Beating Up Bachman is playwright Wayne Rawley’s latest offering, which is another of his characteristic explorations of small town life in the Pacific Northwest which is at turns exceedingly humorous, well observed, touching and more than a little dark at its core. José Amador has the scoop.
Category Archives: Theater
The Seattle Festival of Improv Theater Hits Town
A dry-humored preview of the 11th Seattle Festival of Improv Theater.
She She Pop’s Testament at On the Boards
Having already sung the praises of the nature of the programming at On the Boards (an endeavor I am likely to pick up again in the future), let us turn our attention to the organization’s latest offering, She She Pop’s Testament.
The Seagull Project: A Method to the Madness
The production is three-quarters pure genius and one-quarter excellence. One can hardly complain about that mixture. The whole production gives me an optimism about the stage that maybe other companies will finally try to make a break from the petrifying effects of “seasons” and “shows” and rediscover what the San Francisco Actors Workshop under Herbert Blau and Jules Irving knew back in the 1950s: the play is the thing, and it is ready when it is ready.
The 2012 Gypsy Awards Announce Their Winning Contestants
Another day, another award ceremony. The Seattle Theater Writers Critics’ Circle reveal their winners’ slate for the second annual Gypsy Rose Lee Awards.
The Rest is Dullness: Hamlet at Ghost Light Theatricals
Audiences are entitled to play that has been interpreted. Having gone just so far with her “big choice,” Ms. Raas-Berquist fails to go any farther. But a choice is not an interpretation. An interpretation requires that an idea be pursued. Gender-swapping Hamlet is not an idea; it is merely a conceit.
The Gypsy Awards, 2013 Edition
Seattle Theater Writers announced their slate of nominees for the second annual Gypsy Rose Lee Awards today.
Loss Machine and the Magic of the Banal
Here, as the magician clearly shows his tricks, the purpose is to prevent the audience from simply falling in love with effects by making the audience pay attention to their cumulative structure. Not “How’d he do that?” but rather, “What will he do next?”
Back Again…Again: An Interview with The Habit
The Star’s Kelly Dermody recently interviewed The Habit’s Luke Thayer, Jeff Schell and Mark Siano and talked about their creation process, the group’s temporary sojourn to Los Angeles, and what their future is going to look like.
Landscape of the Body: The Limits of Pastiche
John Guare’s plays were po-mo before po-mo was the American theater’s default setting. They revel in pop culture references. They erase the line between reality and the phony “hyperreality” promoted every day in the media. His approach to the material is that so beloved of deconstructionists everywhere: pastiche. The difficulty in staging this pastiche is that the play often threatens to turn into pure chaos.
