Assisted Living

A Contemporary Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676, acttheatre.org. $41 and up. 
Runs Tues.–Sun. Ends May 12.

Dick Cheney is president. Medicare is gone. The elderly, criminalized for costing the system too much, are stored in prisonlike holding facilities and, when they die, are dumped down a floor chute in the dystopian “iPhone 12” future of Katie Forgette’s new comedy. Talk about a large, succulent buttock for hypodermic satire! The eldercare world of failing bodies, failing minds, and failed politics should breed jokes like germs in a nursery school, right?

And it does. But whether the jokes—ranging from smart to inane to forced and disgusting—land and cohere into something powerful depends on your immunity to sloppy theater. Assisted Living is rife with inconsistencies, confusing details, thinly veiled exposition about the health-care system, and cartoonish mayhem. Directed by R. Hamilton Wright (Forgette’s husband), the all-star cast painstakingly breathes pep into the flimsy plot about demoralized old folks rising up against the Power (embodied by Julie Briskman as the tyrannical Nurse Claudia) in order to produce a Nativity play and reclaim their desire to live. As per the pharma ads, “Results may vary.”

Kurt Beattie and Marianne Owen play Joe and Judy, the most relatable, appealing, and romantically viable of the four singleton codgers we meet. Mitzi and Wally (Laura Kenny and Jeff Steizer) share bladder issues—she has urinary accidents, he sports a catheter bag at the ankle. Wally and Mitzi exist mostly for comic purposes shoehorned into the script. (When Mitzi sits on Nurse Claudia’s chair, Claudia unbelievably berates her for impersonation rather than for imperiling the chair; moments later, Mitzi fouls the chair, as though we or Claudia wouldn’t have seen that coming a mile away.) The story too often serves the gags, not vice versa. Still, the folks around me laughed a lot.

On the upside, there are some fiercely weird moments, some provocative ones, and some touching ones. Felonious orderly Kevin (Tim Gouran) yells “Stiff! Incoming!” when he drops a body down the chute. Claudia’s Twinkie-police meltdown, about how unhealthy boomers bankrupted their descendants, duly voices the conservative side of the entitlements debate. Later, Joe and Judy’s insomniac date in the deserted rec room, gently lit by Rick Paulsen to contrast with the daylight glare, is the sweeter for broken rules and mortality. But soon it’s back to slapstick and who winds up with the tranquilizer guns. 
MARGARET FRIEDMAN

PBlack Watch

The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 
877-784-4849, stgpresents.org. 
$21.25–$55. Runs Daily through May 5.

Crackling with machismo, set on a stage where there’s no hiding from the roar of artillery fire and IEDs, Black Watch may be the first theatrical event to cause PTSD in its audience.

The Black Watch is a Scottish regiment in the British Army, steeped in traditions that date back to Robert the Bruce, and its small-town lads cling to each other like bawdy, brawling fraternity brothers. During their deployment to Iraq, though, the soldiers’ banter gives way to very real threats of death and dismemberment.

Set between two sets of risers like a miniature football stadium, Black Watch brings audiences so close to the action that the scent of explosives is always in the air, the smoke never completely clears, and we can watch the actors’ eyes scanning every corner for snipers.

Gregory Burke’s 2006 play is more economical than most tweets, and this bus-and-truck tour is also overseen by John Tiffany, the show’s original director at the National Theater of Scotland. It’s a brutal, insightful, and profanity-laced shove into the rabbit hole of Iraq, where the Black Watch had to keep “The Triangle of Death” from falling into the hands of insurgents.

Much of the play is told in flashback, with an occasional assist from multimedia clips showing dissent at home—and what happens when a smart bomb finds its target.

Innumerable war stories contain that moment when combat vets sneer at a soft-as-cheese reporter asking “What’s it really like?” to be in combat. Black Watch stages that exchange again, but also answers the question with a blistering intensity. This show is louder than most rock concerts, and the sound of screaming jets and ground-support fire is not for the faint of heart (or ear). When the soldiers duck for cover, you’ll have that impulse, too.

Likely this is the closest a person can come to combat without enlisting. These practiced performances and well-lived-in characters make vividly clear the cost of war: It frays the nerves, dulls compassion for all but your closest comrades, and makes you question the noble call to arms. Absent a clear mission or moral imperative in Iraq, these soldiers can be loyal to only one thing: the oath to keep themselves and their mates alive. KEVIN PHINNEY

Boeing Boeing

Seattle Repertory Theatre, 155 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 443-2222, seattlerep.org. $15–$80. Runs Wed.–Sun. Ends May 19.

Everything good about this lollipop of a period piece comes from Seattle Rep, starting with the decision to close its 50th season with this half-century-old play in tribute to the jet-age spirit of our World’s Fair, when an airport lounge was an epicenter of swank and an “air hostess” an archetype of feminine desirability. (Marc Camoletti set his farce in Paris, but it hardly matters; they should have just gone ahead, taking a cue from the title, and recast it in Seattle.)

Corey Wong’s set is a Populuxe fantasy, a Jetsons bachelor pad with an Esquivel soundtrack, from the downstage-center remote-controlled bar (literally a wet bar: It contains an aquarium) to, around the perimeter, the multiple doors every farce requires. This apartment belongs to playboy Bernard (Richard Nguyen Sloniker, radiant with charm), whose scheme to juggle three stewardess girlfriends is threatened when Boeing’s improved engines shorten their flight times and muddle his precision scheduling. As those girls, Bhama Roget, Angela DiMarco, and Cheyenne Casebier pile loads of zip and personality upon Camoletti’s stale ethnic stereotypes: The American Gloria is perky, pushy, and puts ketchup on pancakes; the Italian Gabriella is a molto caldo sexpot; the German Gretchen is a sauerkraut-loving ball-buster with dance moves like a cross between Joey Heatherton and Mike Myers’ Dieter. Mark Bedard stirs the pot as Bernard’s Wally Coxian friend Robert; Anne Allgood makes the very most of the testy maid Berthe.

It’s a bubbly exercise in sheer theatrical style, as sharp and slick as Don Draper’s haircut, in the service of one of the weakest scripts I’ve ever seen on a stage—two hours of flat lines, pointless incidents, and endless expository dialogue. I watched, moment by moment, in disbelief that this was the best the playwright could have come up with. (What happens when you eat a lot of sauerkraut? Yes, Camoletti went there.) Speaking of moving the setting to Seattle: Robert and Gretchen’s bit about confusing two cities both named Aix, which is really all that anchors the play in Europe, could’ve easily been translated to the Northwest’s two Vancouvers. You can’t argue it would be less funny.

Even the promise of the premise was lamely withheld; what finally gets the three G’s in Bernard’s apartment simultaneously is bad weather, not the title company’s technological advances. And as for feeling cheated, don’t even ask how lazily Camoletti untangles his plot. Afterward, I went home to watch a 30 Rock and laughed every eight seconds. So I know it’s not just me. Gavin Borchert

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