Can't Miss It: Monday
Colin's New Found Pop : After four albums' worth of sea chanties, songs about Turkish prostitutes, Japanese folk tales, and proggy song cycles, The Decemberists' 2011 album, The King Is Dead, delivered something long-time fans had believed Meloy and company had abandoned ages ago: A release full of honest to goodness pop songs. Discography continuity aside, The Decemberists' live shows are legendary sprawling affairs, and tonight's show at Marymoor Park, in support of King, should be no different, with the added benefit of having the Fruit Bats and Okkervil River opening for them. This one will be epic.
Tonight at 7:00p.m. // Marymoor Park Amphitheater, 6046 West Lake Sammamish Parkway NE, Redmond // $31
From Guttersnipe to Gentility: If you take the musical numbers out of My Fair Lady, the musical version of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, what you get is a story about an upper class snob who makes a bet that he could take some lower class loudmouthed lout and pass her as another upper class snob by simply having her speak well. He succeeds all too well, and she, as a result, comes to life. Comedic complications ensue. The Sound Theater Company have taken residence at the Seattle Center House for this production, as literate a romantic comedy as they come, as full of ideas as it is of bon mots.
Tonight at 7:30p.m. (in production through this Sunday 8/28) // Center House Theater, 305 Harrison Street // PWYW
Long Live Turkey Girl: Fernando Arrabal's ¡Viva La Muerte! is many things at once, making it difficult to describe. It is as rewarding as it is challenging, and yet not a slog or a bore to sit through. Described as a "surreal autobiography" set in the Spanish Civil War, the story is told from the point of view of a little boy whose father has disappeared and holds his mother somehow responsible. This may constitute the most linear description of this movie you may encounter. Though Arrabal uses many of the motifs used by Alejandro Jodorowski (El Topo, Holy Mountain), Arrabal is more a naive and willful David Lynch to Jodorowski's psychedelic Ken Russell.
Tonight at 7:00p.m. and 9:00p.m. // Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 NE 50th Street // $8
