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."

Survivor Guilt? Survivor Pride? Or... Just Surviving.

There is a large body of post-Holocaust Jewish writing that is rich with survivor guilt. (Hah! Some riches!) The sense of randomness -- why me, why not them? -- is overwhelming, both to the character (or memoirist) and to the reader.

It comes as no surprise, then, that our subsequent Holocaust, fought not on the landscape of Europe and Asia but on the biological landscape, has brought feelings of a similar nature to those of us Ishmaels who feel "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee"... perhaps not alone, but forsaken and lonely, perhaps, and haunted by the perceived randomness of it all. 

This survivor guilt is not without its consequences. Some, mired in futility and abandonment, have given up on the struggle and put themselves in situations where seroconversion was more likely, if not inevitable -- whether purely through sexual risk (or resignation or, in the rarest of cases, actual pursuit of seroconversion) or with the added "enhancement" -- because, yes, that is, ironically enough, one of the common terms -- of lowering inhibitions through meth use. Others have been hit by many of the other indicators of post-traumatic stress.

Many activists have recently responded with a move toward survivor pride. Making it through the plague years and staying virus-free, they say, is a great personal achievement, built on discipline, strength, and caring. Don't just chalk it up to luck -- you really did amazing acts to survive. Revel in what you have achieved, and use it to bolster your resolve to continue, with whatever tools you have and can use, till the day we can get beyond the fear and loss.

It's a laudable sentiment. Or, at least, it seems that way at first glance. But it breaks down for me. And here's why.

Through the worst years of our bodily Holocaust, I was a good boy. The best. I used condoms every time -- despite the lack of spontaneity, the differences in sensation, and, in a time (thankfully now past except for some lingering after-effects) when I experienced diabetic neuropathy and circulation issues, strong interference with erection and stimulation to orgasm. I tested regularly. And I did everything I could to support the community and to keep my friends and others safer and healthy as well.

But you know what? So did many of my friends. And some of them are here to feel that pride. And others are in our hearts, our minds, our memories, on quilt panels, and in urns on their widowers' mantels. (Or, in at a couple of cases I can think of, in San Francisco Bay, or in the ink of a tattoo.)

And do you know the difference between what I did and what they did? Nothing. They were good boys too, in the darkest days of the plague.

And that leaves us with two choices. Either we doubt their goodness, their caution, their testimony... or we acknowledge that our best efforts are not enough by themselves, and luck played a significant role. Ultimately, we were also subject to cosmic rolls of the dice.

What does this mean? Does this lessen the importance of our efforts? Hell no. They were critically significant. All I am saying is that they were necessary but not, alas, sufficient for all of us.

For me, then, it's not about survivor guilt: I owe it to those who are not here to do so to live the best, richest, happiest life I can, to honor their memories in addition to honoring my own efforts. And it's not about survivor pride: recognizing that the choices we take to protect ourselves may not be sufficient but they are necessary, I go on and put the effort I might put into patting myself on the back into giving others a hand up.

No, it's about surviving. And living. And against the forces that have besieged us and stolen our loved ones from us, that is not only the best revenge, but the only revenge.

Review: NEXT TO NORMAL at SecondStory Repertory

NEXT TO NORMAL

Music by Tom Kitt
Book and Lyrics by Brian Yorkey

Through Mar. 15, 2015

SecondStory Repertory

16587 NE 74th St
Redmond, WA 98052 

www.secondstoryrep.org

Everybody has a blind spot or two. Or, at least, others think they do. I have a friend who writes about theatre both professionally and recreationally, and who thinks that NEXT TO NORMAL is The Worst Musical Ever and Everything That's Wrong With Musical Theatre Today.

This review is for the rest of you...

OK, I'll grant that NEXT TO NORMAL is not an easy show - not easy to sing or act, not easy for directors and actors to find the characters, not easy to sit through in the light-entertainment sense. It raises serious questions about sanity and insanity, visibility and invisibility, memory and forgetting. But the journey is, I think, rich in rewards. And this production, especially, finds substance I've never seen in any other production, from coast to coast.

We meet the Goodmans - OK, maybe a little obvious - on a morning like any other. For them, anyway. It becomes clear pretty quickly that the world of wife and mother Diana might be somewhat off-kilter, as her sandwich-making turns compulsive. And the Goodmans themselves - Diana, husband Dan, daughter Natalie, son Gabe - may not all be who or what they seem, either. Gabe's overpowering influence on his mother and nobody else, Natalie's frustration at disconnection from her mother, Dan's struggling to hold the family together as Diana melts down and passes from therapist to (rock-star) therapist... yield a family dynamic (capped with the addition of Henry, Natalie's sweet stoner of a suitor) that is far from (even next to) normal, but also, familiar in many ways.

