eSe Teatro / Central Heating Lab: Don Quixote & Sancho Panza: Homeless in Seattle

You would think coming home from two weeks at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we would have had our fill of theater. You would be wrong. The Weisenheimers never get enough of theater. Plus, some artists we know, respect, enjoy, and admire—along with some artists we were about to be introduced to—were putting on a show. So we went. 

That show was Don Quixote & Sancho Panza: Homeless in Seattle, by Rose Cano, directed by David Quicksall, by eSe Teatro and the Central Heating Lab at ACT, and starring José Amador and Will Rose. It was every bit as beautiful, butt-kicking, and bold as the best of what we saw in Ashland.  

The play is structured the way Cervantes' novel is: an episodic journey. What holds the story together is less a narrative "arc" and more character and theme. Which is fine by me. Something interesting should happen to someone interesting; beyond that, plot is overrated.

Rose (left) and Amador share a sandwich in eSe Teatro's
production of Rose Cano's Don Quixote & Sancho Panza:
Homeless in Seattle. Photo by Stephanie Mallard Couch.

This play's two primary characters are strange bedfellows who rescue each other in Seattle and stay connected on the streets in a sort of weak molecular attraction (by which I mean, rather strong) until their paths irrevocably fork. The themes are chivalry (by which I mean something so much more than men perfunctorily holding doors open for women); virtue, morality, manliness, being a gentleman, being a caballero. Also, friendship. And, the porosity of all sorts of boundaries: time; spaces indoor and out, public and private; bodily integrity; sanity. Some of these episodes were heartbreakingly hilarious (like, working a day job walking around a conference as wi-fi hotspots); some were just heartbreaking.

The performances by, and chemistry between, Will Rose and José Amador were riveting. Rose as Don Quixote brought a taller-than-life, naive, tender courtliness to every moment, delivered entirely in Spanish. My high school Spanish cannot take the credit, it was Rose's performance (and undoubtedly Cano's writing and Quicksall's direction) that made the story and meaning so clear, even as I picked up every few words and some of the grammar. Rose's language, body and voice, was exquisitely lovely to hear and see. 

Amador as Sancho Panza played translator, foil, protagonist, protector, interpreter, chorus, conscience, sidekick, muse...shit, he was busy. He grounded Rose's Quixote's loftiness and provided heat for his light. Every moment, he was so alive, so observant, so quick, and so present, even as Quixote became more remote. 

This play landed. It was simply impossible to watch it without thinking of the person I see once or twice a week at a downtown intersection and exchange pleasantries with while waiting for the green light, but whose name I do not know. Without thinking of the people I never knew who have died or been hurt here at the hands of police violence but whose stories have become like memories. Without thinking of the people I know well who suffer from illnesses of body and mind with few options for help, and plenty of exposure to judgment. 

I would love to learn more about Cano's process writing this play. My understanding is that, in addition to drawing on her own experience as an interpreter at our local ERs, she held readings and workshops with people who live in Seattle without a roof to call their own. 

The attention to detail in the set, props, costume helped make the most of the tiny, intimate space in the Eulalie Scandiuzzi Space at ACT. And the ensemble supporting cast did an outstanding job: Ian Bond, Steve Gallion, Angela Maestas, Xochitl Portillo-Moody were nurses, sirens, street kids, medics, memories, and more as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza made their way through dreams and reality in a play that hit home.

What a difference a day makes

Various dubious Internet sources attribute a quotation to Mark Twain opining that it takes three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. While he likely never said it, it's a good sentiment that might well be applied to writing one-act plays as well.

14/48, the World's Quickest Theater Festival, blatantly ignores Twain's advice, giving its playwrights 12 hours—the overnight ones, no less!—to take a play from broad theme to completion. Then it gives everyone else involved about 12 hours to direct, memorize, rehearse, costume, score, tech, and stage the play before its world premiere performance before a packed house. Then they do it again the next day, creating 14 new plays in the space of 48 hours.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster. Yet 14/48 is our most anticipated theatre event every winter and summer because this insane premise almost always delivers remarkable results. None of the plays are perfect, because they can't be; if Shakespeare were alive today he'd probably still be tinkering with Hamlet. But many of the scripts tell compelling stories, and even those that don't are often bailed out by inspired performances or clever staging.

Except for this weekend. The last two days of the winter festival were especially interesting because Friday night was a complete goose-egg. Oh-for-seven. All of the plays were total bombs. A couple of them had a few laughs and some interesting performances, but on the whole the evening was disappointing. Even the band, comprised of mostly familiar players whose talent we admire, seemed off beat and lacking energy.

Then an amazing thing happened. The same suspects returned on Saturday, even more sleep deprived, and gave us seven pretty good plays, despite a theme—special teams—that organizers felt compelled to explain to the audience because it has its root in sports, certainly foreign to most who partake in theatre, especially if its spelled with an re instead of an er.

I especially enjoyed For Love and Love Alone, a spy thriller by Josef Krebs and directed by Nik Perleros, featuring Trick Danneker as the spy, Amanda Lee Williams as the mad evildoer bent on world domination, Zoey Belyea as the chain-smoking French ninja (every play has to have some sort of standard character), and Mark Fullerton as both the chief of the operation and Trick's love interest.

Our faith in 14/48 and in the insanely talented pool of theatre artists in Seattle is restored.

