Weekend Theatre: April 16-19
ONE WEEKEND ONLY
Sister Taking Nap @ On the Boards. Stranger Genius Award-winner Wynne Greenwood is back on stage through Sunday with her new performance piece Sister Taking Nap. A multi-media exploration of a young woman's betrayal by her older sister's slip from radical to apathy, Greenwood at once manages to keep audiences engaged and stumped through her 30 minute performance-installation. (100 W. Roy St. Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m. Tix $18.)
OPENINGS
Baggage Claim @ Freehold Theatre. A new Seattle arts group, Heroes Everywhere, are debuting themselves with an original play by a local playwright about a group of old friends who come together for the first time in years to support a friend suffering from heart disease. Things get real from then on; lessons are no doubt learned; things shall be comed-to-terms-with. (2222 Second Ave. Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Tix $10/$7.)
Keefee's House of Cards @ Theatre off Jackson. Local theatre artist Stephen Hando, with Printer's Devil Theatre, have expanded Hando's character/caricature "Keefee" from a comic routine into a full-length installation show. Keefee, "a fixture of the Tallahassee gay bar culture for longer than anybody cares to remember," has recently pulled up stakes and headed out west to Vegas, setting up shop at "Shenanigans," the “Gaming House of Broken Dreams.” (409 Seventh Ave. S. Thurs.-Sat., 7:30 p.m. $15.)
Love's Tangled Web @ Annex Theatre. The late Charles Ludlam was a master of campy farce, a definitive voice of gay American theatre, today mostly forgotten (except for The Mystery of Irma Vep). But he was a writer who took his subjects (and productions) to the edge and beyond, laying the groundwork for contemporary artists like Charles Busch. (1100 E. Pike St. Fri. & Sat., 8p.m. Tix $12/$5.)
Jekyll & Hyde @ ACT. Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of the horror classic interprets Steverson's 19th century novella through the modern lens of moral ambiguity, adding layers of complexity onto an already iconic work. The talented cast includes one of our local favorites, David Pichette. (700 Union St. Thurs. 7:30, Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 & 8, Sun. 2 & 7:30. Tix $10/$15/$37/50+.)
Gutenberg! the Musical @ ArtsWest. When this show played on Capitol Hill last year, Seattlest MvB said he "laughed like a booze-addled hyena for much of the night, with some startled expletives thrown in when things got...strange (we can't remember the precise lyric, but it had something to do with wanting to feel Satan's horns deep inside)." How can you miss out on that? (4711 California Ave. SW. Thurs.-Sat. 7:30 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tix $32/$10.)
ALSO PLAYING
Wishful Drinking @ Seattle Rep. "[I]f diseased lung is what it takes to keep the rest of going in these dark times, Carrie Fisher has enough to qualify as a stimulus package in and of herself." [Read our review.] (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.)
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.)
CLOSING
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. [Read our review.] (305 Harrison/Seattle Center House, 4th Foor. Fri. 7 p.m., Sat. 8 p.m, Sun. 2 p.m. Tix $15/$10/$5.)
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.)
