Can't Miss It: Wednesday

The Junction does rock. I lived there for a year before moving to the "main land." I would have entertained moving back if the monorail had gone through because it is horrid to get there and back on a bus (which I'm doing this Saturday).

Thanks, ProgressiveGuy! Now that's a recap! We don't actually have a single thing against West Seattle, other than it being a drag to get over there if you don't have a car. And we dearly wish we covered ArtsWest more. What we need is a West Seattle resident to step up and review for us.

I don't know what you've got against West Seattle -- especially the Junction, where there are at least 5-10 great restaurants within a 2 block neighborhood, but I've gotta tell ya, "Black Gold" (which I saw last night) was by far, BY FAR, the best play I've ever seen in Seattle. That includes anything at the Rep, ACT, or Intiman. It was not "timeless" or metaphorical, but it was lyrical and in-your-face political theater at its best. Not a polemic at all, not a diatribe. Instead, "Black Gold" is entertaining, dangerous, risk-taking, and ArtsWest has jumped to the front of the pack among theaters in terms of being that place where you've got to talk about what you've just seen (I saw "The Vertical Hour" last month and it was remarkable as well.) This is ostensibly a satirical comedy/drama about a guy in a lousy neighborhood in South Detroit who crazily buys an oil rig off the internet, puts it on his property, and strikes oil. A hell of a lot of oil, it seems. And the president, who is a lot like Bush, is running for re-election against a strong, ball busting woman who is a lot like Hillary. And he wants all the oil. And there's a subplot about performance artists in Israel and Palestine who are trying to get their point across with a new version of "Lysistrata." And the neighborhood goes crazy, for reasons that I won't put here, because goddammit, you have to see this play! There's plenty of free parking (I parked on the street, but last time, I parked in a lot behind the theater free), and afterwards we all went to West 5 for a free drink with a ticket stub. You should check with ArtsWest on that promotion, but hell, even without the freebie, that's probably where we would have gone.

Really, go see "Black Gold." Next year, we're just going to go ahead and pick up the whole damn season. We used to do that with ACT and before that the Empty Space, but no more. Too expensive and extinct, respectively. ArtsWest is no longer up and coming. It's here and now. Great work!