THURSDAY 4/22
Zibby Wilder
Meet Mr. LOL at the library.
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Theater: Twat Talk
Coochie, twat, vajayjay, honeypot. If you're uncomfortable reading the terms, you might really squirm hearing them in Eve Ensler's ever-evolving 1996 The Vagina Monologues. Directed by Tyrone Brown, this production features five new monologues that feature oppressed women (i.e., transgendered, the Juarez murders, Lakota domestic abuse, Korean comfort women, life in a burqa). The others are more lighthearted—paeans to the feisty/filthy/fabulous life socket. Actresses in evening attire penetrate the cramped Stone Soup stage from all directions with stories of gushing, gashing, gnashing, seductions, sedations, and secretions. A child rape victim, for example, gets back on track through the sexual affections of a glamorous female neighbor. Despite some faltering dialects, the performances I saw were powerful in their unflinching present-ness; and in giving voice to that long-silent mouth downstairs, a few were actually funny. (Ends May 16.) Stone Soup Theater, 4035 Stone Way N.E., 633-1883, stonesouptheatre.com. $10–$20. 8 p.m. MARGARET FRIEDMAN
Dance: Attack of the Giant Kittens!
Amelia Reeber has an impeccable alternative-dance resume, performing with Deborah Hay and Pat Graney, co-founding Foot in Mouth, and continuing to be a gifted improviser and soloist. But what you don't really expect from that serious background is how funny she can be. For December's A.W.A.R.D. Show at On the Boards, she buzzed around stage like a demented bee to a soundtrack of home-remodeling horror stories, her eccentric rhythms working in counterpoint to those tales of woe. In this is a forgery, which she's expanded from last year's Northwest New Works Fest, she's stalked by videos of giant kittens while she methodically unwraps yards and yards of Ace bandages from her shins. From the tangle, she makes a giant cat's cradle that's attached to a ship's anchor. She's the leading contender for my non sequitur dance prize of 2010. (Through May 1.) Erickson Theatre, 1524 Harvard Ave., 587-5400, ameliareeber.com. $12–$15. 8 p.m. SANDRA KURTZ
Classical: Opening Gambits
Funny thing about the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: It's one of the most famously assertive and arresting gestures in the repertory, yet it's completely harmonically and rhythmically ambiguous—you can't tell from those first few bars what key or meter the movement's going to continue in. French composer Henri Dutilleux relishes such mystery in the opening of his 1970 cello concerto Tout un monde lointain—a brush on the snare drum, nothing more, like the hushed drawing-back of a veil. Behind that veil, in the half-hourish work, lie enraptured, floating cello soliloquies backed by pastel wisps from the orchestra, which become concentrated in the dashing final movement into firework-like gushes of color. Then there are the six no-nonsense brass honks of Verdi's La forza del destino overture, telling you to shut the hell up, the opera's starting. (I'm making the piece sound subtler than it actually is.) Ludovic Morlot conducts all three works on this weekend's Seattle Symphony concerts, with cellist Xavier Phillips (whose performance of the Dutilleux with a Swiss orchestra can be found on YouTube). Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $17–$100. 7:30 p.m. (Repeats Sat. & Sun.) GAVIN BORCHERT
FRIDAY 4/23
Comedy: Blithe Spirit
English comic Russell Brand was basically unknown here until the 2008 Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which he played a preeningly self-absorbed rock star. (Bombing on MTV's VMA awards that year also helped.) But the film was such a hit that he's reprising the role in Get Him to the Greek (opening June 4) and currently touring the U.S. with his mop of hair and calculated insouciance. Whether discussing drugs or prostitutes, Brand assumes a kind of innocent wonderment toward sin and transgression (chiefly his own). He seems to be asking How could anyone find this so wrong? But his giggly, high-pitched South London accent and foppish stage demeanor are something of a façade. There's a nimble mind at work beneath the back-combed coiffure. Brand shifts easily from politics to class issues to sports (he's written about soccer for The Guardian), all the while maintaining his cheerful mock quest for transatlantic celebrity. Eagerly tracking his Google search rankings, he's said more than once, "My personality doesn't work without fame. Without fame, this haircut just looks like mental illness." Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., 443-1744, stgpresents.org. $33–$35.50. 8 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
LOL Dogs: I Can Has Meme, Pleez?
Maybe he underpays his employees, and doesn't pay his content suppliers at all, but Ben Huh has built his ICanHasCheezburger.com into one of Seattle's biggest tech success stories. His family of Web sites, most featuring user-generated pet photos and wacky, misspelled captions, reaps the kind of page-view counts that the MSM can only imagine. (See also: FailBlog.org and GraphJam.com.) Lately he's also become a publisher of humor books, with the iconic LOL Cats again getting into more ungrammatical mischief. Tonight he'll show and discuss images from I Has a Hotdog: What Your Dog Is Really Thinking (Grand Central, $12), which is sure to lead to calendars, greeting cards, T-shirts, and coffee mugs. It may not be enduring literature, but "Oh hai" and "Do not want!" have become part of the nation's water-cooler parlance. The power of such memes is to cut through our Internet info-clutter, the too-muchness of the Web, with one easy click to a smile (or frown, if ur [sic] a copy editor). Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. 7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
