WEDNESDAY 4/7
SAAM/Kollar Collection
Client and courtesan cavort at SAAM.
Robyn Von Swank
Tech-lovin’ comic Hardwick.
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Visual Arts: Splendid Isolation
Commodore Perry is nowhere to be seen in the 60-plus images collected in "Fleeting Beauty: Japanese Woodblock Prints," essentially because his U.S. warships put an end to Japan's isolation, and the arts that flourished during that isolation, in 1853. During the prior two centuries of Edo Period seclusion, these ukiyo-e prints grew ever more colorful and technically refined. Yet this exquisite art is remarkably conservative and inward-looking; there's no sense of progress at all, no trace of outside influence or creeping modernity. Perhaps that's why the geishas, courtesans, actors, peasant scenes, cherry blossoms, snow-scapes, and multiple views of Mt. Fuji today seem so iconic and quintessentially Japanese. There's a beautiful stasis to them, a denial of history, an unwavering mirror held up to a nation as it wants to imagine itself—and imagines that reflection will never change. In the famous waves of Hokusai, gardens of Hiroshige, and teahouses of Utamaro, dating from circa 1740–1850, we see an idealized vision of a strict feudal society. (Never mind the cruelty, hunger, and unfairness—leave that to the historians.) The prints have been announced as future gifts from local collectors Mary and Allan Kollar, one of SAAM's best bequests—and exhibitions—in years. (Through July 3.) Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E. Prospect St., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org. $5–$7. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
FRIDAY 4/9
Theater: Epic Appeal
There are many reasons why the tale of the Trojan War remains timeless. Gargantuan folly, sad to say, never goes out of style. But you only need two incentives for An Iliad, which begins previews tonight. First, the one-man show was co-created (with director Lisa Peterson) by the always-impeccable Denis O'Hare, a Tony-winning performer (as a gay accountant besotted by baseball in Take Me Out) and indispensable Hollywood character actor. (Note his despicable hit-and-run driver in Michael Clayton or impeccably vile Senator Briggs in Milk). Second, when O'Hare's shooting schedule for HBO's True Blood (as the Vampire King of Mississippi) meant he suddenly had to bow out of his own piece, longtime Seattle actor Hans Altwies—a founder of this city's fine New Century Theater Company—took over his role. Or rather, roles: Altwies possesses the leading-man looks for all of Homer's heroes and an appealing ease that should lend itself nicely to drawing an audience into the grand yet intimate act of solo storytelling. O'Hare and Peterson want you to reflect on the modern resonances of ancient Greek vengeance; Altwies is the ideal warrior to wage that battle. (Through May 16.) Seattle Repertory Theater, 155 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 443-2222, seattlerep.org. $12–$30. 7:30 p.m. STEVE WIECKING
Film: A Tower of Vaseline
Matthew Barney is back—naked, glistening with Vaseline, eating a Chrysler, scaling the walls of the Guggenheim in a kilt, riding bulls, having sex, and killing gas-station attendants. The numbers aren't chronological in his five-part art-film epic The Cremaster Cycle, and the films—shot between 1995 and 2002—are linked by theme, not narrative. (What's a cremaster? The muscle that raises and lowers the testicles, an organic engine of sexual differentiation.) Tonight through Sunday, Cremaster 3 is a film about architecture; you could call it Barney's The Fountainhead, as architects and Freemasons seek to impose structure upon nature. Entropy is their enemy, and it usually wins. Running Sun.–Tues., Part 2 casts Barney as homicidal/suicidal Gary Gilmore, with a cameo by Norman Mailer as Harry Houdini; it's paired with the almost comic Part 1, which is like a Busby Berkeley movie as chorines march in formation on blue Astroturf in an empty football stadium. Above, in twin Goodyear blimps, elaborately coiffed and composed '50s stewardess figures lounge like models in that old Robert Palmer music video. Part 5 features Ursula Andress amid a clutter of borrowed classical motifs; it's the weakest of the five films, but it's accompanied by the exciting motorcycle-sidecar racing of Part 4 (also Sun.–Thurs.), with Barney as a tap-dancing red-haired satyr. SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St. (McCaw Hall), 448-2186, siff.net. $8-$10. 7:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
Theater: Risk Reduction
Anyone who's been a regular at the essential fringe company Washington Ensemble Theatre over the past five years—and if you haven't, what's your excuse?—knows damn well that the words "generated by the ensemble" can be problematic. (Recall 2007's Hedda Gabler, presented as a bad rehearsal experiment.) And yet: WET pushes itself with consistent energy and daring. You want to see what it'll try next, how it'll stir things up. So, absolutely, let's root for the group-generated RoboPop!, which is billed as "an exuberant kaleidoscope" and has something to do with a heroic woman, a battle with a robot, and love's saving grace. And in the department of stirring things up, the show gives co-directing duties to skilled designers Heidi Ganser (whose costumes have been fundamental to several WET successes) and Ben Zamora (a lighting whiz with credits including The Tristan Project, Peter Sellars' visually stunning take on Tristan und Isolde). And here's betting that John Abramson, a canny local actor and director who guided Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui onto our 10-best list back in 2004, is worth a look making his WET performance debut in the cast. (Through May 10.) Washington Ensemble Theatre, 608 19th Ave. E., 325-5105, washingtonensemble.org. $10–$18. 7:30 p.m. STEVE WIECKING
