Sex, drugs, and chamber music at the Rep

A marvelous cast and a wonderful script make Opus, a play by Michael Hollinger directed by Braden Abraham at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, a treat not to be missed.

Opus is the tale of the award-winning Lazara String Quartet and the personal and professional relationships between the players. They're preparing for a big gig at the White House, but also auditioning for a new viola player. The "sex, drugs, and chamber music" line from the play's promotional materials is a bit of hyperbole; the sex is inferred and the drugs are mostly pharmaceutical. But another line from the Rep's flyers touting the "all-star local cast" is spot on.

First violin Elliot, a control freak and total prick played deliciously by Allen Fitzpatrick, has engineered the sacking  from the quartet of Dorian (Todd Jefferson Moore), his former lover. The players agree that Dorian is the most talented musician of the bunch, but he's also a little "buggy" and the flightiness finally gets to be too much to bear. As the show opens Grace (Chelsey Rives), a talented young woman musician, auditions and wins Dorian's seat in the group. Bass player Carl (Charles Leggett) provides the grounding for the quartet musically and personally. Second violin Alan (Shawn Belyea) has great feeling, showing concern for the well-being of the others in the group, and develops an eye for Grace. All five cast members give delightful performances.

Hollinger, a violinist himself before becoming a playwright, weaves his dialog like music, bringing the various voices together beautifully. While taking on some challenging subject matter--making art, the bickering, ambition, and egos involved, and how personal relationships can affect the final product--Hollinger does so with good humor. The show is never sappy and the ending isn't at all pat.

The music is handled well. While in general we don't care so much for the use of recorded music in live theater, it would have been impossible to find five superb string players who are also marvelous actors. So while the music is actually recordings of the Vertigo String Quartet out of Philadelphia, the choreography of the actors gives an authentic and plausible look to their playing, even though they aren't.

A spoiler here:

At the end Dorian comes back with a proposal. He, the better musician, should replace Elliot, his former lover, in the group. The quartet agrees. In a dispute over proper ownership of a prized Lazara violin, Carl smashes the instrument on a chair. Shrapnel from the shattered masterpiece flew into the audience, and Weisenheimer snagged a piece of theater prop souvenir. It's pictured in my photo above, on top of a show program!

UPDATE: With the run of the show ending tomorrow, John Levesque reports on SeattlePI.com that a total of 55 violins gave up their lives in Opus. They weren't just stage props, they were real violins, beginner models, that the Rep bought for about $30 each!

Opus runs through Dec. 6 in the Rep's Leo K theatre. Don't miss it.

World ends with big laughs at the Rep

The Seattle Rep bills its current production of boom, by playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, as "a comedy about the end of the world." And sure enough, you know you're in for an apocalyptic nightmare when the pre-show musical selections include such songs of gloom and dread as REM's "The End of the World as We Know It," "S.O.S." by Abba, "I Feel the Earth Move" by Carole King, and even the Carpenters' "Close to You."

Wha-what?? Carpenters? Yes. Remember the lyric, "Why do stars fall down from the sky..."

In boom, it's not a star that falls, but a comet that slams into Earth, just as predicted by Jules, a geeky, gay, and somewhat scattered biology grad student played with great flair by Nick Garrison. Though nobody believes Jules when he predicts catastrophe, he makes preparations anyway. His lab is in an old bomb shelter, he lays in an ample supply of bourbon, food, tampons, and diapers, and uses a Craig's List personal ad to lure a young co-ed into his shelter for the purposes of peopleing the planet post apocalypse.

Unfortunately, the date he gets is Jo, played by Chelsey Rives. Jo, a journalism major who is always behind deadline, plans to use her one-night fling as the basis for a magazine article on fleeting happiness. Jo has no interest in bearing even one child, much less being mother of the entire human race. The comet hits. Jo and Jules are trapped in the lab.

Hilarity ensues, and we get to watch. It's all overseen by Barbara (Gretchen Krich), something of a narrator and one-woman Greek chorus. When she's not griping about the management she's pulling levers and banging the drum, and not slowly. To say more would spoil the punch line -- and you're a genius if you see it coming.

Weisenheimer loves both Garrison and Rives (pictured at right in the production photo by Chris Bennion). Garrison was incredible in an over-the-top performance as the Emcee in Cabaret at The 5th Avenue earlier this year, and also played a gender-bending Feste in Twelfe Night at the Rep this past season. We were in row two at the Rep's Leo K theatre, an intimate house to begin with, the better to be riveted by Garrison's wide range of facial expressions and idiosyncracies. (Though at one point, when Jo observes that "You don't have 'gay' eyes," he responds "I'm wearing contacts.") He really nails (so to speak) the sometimes slapstick, fidgety, socially inept savior of the race. Rives is a ball of fire as Jo, who chronicles each of her hundreds of suicide attempts in the lab, all of which fail (though one was pretty close.) She's a whirlwind who has a chip on her shoulder, and we're pretty sure it was there before the end of the world. Weisenheimer also enjoyed her performance as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire at Intiman this year. She also was in The Lady From Dubuque at the Rep last year. She's a marvelous talent and one to watch.

boom, directed by Jerry Manning, has been extended through Dec. 21. Go!