Opening Nights
Ed, Downloaded
Washington Ensemble Theatre, 608 19th Ave. E., 325-5105, washingtonensemble.org. $15–$20. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Mon. Ends Feb. 24.
Not everything that Washington Ensemble Theatre touches is flawless; but, as with many a fine jewel, imperfections can fascinate as well. That said, Michael Mitnick’s Ed, Downloaded is really more a sketch than a fully realized play, with some Bertha-sized credibility gaps. Director Ali el-Gasseir has his hands full with this strangely earnest fantasy, which never decides if it’s broad comedy or pointed satire.
Mitnick’s sci-fi premise is clever enough: Terminally ill geologist Ed (Noah Benezra) will have his mind stored in a box, and after his death it’ll relive a loop of 10 favorite memories for the rest of eternity. This apparatus comes courtesy of his girlfriend Selene (Gin Hammond), who works for a biotech company. Problem is, before his death (which ends the first act), Ed had been straying from the smotheringly protective harpy Selene and falling for the spontaneous, pixie-like street performer Ruby (Adria LaMorticella). Selene cannot bear that the man she nursed from illness to the grave would prefer to remember the happy-go-lucky Ruby. So which of Ed’s memories should be preserved—those of Ruby or Selene? That’s the conflict to be resolved in Act II.
Like HAL in 2001, Ed is now but a disembodied voice as Selene tries to replace his fond memories of Ruby with her own reconstructions—starring herself. The disconnect between his “organic” recollections and the newly implanted data leads to an inevitable meltdown, both inside the Ed box and between his rival lovers, paticularly when Ruby shows up to argue for keeping Ed’s memories intact. It’s a catfight over the rights to Ed’s intellectual property—now well corrupted by Selene.
Unfortunately, it makes little to no sense that Ruby could gain access to a high-tech laboratory to confront Selene. Nor does Mitnick explain how Ruby is certain that Selene is tinkering with Ed’s memories—since she doesn’t even know he’s dead. And in a lab full of glowing memory boxes, Ruby is somehow able to discern which is Ed’s. Mitnick sets up a clash between his heroines, then shrinks from its resolution—a defect I’ve never seen before at WET. This is doubly frustrating when the show looks great, thanks to Cameron Irwin’s set design and the film components that bring Ed’s memories vividly back to life. (Here we see just how low Selene will stoop to erase Ruby from Ed’s cyber-cerebellum.) That the playwright couldn’t figure out a way to pull his plot together seems lazy, beneath WET’s always crisp acting and presentation.
Just as Ed-in-a-box is able to tell what’s real from what’s faked or forced, theatergoers will find Ed, Downloaded to be mostly bogus. Kevin Phinney
PThe Little Dog Laughed
ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., 938-0339, artswest.org. $15–$34.50. Runs 7:30 p.m. WEd.–Sat. 3 p.m. Sun. Ends. Feb. 16.
Remember last year when Jodie Foster came out during the Golden Globes, confirming what everyone knew? Her announcement would’ve been impossible back in the days of Rock Hudson living in the closet; and it would’ve been unlikely still in 2006, when Douglas Carter Beane’s The Little Dog Laughed had its New York premiere.
Mitchell Green (Alex Garnett) is a movie star who would have it all if he didn’t have that tiny trouble of keeping his “slightly recurring case of homosexuality under wraps.” He develops tender feelings for rent boy Alex (Jeff Orton), much to the chagrin of Diane (Heather Hawkins), a Hollywood agent who makes Californication’s Charlie Runkle seem compassionate. Mitchell’s honesty about his sexuality would threaten both their careers, and Diane is determined to keep him in the closet—there’s your plot.
As a dialogue junkie, I want to mainline Beane’s script. Stylistically, it reminds me of my favorite living playwright, John Guare, as Little Dog tests the cast with intense monologues about the human condition that still advance the Hollywood satire. The cast of four—all characters deplorable enough to be expanded into their own Showtime series—dazzlingly delivers Beane’s droll writing. Orton acutely animates lines that could be careless cliches, such as “Let me guess—you are straight but curious.” (EmilyRose Frasca plays Ellen, Alex’s naive girlfriend.)
John Allbritton’s low-budget costumes are the only hitch in this production, well directed by Annie Lareau. In her opening monologue, Diane dons a dress supposedly worn to a prior awards ceremony, but it looks more like Nordstrom Rack. Was she really wearing a navy wrap with a black frock and—for the love of all things sacred—bone shoes? Luckily, Hawkins’ stage presence stopped me from being too distracted by the sub-Hollywood wardrobe. On which subject, I’ll be more interested next month to see what the stars are wearing at the Oscars than hearing which are gay. Alyssa Dyksterhouse
PThe Sleeping Beauty
McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 441-2424, pnb.org. $28–$179. 7 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 1 p.m. Sat.–SUn. Ends Feb. 9.
In some ways, a dance company is just like any other workplace—there are always people who are close to retirement, people who are moving up in the organization, and people who are just starting. Last weekend Pacific Northwest Ballet opened The Sleeping Beauty with the title role shared among four dancers, each at a different place in the arc of her career.
Kaori Nakamura came to PNB from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1997, and has made herself almost indispensable. She is not exclusively any one thing, but has danced an incredible variety of roles, from dramatic to abstract, all with clarity and authority. It’s unusual that a performer who excels at a big-scale tragic role, as in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Romeo et Juliette, would be equally skilled at George Balanchine’s abstract neoclassical style or the exacting classicism of Marius Petipa in Sleeping Beauty, yet Nakamura has mastered all these and more. She recently announced her retirement at the end of this season, so her opening-night appearance as Aurora was especially sweet.
Lesley Rausch and Rachel Foster are both in mid-career. Rausch dances Aurora as if she’s been working on the part her whole life, which in a way she has; she danced myriad friend and fairy characters in Sleeping Beauty before debuting in the main role four years ago. On Saturday night she took a big step beyond that debut with a truly radiant performance. Foster has distinguished herself in more contemporary repertory—her performances in Crystal Pite’s Emergence earlier this season were a tour de force of animal behaviors—which makes her Aurora, arguably the purest of the classical roles, all the more impressive. She achieves a level of calm clarity that will serve her as she grows in the part.
Leta Biasucci has only been in Seattle since 2011, but she’s already had several choice roles, including the lead in George Balanchine’s comedic Coppelia. Still, Sleeping Beauty is a daunting challenge, where fidelity to classical skills becomes a metaphor for youthful purity. There isn’t really any place to hide or many opportunities to fudge—luckily for Biasucci, she doesn’t seem to need any wiggle room. Her Aurora was thoroughly charming—a culmination of everything that’s come before, and a tantalizing suggestion of what might happen in the future.
All four women will appear next weekend, alongside a stageful of artists whose work is exceptionally skilled, in a production that is a test of their skills and the strength of the company as a whole. Sandra Kurtz
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