When we walked into the Bagley Wright Theatre last night, we had absolutely no expectations from Aurelia's Oratorio. We'd seen the publicity photos and figured it had something to do with playful illusion, but that was the extent of it. What we saw was astounding. Curtains alive and in love, violent clothing, puppets watching a show starring Aurelia's head, and Aurelia's leg disappearing right in front of us, as a thread-hungry creature unravels the lace......

The Seattle Repertory Theatre has just announced its artistic director, David Esb...Esbjornson has decided not to renew his contract. When it expires on June 30, 2009, so will he. Esbjornson joined Seattle Rep in 2005, and we still have trouble with his name."Though we are genuinely disappointed with David's decision, we understand that a complex series of factors informed his thinking." said Marty Taucher, President of the Board of Trustees. "David is well into developing......

There's a rotting foot at the heart of The Cure at Troy (through May 3 at the Rep, tickets: $10-$59); you can almost hear Philoctetes's leg oozing as he walks. The stench is described well enough to draw flies to the theatre. And when he loses his mind with pain, screaming about his wound cracking open, blood everywhere, you'd really like to be elsewhere, and maybe less nauseous. That's the point--there are times it's not......

In the westerns we read growing up, cowboys were always punching each other right in the solar plexus. A scene in the lonelyhearts drama By the Waters of Babylon did that to the Seattle Rep audience last night, leaving people gasping and in tears. It was a lucky punch, though -- most of the time the play telegraphs exactly what's coming next: quips and tedium. If you go, go for Suzanne Bouchard's outstanding performance as......

Inspired by a random iPod event at Seattlest's Thanksgiving, a friend lamented the early death of John Denver and then launched into a diatribe about how he didn't pull a Kennedy; that is, Denver wasn't a dilettante pilot. He went on to explain that Denver was an experienced pilot who owned many planes and flew often. He died, our friend claimed, when one of the fuel tanks in the experimental plane he was flying......

The script to Birdie Blue is the sort that, if there was any justice in this world, would have been unceremoniously trashed by every producer whose desk it crossed. Unfortunately, this being the real world and all, this awful script has been produced off-Broadway and in regional theatres all across the country, despite the fact it's guilty of every terrible conceit and device you could associate with the modern theatre. Nothing would have made us......

Gem of the Ocean at Seattle Repertory Theatre Through May 6, tickets $10-$48 The lights go down, a hymn starts up, and we're back in Wilson's fabled Hill District in Pittsburgh, at the house at 1839 Wylie Avenue. It's supposed to be 1904 -- and Wilson loaded up on historical detail -- but this play is talking about things right now. It's evangelizing about the price and worth of freedom, and that, along with......

Marya Sea Kaminski as Rachel in My Name is Rachel Corrie on the Leo K. Stage at Seattle Repertory Theatre March 15 through April 22, 2007. Photo copyright Chris Bennion 2007. Writing on The New Republic Online in November, 2006, James Kirchick snarkily commented, "Of all the subjects for a 90-minute, one-woman show, Rachel Corrie ought to have been at the bottom of the list." Rachel Corrie was an Olympia native and Evergreen State......

This just in: Seattle Rep’s 2007-2008 season in the Bagley Wright Theatre begins with Shakespeare’s beloved comedy, Twelfth Night, followed by a powerful play about the Cuban revolution, The Cook by Eduardo Machado. A new play, The Breach about Hurricane Katrina comes next, then the classic Molière comedy, The Imaginary Invalid, and finally Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney brings his skills to a classic Greek adventure in The Cure at Troy. In the Leo......

Blue Door is part confessional crisis, part historical saga -- or part Philip Roth's The Human Stain and part Alex Haley's Roots. It's showing in the smaller Leo K Theatre at the Rep, which features continental seating (no center aisle) and jumpy Rep subscribers. We sat down 10 minutes early and stood up 8 times to let people in and out. Holy crap. Don't let anyone tell you older people are all ruled by......

It's a sad thing, but even narcissists die. They don't like to admit it, but they do. When other people die on them, it's almost worse, losing their attention. Edward Albee's work makes a carnival out of conversational cruelty, the verbal fireworks ceaselessly mean-spirited and bitchy. In the first act of The Lady from Dubuque, we learn the acid-tongued Jo is in chronic pain from a terminal illness. Should we suffer from it too?......

Yes, a real pie is baked onstage during the performance. We'd call it a gimmick, but the theatre was crammed with moms and daughters for whom pie-making, apparently, inspired the same kind of emotion as going for it on 4th and 2 with 1:12 left to play. The flour-sifting, butter-chopping, dough-rolling, and pan-trimming met with hoots, gasps, sighs, and chuckles. It may be a homespun metaphor, but who can say no to pie? Not......

If it's not a great Gatsby, we can blame F. Scott Fitzgerald's preference for establishing mood at the expense of story arc. The good news is that this production revels in atmosphere: Tom Lynch's pitch-perfect set design and Jane Greenwood's gorgeous '20s costumes -- combined with Scott Zielinski's dreamily radiant lighting -- conjure up exactly the right nostalgia for a time that never was. We could have done without the itinerant saxophonist, whose bluesy......