Seattle Shakespeare's Henry IV, as adapted by Dakin Matthews, runs Thurs. through Sun. at 7:30 p.m., plus Sunday matinees at 2 p.m., through Nov. 16. Tickets available online. The problem with reviewing Shakespeare is that by and large, people don't care. So long as it doesn't suck (and Seattle Shakespeare's Henry IV does not suck), people are mostly going to go see it if they want to see Shakespeare, and people who don't want to......

Patrick Page's Swansong is the bread-and-butter of institutional theatres: an audience-pleasing show about the theatre (subject: William Shakespeare) that offers an emotional drama (Ben Jonson's love-hate relationship with Shakespeare) that's a tad bit intellectual and really dramatic and emotional. Imagine Amadeus, but with (slightly) less murder. We have little to fault with the production itself--for $20 it's a good price and tolerable time. It feels like watching a romantic comedy, and would probably make a......

Iphigenia in Aulis @ Washington Ensemble Theatre 8pm Thurs-Mon, through June 11; Tickets $18 general/$10 students, seniors Ellen McLaughlin's "meditation on feminism," Iphigenia and Other Daughters is an adaptation of three Greek plays. (The Chamber Theater just did the complete version, as it happens.) WET has taken the portion based on Iphigenia in Aulis (a 5-page section), and created a 50-minute performance. (We suspected it was a feminist reading because none of the men......

Monday CALL 911! CALL 911!: Political and economic commentator and White House strategist during the Nixon administration, Kevin Phillips talks about his book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. Phillips traces the set of related causes that caused the downfall of historical world powers. That same combination of ills he says -- global over-reach, militant religion, resource problems, and ballooning debt -- is......