The Ilkhom Theatre Festival at ACT Theatre closes this Sunday; tickets for Ecstasy With the Pomegranate are still available here. Heading into ACT Theatre last night for the opening of the Ilkhom Theatre's Ecstasy With the Pomegranate, we were for some reason under the impression that this show--running for one week only, and following a four-week run of White White Black Stork--would be a shorter, perhaps more experimental work, intended for hardcore audiences. Turns out,......

Since the first previews of White White Black Stork on March 14, Seattle's had nothing but plaudits and bon mots for the Ilkhom Theatre of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. (Read the praise: The Seattle Times, the P-I, The Stranger, the Weekly, Seattlest.) White White Black Stork closed April 6, but Ilkhom is presenting a second show with a one-week run starting tomorrow, Ecstasy with the Pomegranate. Like their previous show, Ecstasy is an exploration of sexuality......

ACT says White White Black Stork (through April 6, tickets: $15-$55) is a "Romeo and Juliet" story, but that's stretching it. This play says more about what people will do to survive than what they will die for. It's sometimes dazzling, sometimes stark. Pitchers hanging in mid-air disburse surprising contents, characters whirl around a central tree shouting epiphanies, and a courtroom scene pitilessly exposes two families' shame and suffering. Seeing it is oddly like watching......