When you ask people what N2N is about, the short answer is often "electroconvulsive (shock) therapy" - that certainly is an important element, reflected in the original developmental title of the show (and title of one of the songs still), FEELING ELECTRIC. But Diana's journey to, and through, ECT is just the catalyst for the complex dance that the Goodmans will do, on their way to negotiated survival, and spiritual light.

I've always been a little disappointed with some of the character dynamics of the show - every production I've seen before seemed to reflect the natures of the characters too much in the dynamics of the performances as well. It's always seemed that Diana and Natalie had the highs and lows, Gabe a few mysteriously explosive and seductively sweet turns, and Dan and Henry left to be the stable, reassuring, but somewhat wooden pillars on which the production rests. This is the first production that, to me, really let the male partners, and especially Dan, be full and equal emotional forces in the show.

Diana and Natalie have always been strong diva roles, and Ann Cornelius and Regan Morris are wonderful in them. Cornelius, a performer new to Seattle but from whom I hope to see lots more, carries the bombast of the highs and lows of Diana perfectly, and also, knows when to speak, even near-whisper, a line or phrase to make it really hit home. There were many places her vocal performance was reminiscent of Alice Ripley's at her best in the show, paired with some surprisingly soft, almost painfully quiet readings. And Morris is spot-on as Natalie: hurt, angry, giddy, controlled, out of control... and always pitch-perfect both vocally and as a scene companion for each of the others.

The revelation in this production, though, as I said, are the male partners, Ryan McCabe as Dan and Christopher Ellis as Henry. McCabe has been a mainstay of Seattle theatre for as long as I've been here, but in his Dan, he reaches new levels of both personal accomplishment and character complexity. Having played the supporting roles of the doctors in Balagan's fine production a couple of years ago, he truly finds the soul and fragility of Dan Goodman, husband and father, trying to balance past and future while being buffeted by the world of now. He sings and acts it with subtlety, vulnerability, and presence beyond anything I've ever seen in the role, and beyond anything I've ever seen from him. His performances in KISS OF THE SPIDER-WOMAN, [title of show] (also directed by Jeff Orton), and many more shows were terrific, but this is an entirely new and brilliant level. Ellis, too, finds both a naivete in Henry, and a well-defined stoner nature, that raises the character to an equal to Natalie, rather than just a foil for her. 

It's a pleasure to see the male roles so in balance with the women - something that is to the credit of each of the actors, but also, to the directing chops of Jeff Orton. By letting smaller moments be smaller but not less crystalline-sharp, he makes room for the bigger ones to hit hard.

You may notice that I didn't mention Nicholas Tarabini's performance as Gabe. I mean that as no slight to him - it's simply an issue of timing. The performance I attended is one of those that every small company fears: the sudden injury or illness without an understudy. Apparently, Tarabini has been singing his heart out in the role; unfortunately, he's also sung his voice out, resulting in total laryngitis for tonight's performance. Director Orton made a bold call, and one that is especially suited (without giving too much plot away here) to the character of Gabe: to have Tarabini act the role silently, with the superb Kody Bringman - who played the role in the Balagan production, and has been the go-to guy for sensitive bad boys from Gabe to Andrew Jackson (of BLOODY BLOODY fame) to Eddie in ArtsWest's DOGFIGHT - singing it from a clearly visible spot upstage. The effect was perfect for the character, and the singing superb as always. If you see the show next weekend, Tarabini should be back in his full power - though power was not something his silent, seductive, muscular on-stage presence lacked at all.

Aaron Howland had the challenge, not always met by others, of making the two doctors, Fine and Madden, seem thoroughly different while frustratingly the same. To do so, his Doctor Fine may have been on the tamer side of those I've seen, but that left room for contrast with the "rock-star" Madden, who gets far more stage time. 

If I have any reservations about the production, they are all imposed by SSR's performance space. The sound, especially with regard to mixing and clarity, can be a challenge; occasionally vocals were swallowed by the instruments. Even in the band, the mix was problematic: one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Tom Kitt scores and orchestration is the mix of powerful rock sounds with lush strings, and it was often difficult to pick out the violin and cello, or to hear them as more than thin buzzing. 

The shallowness of both the floor-level stage and the audience seating rake meant that it was often difficult to see much more than upper bodies through the heads in the row ahead, and that limited the impact of the physicality of the show in places, including the sandwich-making frenzy of the opening scene. Also, the use of the two-level set with the house frame and pitched roof line (as compared to Balagan's flat deep stage and Broadway's and the tour's three-level set) meant that some locations that were not in the house, such as the music practice room, seemed to be upstairs in the house. 

And I wish that for the end of "Light," there was lots more light.

But these are quibbles; the show is rich with fine performances and thoughtful directorial choices that make it a thrilling emotional roller coaster ride and a spectacularly rewarding two-and-a-half hours. See it.

If you're not my theatre-writer friend, that is.