Waiting for Lefty

Waiting for Lefty
Capitol Hill Arts Center; ends Sat., Feb. 12

It shouldn't work, if you're going to be honest about it. Clifford Odets' 1935 Group Theatre hammering-the-nail-square-on-the-head commie propaganda play ("Lefty," Clifford? Had you no desire for nuance?) has been remounted for Dubya's tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free in an industriously sincere fringe theater on Capitol Hill. And in director Sheila Daniels' staging, there's some down-on-his-luck Joe lying with an empty tin cup before the production even begins—a conceit that, nine times out of 10, usually means you're in for a rough night of experimental gumption. Here's great news then, you cynical bastards: Daniels pulls it off.

There are any number of ways she could have crushed her own best intentions, and some of them are here, all right. Odets' piece is essentially a call to arms, the story of a group of desperate taxi drivers deciding whether to unionize in the face of violent oppression, and on the surface, Lefty plays like a punchy, hard-boiled, '30s B movie. A few in Daniels' company find their tongues caught on the crackling "dis an' dat an' dem"s so beloved by Odets in his man-of-the-people mode, and to top it off, she's got them breaking up scene changes by raging through Depression period tunes like "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" or coyly cooing ironic ditties such as "Pennies From Heaven."

What makes such obviousness fly, though, is Daniels' commendable ability to ground the work in the alternately dreamy and distressed emotions that inspired such sentiments of the era in the first place. The crowd scenes at the strike meeting have real meat to them; the surly, hollering, foot-stomping unrest feels not showy but authentic. The breakaway scenes that flow into and out of the cabbies' protest—wrenching two-person dramas that highlight the human toll of Big Business tyranny— work even better: Jená Cane, playing a downtrodden wife with a face that Dorothea Lange would surely have photographed, urges her fretful husband (Peter Dylan O'Connor) to strike but screams, "I'm not God!" when he worries whether it's the right choice; a benevolent but tart-tongued stenographer (Laurie Johnson, handling Odets' vernacular like a pro) quietly offers a buck to a starving actor (Garlyn Punao); Kate Czajkowski and Troy Fischnaller stirringly enact the destruction of a starry-eyed young couple forced to face the notion that finances might keep them apart. These and other moments are filled with believably fraught silences and aching indecision, ferocious attempts to cling to an evasive sense of hope or happiness.

While Daniels cannot—and wisely does not attempt to—downplay Odets' unsubtle leftist fury, her ensemble is so committed to the irrefutable humanity beneath the rhetoric that the production never feels like it's preaching to the choir so much as reminding any interested voices of the words that used to make us sing. STEVE WIECKING

Love's Labours Lost
Center House Theatre; ends Sun., Feb. 13

Not to be crude, but the labor that's lost in Shakespeare's play isn't just wasted on love. 'Tis country matters that loom large here (or perhaps one should say loom low), along with issues priapic and other turgid biological concerns. If there's a single theme, it may well be "gettin' laid"—the jolt of temptation, the rush of the hunt, the frustration of denial, and all that talk (or, as one character puts it, "the sweet smoke of rhetoric"). The dialogue itself, precoital and wry, ranges from the swooningly seductive to the witty, battle-of-the-sexes repartee that forms the backbone of so much romantic comedy.

Perhaps taking a cue from the relative noncomplexity of this early work—in which the King of Navarre and his lords sequester themselves for three years of academic study only to be tempted by some saucy French chicks—director Aaron Levin strips everything down to the bare bones for his Seattle Shakespeare Company production, setting the action amid a few Doric columns and giving the actors space to play. And play they do, vamping and winking and generally milking the material for its broadest reach of sexual farce. It's not the only direction you can take this piece, but it mostly works. The result is a delightfully brisk comedy that resides somewhere between the bawdy pratfalls of Mel Brooks and Mike Nichols at his most carnally knowledgeable.

The trick in getting a bird like this to fly, interpretively speaking, is selling the levity to the actors, and the cast indeed cuts loose, obviously having a lot of fun with the dramatic license. Of particular note is Scott Coopwood, a Portland-based actor making his SSC debut as Armando. With his booming baritone, bright bald pate, and spot-on comic timing, he takes the role of the lovelorn Spaniard for a wildly captivating joy ride, giving a deceptively disciplined comic performance that would have a lesser actor careening into Monty Python–esque flapjaw. Coopwood sets the tone of the play—confident, happy, almost carefree. As Armando's sidekick, Moth, 12-year-old Max Piscioneri also displays loads of talent and maturity in a demanding role.