautiful performances by the huge cast, and even more, the amazing immersive recreation of the show under the creative team led by the frightening-in-all-the-best-ways mind of director Eric Ankrim.

I loved IDIOT on Broadway (twice, once with Billie Joe as St. Jimmy) and liked it a lot on tour. But the traditional staging, with its fourth-wall separation and Broadway-gypsies-go-pogo choreography, felt very much like a show around the music. The ArtsWest production takes no prisoners in its staging, including gutting the space to create three immersive tracks with off-stage action. I've seen immersive productions before, but they were usually more of the "sitting in a supper club or disco as the show unrolls around you" form of GREAT COMET and HERE LIES LOVE or the "walk through the mystery house from room to room" style. None of them prepared me for the complex yet totally involving Build-Your-Own-Adventure-on-steroids nature of this production. 

It's hard to say where staging and direction ends and choreography begins - the action is equal parts tantrum, ballet, and 3D chess, with everything moving organically and perfectly. I saw it last week in one of the immersive tribes (the military tribe that tells Tunny's story more deeply), and today observationally from one of the seats left intact in the rebuilt maze of ramps, stairs, and platforms; each experience enhances the other. In fact, it's a testimony to the thoroughness of the vision that in several places the experience of the immersive tribes actually enhances the observational track: the moment, for instance, when Johnny, walking with his guitar, sings his loneliness in a crowd and by himself in BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS, is passed by two of the tribes, one to his left, one to his right, one moving forward, one moving back, and leaving him by himself is brilliantly powerful.

Not the least of the brilliance of the staging is keeping over thirty people - cast, ensemble, tribe guides - in motion and in the service of the work, all shining for their moments. The leads are stunningly good. Frederick Hagreen has added power and grace to the ensembles of many productions in the past few years, but has recently been seen front-and-center far more, and with his turn as Freddy Mercury with Seattle Men's Chorus, his terrific Bobby Strong in SMT's URINETOWN, and now as Johnny, his light burns ten times as bright. Michael Coale Grey is new to Seattle, but his rich résumé at great theatres like Goodspeed and Paper Mill is enhanced further by his sensitive and richly-sung turn as Will. Justin Huertas shows his breadth in every outing, and delivers a sharp and strongly sung Tunny, fueled by rage and doubt, never too broad and never too small. Trent Moury is one of the latest young actors to grow out of youth theatre into mainstage roles - Bernstein in last season's ArtsWest production of DOGFIGHT, Billy Bigelow in the 5th's Rising Star CAROUSEL - but the seductiveness of his St. Jimmy, the serpent in the garden of Johnny's mind, is an adult role in a way I've never seen him play, and perfectly there. 

The women's roles may not be as central, but they are played stunningly too. That Kirsten DeLohr Helland is electrifying as Whatsername is no surprise (nor is the fact that her insane range will take her from IDIOT to the most delicate and glowing Maria I've ever beheld in the 5th's SOUND OF MUSIC later this year) - but her voice, full of raging belt and hovering pain of love, is a fresh experience every time. Jimmie Herrod's performance of Extraordinary Girl is, well, extraordinary: so perfect and on-target that it never occurs for a second to call it a drag turn; rather, it is just a perfect pairing of a performer (and his voice) with a role. And Chelsea LaValley, whom I enjoyed greatly in stageRIGHT's terrific FLOYD COLLINS, plays the somewhat thankless role of Heather with a great edge, a great vulnerability, and a great sound.

Singling out others in the ensemble is almost impossible - everyone has their moments to shine, and everyone makes everyone else shine brighter. So if I give shouts-out to the always-wonderful Ryan McCabe, the stunningly powerful Ann Cornelius, and the astounding physical-performing presence that is Jordan Taylor, it in no way diminishes my admiration for any member of the company - or, even more, for the company as a whole, one huge tribe that will probably always have this as one highlight of their ongoing lives in the theatre (which, given that some members of the cast are still in high school, should go on to many, many more triumphs).

That the show requires not only Ankrim's powerful directing hand but three choreographers is not surprising, considering the amount of movement and the number of spaces in which it goes on at once. It's a testimony to the organic creation that it is hard to say where Ankrim's, Trina Mills', Gabe Corey's, and Shadou Mintone's contributions begin and end (and to the fortitude of Production Stage Manager Melanie LeDuc that all of the moving parts move so seamlessly). 

On the musical front, performing a genuine rock score in a theatre context and not making it sound like an imitation is a hell of a challenge, one to which both R.J. Tancioco and Chris Ranney have risen multiple times before, and this is as good as any other they've done. (The superb orchestrations by Tom Kitt don't hurt - there is a special warm place in my soul for Tom Kitt strings.) 

The rest of the design team are to be lauded for being willing to take every chance in this journey - and none more so than ArtsWest Artistic Director Mathew Wright. ArtsWest had grown stodgy, I think, in recent years - to the extent that I canceled my subscription before last season - but the repertory choices of last season's acting Artistic Director, Annie Lareau, and especially Mat's for this season bring the theatre back to the forefront of where hot young theatre is happening in town. The organization's big bet on this production is evidenced in the gutting and reconstruction of the house to support the immersive staging - demonstrating that the theatre building itself is a microcosm of the dynamic, risk-taking institution.

AMERICAN IDIOT ends with the beautiful "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" - performed with the cast in and around the audience, and gathered, heart-circle-like, center stage. It repeats: "It's something unpredictable but in the end is right / I hope you had the time of your life."

I did. You will.

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."