Culture Fiend

Win 2 Tickets to See St. Vincent at the Neptune

The great ticket bonanza begins!

Posted by: Seattle Met staff on Oct 11, 2011 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Starting today—and every Tuesday for the next five weeks—we’ll be giving away a pair of tickets to an upcoming show at the newly renovated Neptune Theatre in the U District. Best part of the renovations? The new 21+ bar zone with great sight lines to the stage, located behind the seats. Showbox at the Market gets the importance of this feature—Showbox SoDo does not. You have to be 6’6" to see a show properly at SoDo. But we digress.

Today we’re giving away two tickets to see St. Vincent play this Thursday, October 13, at 8pm. (Just got these at the last minute!) The singer-songwriter’s been rolling solo after years with Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree, and her new music is gloriously contradictory—a “Black Rainbow” of cheery melodies and unnerving refrains.

To enter to win, email SeattleMetTix@gmail.com with “St. Vincent” as the subject, and a reason why you want to see the show, by Wednesday, October 12, at 11am. The winner will be notified by email shortly after the deadline.

St. Vincent is at the Neptune Theatre on October 13 at 8pm.

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Tags: theater, Neptune Theatre, Showbox SoDo

Seattle Premiere of Reservoir Dolls

At Theater Schmeater, playing with Dolls is a dangerous sport.

Posted by: Annie Rose Favreau on May 25, 2011 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

Dolls doing the perp walk.
Photo courtesy R. MacStravic.

Want to see talented women relish a raunchy, foul-mouthed script? Skip Bridesmaids and buy a ticket to Theater Schmeater’s Reservoir Dolls.

The all-female cast (well, almost—there’s a policeman in there too) delivers an ironic makeover of Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 macho cult classic Reservoir Dogs. With the exception of some colorful gender-inverted expletives, the adaptation by Erika Anne Soerensen (who plays Ms. Pink and is a darn sight prettier than Steve Buscemi) is a blow-by-blow replica of the drama about a jewel heist gone horribly awry.

Tarantino-style violence is difficult to pull off in a theater as intimate as Schmeater’s. Realistic fist-fights are simply harder when the audience is five feet from the action. But if you can suspend your inner critic, you can enjoy these femme fatales punching, slapping, kicking, and shooting each other with commendable gusto. The production has a designated Bloodmaster (Julia Griffin), an indication of how much red goo ends up on stage.

From the uneven cast, Ms. White (Christine White) and Ms. Blond (Lisa Viertel) are clear standouts. Husky-voiced White has an expert grasp on dark humor. When Ms. Pink asks her, “Is it bad?” a blood-drenched Ms. White deadpans, “As opposed to good?” And Ms. Blond is simply terrifying. With her cowboy boots, slow saunter, and psychopathic stare, she comes off as a sexy cross between Annie Oakley and Hannibal Lecter. Her torture scene with the policeman (Ben Burris) confirms that a shoe-string production can induce just as many creepy crawlies as a blowout like ACT’s gruesome The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

Is there a woman-power message behind the mayhem? Not really. But it tweaks your brain a little; there’s something necessarily—if subtly—different about watching women (rather than men) discuss the true meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” Different, but no less entertaining. The point: Women can perform these violent, expletive-laden roles with as much conviction and crudity as the guys.

Reservoir Dolls is at Theater Schmeater through June 18.

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Tags: theater, Capitol Hill, Review, Theater Schmeater

Review: Xanadu

What if all musicals ended with a roller disco scene?

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Jan 20, 2010 at 11:30AM 1 Comments

Oh Xanadu. If only I was a 40-year-old gay man, I would have, could have loved you. I would delight in your sequins and disco balls, your glow sticks and roller skates. Giggled at the strutting “sisters” who offer plenty of finger wagging and “Uh uh, no she didn’t!”s. Because Xanadu—a Broadway musical about a boy and his muse making art and making out in 1980s Venice Beach—is camp of the highest order. The writers even admit to it in the best line of the show: “This is children’s theater for 40-year-old gay men.”

