Weekend Theatre: April 9-12
Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Carla Korbes with company dancers in Kent Stowell's Swan Lake. Photo by Angela Sterling.
OPENINGS
Wishful Drinking @ Seattle Rep. Carrie Fisher's life has long proven fodder for tabloid titillation, so it kind of only made sense for her to capitalize on it, too. Think Gary Coleman doing a one-man show about his life, except not that sad. Fisher is actually a talented writer and has good comic timing, and aside from the show feeling a bit like gay kitsch, it's totally recommendable. (Fri. 7:30 p.m., Sat. 2 & 7:30 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Tix $20-$75.)
Wrecks & Other Plays @ the Balagan. Neil LaBute is perhaps the single most misunderstood playwright in America. His plays (In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors) are profanity-laced, testosterone-fueled farces about the wickedness of men. As such, they share a certain similarity to the work of David Mamet, but whereas Mamet actually is an ass himself, LaBute is a subtle, creative thinker exploring the dark side of pretty people. The fact that he's often taken for either a bully himself, or an aggrieved former loser (both of which were floated in a wretched NY Times Magazine profile last month), misses the point: LaBute understands the complex, competitive, self-serving tendencies that underpin a looks-obsessed, highly competitive American culture. Wrecks, a collection of LaBute's shorter plays, is a great introduction to one of America's leading playwrights, whose first Broadway debut just took place in New York. (1117 E. Pike St. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Tix $15.)
Quickies! @ Live Girls! Theatre. Seattle's Live Girls! Theatre, devoted to making a place on the stage for Seattle's talented female actors, is entering its tenth year, and this weekend, their annual Quickies! festival opens, with seven one-acts from the U.S. and the U.K. (2220 NW Market St. Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 4 & 8 p.m. Tix $18/$15.)
Swan Lake @ PNB. You can't get much more classical than Swan Lake: one of the world's pre-eminent ballets, featuring a legendary score by Tchaikovsky and presenting some of the greatest challenges to the dancers. PNB's production was the first full ballet PNB re-created, in 1981, choreographed by founding artistic director Kent Stowell. (321 Mercer St. Thurs. & Fri. 7:30 p.m., Sat. 1 & 7:30 p.m. Tix $25-$160.)
ALSO PLAYING
Crime and Punishment @ Intiman. "It can be difficult to see so much stripped from a story you're familiar with and that you enjoyed enough to have read it twice. That said, we were able to experience the play for what it was to us: a gripping tale of murder, delusion, and maybe redemption." [Read our review.] (201 Mercer St. Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 & 8 p.m., Sun. 2 & 7:30 p.m. Tix $40-$55/$10 under 25.)
The Rez as I Saw It @ TPS Theatre 4/Backwards Ensemble Theatre Co. Playwright Caleb Penn grew up in a distinctly weird situation: white on the Suquamish Indian Reservation. In his new play, he explores the complex racial, social, and economic ties and divisions that marked his childhood in one of the forgotten corners of the American dream, a place where drugs and violence are pervasive and a young man's skin color makes him the embodiment of his people's crimes against another. (305 Harrison/Seattle Center House, 4th Foor. Fri. 7 p.m., Sat. 8 p.m, Sun. 2 p.m. Tix $15/$10/$5.)
