Le Frenchword Brings Us Some Fancy Mud at Annex Theater

Le Frenchword is an exciting up-and-comer in Seattle's DIY theater scene. Having been in collaboration to varying extents for several years, the company is finally under the lights of Annex Theatre with a brand new full-length experience, Fancy Mud, the culmination of a successful and productive workshop run.

The word "experience" is chosen deliberately, as this show is absurdist to the core, the three actors adopting and shedding personae with dizzying fluidity, new dramatic situations being taken up as quickly as they're abandoned. Themes vary from the molecular construction of the "cuteness molecule," to the ever-changing implications of new technologies, to The Last Lame Three-Legged Dying Cow Of All Creation. There's fight choreography and poetic language and monologuing and clowning. At the end of the night, when the spectacle winds down with a charming little song, the onus rests on the attendee to make heads or tails of what just happened, and what it means.

Yet a discernible, if loose, thread unifies the production: The several vignettes which mesh to form the show at large examine (or better, play with) musings on the creation and eventual destruction of the universe. It's at times scientific, at times light and fun, at times desperate. Sometimes the meaning of the moment at hand is clear, and sometimes the patron is compelled to invent or discover a private meaning. (Sure, this is true of any theatrical experience, but not often to this extent.)

In the composition of Fancy Mud the ensemble employed an exciting and popular (in underground theater) method of devising. They met weekly and, to quote their About Us, "fucked around in an acting studio" and saw what came out. This display of "all things dumb" (their words), is the result of so much collaboration, freewriting, movement sessions and giving-it-a-try.

I haven't seen anything this deeply, unapologetically off-the-wall in this city in a while. Even more, Fancy Mud accomplishes something commendable in remaining well-thought-out. If you're game to think on some puzzling moments of beauty and weirdness, think about Fancy Mud.

Friday and Saturday at 11:00 p.m., Sunday at 8:00p.m., through September 24 // Annex Theatre, 1100 East Pike Street (2nd floor) // $5 - $25, advance tickets available here