Weekend Theatre: August 21-23
Dead Bird Movement's "Thrashoholic" with Jessie Smith and Jeffrey Mitchell. Photo by Brian Budak.
OPENING Dead Bird Double Feature @ Sodo Found Space. Jessie Smith was a founding member of Implied Violence. Now, her own dance and video company Dead Bird Movement, is having a dual opening in a found-space down in Sodo. Left and Leaving is a video installation that will be viewable from 7:30 to 8:30. Then, Dead Bird presents its signature piece: Thrashoholic, a duet between Smith, wending her way through 50 different pieces of contemporary choreography, and drummer Jeffrey Mitchell. (Fri. & Sun., 7:30 p.m. 33 S.Hanford St. tix $18 adv., $12-$30 door.)
RECOMMENDED The Importance of Being Earnest @ Rendezvous Jewelbox Theatre. "In Earnest, meaning keeps coming into focus then slipping away before you can make heads or tails of it, but it's never boring, never arty and abstract for its own sake. In fact, in the end, Helsinki Syndrome's show comes off as sincere in a way Wilde never managed in his own work." [Read our review/profile] (Fri. 8 p.m. 2322 Second Ave. $12/$10, 21+)
ONE WEEKEND ONLYArts in Nature @ Camp Long. The Nature Conservancy's yearly "Arts in Nature" Festival is this weekend at Camp Long in West Seattle. Visual artists, musicians, dancers, aerialists, and other artists come together to produce a vibrant, ecologically conscious arts celebration. (Sat. 11-9, Sun. 11-6. 5200 35th Ave. SW. Admission $5)
ALSO PLAYING...
Penguins: Episode 1, Heaven the Hard Way @ Annex Theatre. Local playwright Scott Auguston's new play is gangster-style send-up of competition in the Catholic Church, where turf-hungry priests start gang wars with nuns by wiping out popular competitors. (1100 E. Pike St. Fri. & Sat., 11 p.m., Sun. 8 p.m. Tix $10/$5.)
Emerald and the Love Song of the Dead Fishermen @ Annex. "Playwright Brendan Healy uses a healthy dose of whimsy and charm to tackle big themes of loss and love in his new play, Emerald & the Love Song of the Dead Fishermen... And that's a good way to go about it, because a more serious take on a girl with a shut-in, hypochondriac mother in permanent mourning for her dead husband would probably be tedious as hell." [Read our review.] (1100 E. Pike St. Fri. & Sat. 8 p.m.Tix $12/$10.)
Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe @ the Balagan. "Director Lisa Confehr and [actress Terri] Weagant zero in on the core of frustration and anguish that Wagner's nonstop, pop-cultural skewering can obscure, and it is this, even after Trudy returns to tie it all up in a bow of messy mystery, that will either get to you or not." [Read our review.] (1117 E. Pike St. Fri. & Sat. 8, Sun. 2. Tix $12-$15.)
Das Barbecu @ ACT Theatre. Wagner's Ring Cycle as a Country Western musical. 'Nuff said. (800 Union St. Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m., Sun. 7:30 p.m. Tix $37.50.)
CLOSING
The Last Cargo Cult @ Richard Hugo House. Master monologist Mike Daisey is workshopping his new work, about cargo cults and capitalism. (1634 11th Ave. Fri. & Sat. 8 p.m. Tix $20.)
The Maids @ Stone Soup. Jean Genet's troubling one-act takes the true-life story of a pair of murderous maids and transforms it into a meditation on sex and power. (4035 Stone Way N. Fri. & Sat. 8 p.m. Tix $10-$12.)
For these Unclosings @ New City Theatre. Local visual artist phenom Susie J. Lee has taken her studious exploration of the transience of memory out of the art gallery in this collaboration with dancer/choreographer Ying Zhou. Utilizing some impressive technology, Lee has put together a dramatic live performance/art installation/dance piece that builds on her already impressive catalog of achievements. (1404 18th Ave. Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m. Tix $15.)