Xanadu bills itself as Broadway’s “surprise hit musical,” like even its creators are blown away by how well it’s been doing. Admittedly, when it opened in 2007, it benefited from the 1,000-watt charm of Cheyenne Jackson as Sonny, a bumbling Bill-and-Ted hybrid who wears scandalously short cutoff jeans and wants to build a place that celebrates art: a roller disco. Jackson has since gone on to star in hit Broadway revival Finian’s Rainbow and on NBC’s 30 Rock (he’s the robot), leaving the show wanting for star power.

In this national tour, under the direction of Christopher Ashley (La Jolla Playhouse), the cast is solid, but the jokes they deliver are practically vaudevillian. Some of the biggest laughs came when Kyra (Elizabeth Stanley), a rollerskating demigod who comes down from Mount Olympus to inspire Sonny, employs an outrageously exaggerated Australian accent (a nod to Olivia Newton-John, who starred as Kyra in the 1980 film version of Xanadu ). Other gags involved audience members—a select few sat onstage last night, including the Rat City Rollergirls. Cast members would nibble on their arms, give them massages, sit next to them and eat popcorn. It’s so silly, it makes Legally Blonde look like an Ibsen play. But the show got a standing ovation. Clearly, it wasn’t written for me—it was written for the girl next to me in leg warmers, a purple sweater, and a side-ponytail. And, of course, 40-year-old gay men.

Xanadu runs through January 24 at Paramount Theatre. For ideas on ‘80s attire to wear to the show, check out Style Editor Laura Cassidy’s blog Where What When.

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Tags: reviews, theater, Xanadu, Paramount Theatre, Broadway, musical, roller disco,

Sex, Love, and Meat

A dinner party devolves but the laughs keep coming in WET’s Hunter Gatherers.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Jan 12, 2010 at 05:00PM 0 Comments

Two married couples, no rules in WET’s Hunter Gatherers.

Who knew that a play that simulates violent sex and animal sacrifice could be a pleasant surprise? In the Washington Ensemble Theatre’s tiny black box on 19th Avenue East is a big, booming production full of wit and carnal mayhem—the kind that may make you flinch, but you’ll laugh loudly as you do. In Hunter Gatherers, two dissatisfied thirtysomething couples reunite for their joint wedding anniversary in a small San Francisco apartment. As the smell of fresh lamb wafts out of the kitchen, civility is dismissed and primal urges take over.

In less capable hands, this concept could devolve into a queasy mess. Thankfully, director Desdemona Chiang does an outstanding job pacing the razor-sharp script by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, giving you enough time to process what just happened without letting it linger like week-old meat. There isn’t a weak link in the cast either. Of particular note is Hannah Franklin, a tall redhead with the comedic timing of Lucille Ball who plays Wendy, a self-satisfied “hunter” who lusts for her best friend’s husband.

Considering Nachtrieb’s fresh take on thirtysomething malaise, it makes sense that this play won the ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award in 2007. I might even go back for a second helping.

Washington Ensemble Theatre’s ‘Hunter Gatherers’ runs through February 8.

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Tags: reviews, theater

Nobody Puts Electra in a Corner

Seattle Shakespeare Co. goes Greek, enthralls and exhausts in the process.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Jan 12, 2010 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

Don’t bother, Clytemnestra. Electra doesn’t want to hear it. Photo courtesy John Ulman.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Don’t bother, Clytemnestra. Electra doesn’t want to hear it. Photo courtesy John Ulman.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Marya Sea Kaminski as Electra. Photo courtesy John Ulman.

Seattle Shakespeare Company touts a production of Sophocles’s Electra that will leave you “shocked, dazed, and breathless for more”—though it only delivers on two out of three. It’s hard not to be shocked and dazed by Marya Sea Kaminski’s compelling performance as the title character. She so embodies the vengeful daughter—yanking at her shirt like a girl gone mad (not wild)—you half-believe she’ll finish off Ellen Boyle (playing adulterous mother Clytemnestra) in the dressing room if Darragh Kennan (brother Orestes) can’t do the job onstage.

But by the end of this 90-minute performance, I was wishing for less, not more. With emotions running as high as they do, any additional direction by Sheila Daniels seems superfluous. The chorus in particular distracts with its chanting and chest-pounding. Breaks from the hysteria come infrequently; it makes for enthralling drama, to be sure, but it’s exhausting—the kind of breathless I could do without.

Seattle Shakespeare Company’s ‘Electra’ runs through January 31.

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Tags: reviews, theater