Kudos to the super talented José Amador, who was given the Mazen Award in recognition of his contributions to the spirit of risk taking and camaraderie embodied in the 14/48 process. Amador is a regular on the 14/48 blog and did some marvelous writing about theatre for Seattlest until it was boarded up. He is now writing for the new Seattle Star. Check out his insider report about the Jan. 6-7 weekend of 14/48.

Lessons from the weekend: Keep putting yourselves on the line. And don't schedule 14/48 for Friday the 13th!

Thanks for taking the risks and for putting on great theatre!

Annex scores with two nice shows

With all of the theater my Sweetie, the official scorer, and I see it's pretty amazing that we had never taken in a show at Annex Theatre--until this month, when we saw two in six days. Both were outstanding.

L-R Jennifer Pratt as Annique, Jade
Justad as Veronica, and Daniel Chris-
tensen as Micky in Scotto Moore's play
When I Come to My Senses I'm Alive.
Photo: Ben Laurance.

Back on May 14 we saw When I Come to My Senses I'm Alive by local playwright Scotto Moore and directed by Kristina Sutherland. Expectations were high. Moore penned two of our favorites of the January 14/48 festival, and the cast included a couple of Balagan friends, LaChrista Borgers and Curtis Eastwood.

Senses did not disappoint. Moore's sci-fi script explored the notion of human emotions that can be downloaded and enjoyed vicariously, and a super malevolent intelligence that evolved when the system got hacked. Jennifer Pratt was excellent as Annique Farrar, the inventor of the emotion-sharing helmets, Eastwood was delightful as the sleazy TV network exec who wanted to steal it all, and Jade Justad was cool and calculating as the dangerous Veronica Bilious, spy, hacker, and hit-woman extraordinaire.

Kudos to set designer David Gignac, who came up with a big swinging wall that made it easy to switch between Annique's basement, where all the computing takes place, and the TV network offices and other scenes of the show.

We're really enjoying Moore's plays and hope to see more of them.

A few days later we took in José Amador's one-man show El Hijo Prodigo (The Prodigal Son), directed by Mark Fullerton. It's the tale of a man's trip back to his native Puerto Rico after more than two decades off the island. Amador is a marvelous story teller, and his narrative is at turns funny, haunting, gut-wrenching, and touching. Weisenheimer got especially weepy around the end, partly because Pops Weisenheimer passed away in the same year as Padre Amador.

José's performance was a bit on the spotty side, as there were a couple of occasions when he had to struggle to recall his lines. The performance we saw was the last of a run of several weeks, and besides, mastering what is, in effect, a 90-minute monologue must be one heck of a challenge. The story is entirely compelling. We'd love to see Amador continue to refine El Hijo Prodigo, and perhaps add other actors. We imagine it would be fun to meet some of the characters he told us about.

Sadly, both shows have closed. If you missed them, you missed some good stuff. And kudos to Annex for producing almost exclusively new works.

Curtains for a fun theater year

2009 has been a great year for Weisenheimer theater. My Sweetie, the official scorer, counted 81 plays we've seen this year (including all 40 one-act plays of 14/48 and Death, Sex as separate plays). A couple of fun ones rounded out the year. Holiday revelry and some rare astronomy action delayed the reviews of these shows until today.

Death, Sex at Balagan Theatre
Balagan rolled out the concept of Death, Sex in February, and the concept was so funny, and successful, that bringing it back for a holiday treatment seemed a natural. Most of the six holiday-themed one-act plays were written by local playwrights especially for this production. They're a raunchy lot, and we love 'em!

The best of the six in Weisenheimer's estimation was Pillow, written by Frederick Stroppel and directed by Mike Dooly and M. Elizabeth Eller. It was the hilarious tale of Janice, a senior citizen whose revelations of sexual and chemical proclivities grew more outrageous and gut-busting as the play went along. Noelle, written and directed by José Amador, was a meeting of one character, aged 17, 25, and 36. They discussed the big-Os of their age ranges, brought on with the help of a variety of high-voltage appliances, until the eldest succumbed to the heart murmur. Consumption, Consummation by Nik Perleros and Davey Young, directed by Chris Bell, was the heartwarming tale of a praying mantis love triangle gone bad. For "Horny," played by Sam Hagen, the only down side was that his marshmallow brain was consumed twice as quickly. Terri Weagant as "mom" in I Saw Mommy (by Eric Ankrim, directed by Banton Foster) had the best line of the night, and a somewhat novel outlook on a white Christmas.

Death, Sex was great fun.

Sister's Christmas Catechism at ACT.
A spinoff of the long-running Late Night Catechism, which, inexplicably, we have never seen, Sister's Christmas Catechism is a riotous two-hour class during which audience members are scolded for chewing gum, taunted for late arrivals, scorned for talking or having their cell phones tweet, awarded with holy cards and other gifts (Christmas Kit Kats) for their knowledge of the saints, and pulled into duty as a living nativity scene to help solve the mystery of the missing gold from the magi.

Written by Maripat Donovan and directed by Marc Silvia, Sister's Christmas Catechism is a long, funny, impressive monologue for actress Aubrey Manning, who really delivers, and finds the gold in the end.

You'll learn a lot about the saints, and also that Presbyterians is an anagram for Britney Spears. Sister continues at ACT through Sunday.