Biro

Biro
Empty Space Theatre; ends Sat., April 23

Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine's solo piece isn't an easy show. As conceived, written, and performed by Mwine—who also took the evocative accompanying photos hung in the Empty Space's lobby gallery and projected onto the production's background scrim—Biro wants to be both intensely personal and insistently universal. It takes on AIDS, African despair, U.S. ignorance, the "open secret" of illegal immigration, and the tensile but sometimes tremulous collection of incident and error that makes up any one person's existence. You, meanwhile, have an hour and a half of uninterrupted company with Mwine's steely ambitions, 90 minutes to digest an accent, culture, and consciousness that are initially foreign. That the production is real work—for him and for you—is a given. That it eventually gets under your skin and stays there is a gift.

But it is work, and, for a while at least, it can be daunting. Mwine, a lean, good-looking man, enters into a square of light in an orange prisoner's uniform and begins his tale as the title character, a Ugandan expatriate with AIDS, imprisoned in the United States after an arrest over a drunken brawl exposed his phony Social Security number and an old allegation of petty theft. Mwine has spent the past 18 years documenting the people of Uganda (he is a first-generation Ugandan-American) and his studies show, maybe too much. Biro is a composite of real voices, and at times Mwine's concentration on the ardent melodiousness of those tones—the swooping, singsongy ups and downs of his accent—means you can find yourself hearing only the cadence and not the content of what he's saying. You have to make your ear relax and hope that Mwine, too, will soften his responses.

He does—which says either that you just need time to get used to the transformation or he does, or some part of both; but, in any case, by the end Mwine is Biro as surely as you are you. And whatever you suspect the artist will make of Biro's circumstances, you're probably wrong. Biro—and Biro—is never a simple political symbol; Mwine's triumph here is a difficult but complete immersion into the whole of a human life. As Biro relates just how he ended up in what seems increasingly like the trap of American apathy, you're never far from the familiar heart of a common man. Biro's experiences are nothing like yours—he came of age all at once as a teenage revolutionary soldier battling the tyranny of Idi Amin and Milton Obote ("who quickly killed twice the people in half the time")—but Mwine communicates them in a way that taps into the everyday fervor and frustration that propel each of us through our tribulations. Not since Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed has there been such a wry, deft skewering of the absurd exploitation of low-wage workers in this country—applying for a position as a stockroom boy, Biro is asked, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" And you'll never hear a more eloquent explication of how and why AIDS spread so quickly through Africa (Mwine's empathy encapsulates the reckless fatalism, hopeless boredom, and assumption of invincibility that are, clearly, not the exclusive property of that continent).

Mwine makes Biro a man to know, and his intimate attentions leave you wondering how many more lives there are like this, how many more stories there are waiting to be told. When Biro finally reaches out and says "Please help me" with a quiet, vulnerable fury, it doesn't feel didactic. It feels necessary. STEVE WIECKING

Othello
Center House Theatre; ends Sun., May 1

Presumably, enough has been written about Othello over the centuries that we can skip right to the good stuff in Seattle Shakespeare Company's production, so let us now commence praising Hans Altwies—a bald, lanky, comely fellow who sinks his fangs into the role of Iago with such perverse, comedic, omnisexual voraciousness that he sends concentric ripples throughout the whole production. Fate, character, and desire whip like a dynamo in Altwies' portrayal, leveling everything in its path. He becomes inevitability incarnate, a force of nature, yet also just a man whose loathing is the empathetic chill that makes us squirm. This, exactly, is the stuff of tragedy, and to see an actor of Altwies' caliber so manifestly possess it is a precious moment, and one can only hope this moment receives the audience it so richly deserves. Yes, he's that good.

Fortunately, there's no need to speak of saving gestures here. The rest of the cast are also skilled, and the conceit of excising all subplots from the drama, turning it into a streamlined "chamber" piece of wickedness, only amplifies the production's strengths. The narrative is lean and mean, bearing down on the impulsive drive of Iago's plot with a single-minded purpose, moving with a relentless atmosphere of suspense. As Othello, William Hall Jr.'s deep, honeyed baritone and mannered, deliberate gestures lend the part a patrician air, and when the shit hits the fan, his snarls and guttural growls betray a tortured beast of desire, a great man trapped. The lovely Jennifer Sue Johnson (who also plays Bianca) is striking as Desdemona, a creature torn by self-effacing love and Christian dignity. Rounding out the small cast are Amy Thone (Emilia/Brabantio), John Bogar (Cassio/Duke), and Dan Dennis (Roderigo/Montano/Lodvico), all of whom shine in difficult double and triple duty.