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!

No arguments with the Rep's Speech and Debate

The Seattle Repertory Theatre production of Stephen Karam's Speech and Debate, directed by Andrea Allen, is a marvelously entertaining presentation of a fantastic, witty script and provides some great opportunities for a trio of superb, young, local actors.

Erin Stewart as Diwata is at the center of the action from the beginning, when she concocts a musical podcast diatribe against the clearly clueless drama teacher who failed to cast her in the lead of her Salem, Oregon high school's production of Once Upon a Mattress. She becomes the leader of a small ring that includes Solomon (Justin Huertas), a cub reporter miffed because the school paper won't let him publsh his story of a sex scandal involving the mayor; and Howie (Trick Danneker), the openly gay, new kid in school who wants to start a gay-straight alliance. That's Stewart in the foreground, with Danneker (at left) and Huertas in the Chris Bennion photo above right.

Diwata is completely annoying; a bossy know-it-all who doesn't yet care what others think of her, and Stewart plays her with great flair and sensitivity and even a hint of vulnerability. Solomon is a total dork who is really pushing that story. "I'm a journalist," he says while sticking his digital recorder in everyone's face. As a journalist, he's not so hard-boiled; he gets out of sticky situations by declaring, "My dad is waiting for me outside." Howie is a little high-strung and nervous, and Danneker nails the character.

In the end, they get around the censors by forming a speech and debate club at the school. They present their story in a Group Interpretive performance ("Group Interp" is what the cool kids call it, Diwata informs us). Their interpretation of the story includes a strip and dance to Diwata's original composition. OK, they're wearing flesh-colored body stockings, but I bet they got the school board's attention.

The three manage to take us through a discussion of teenage angst and sexuality, free speech, politics, and fighting with "the man" without scaring away everyone over 23. In fact, they draw us in with wonderful performances of this funny and touching script.

The show is free of adults save for Amy Thone, who plays both the weary journalism teacher at the school, and the local NPR reporter who does a story on the team and promises Solomon she'll try to get his story into the Oregonian -- which we're sure she'll do if she can just stop plugging the new edition of her book for a minute.

Stewart has earned some measure of appreciation on the Weisenheimer pages for being the author of the incredibly sick Mr. Jibbers, performed at last summer's 14/48 festival and for which Stewart earned a Wisey nomination for best writer. Danneker played the title role in Picasso at the Lapin Agile last year at Balagan Theatre.

Speech and Debate is a great production. We're a little worried that it's a hidden treasure, as there were way too many empty seats in the Rep's Leo K Theatre at Friday night's performance. It runs through Feb. 21, so get out there and see it while you can!

Picasso and Einstein walk into a bar...

... and a Steve Martin comedy erupts! Balagan Theatre's production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, directed by Shawn Belyea, is a laugh riot, with talented actors using Martin's brilliant script to make me, like the character Gaston, have to pee. And laugh like hell.

Full disclosure: Weisenheimer has recently become a member and president of Balagan's board, but that doesn't mean I can't keep loving and reviewing their shows, as I did when just a civilian.

The premise of Picasso is as simple as the headline to this post. Picasso and Einstein meet up in a Paris bar around 1904, and hilarity ensues. The opening-night audience Thursday laughed at length throughout and gave a rousing ovation at the end.

Trick Danneker as Picasso and James Weidman as Einstein were a most entertaining lead duo. Danneker's Spanish accent seemed to come and go a bit. Weidman was quite German and played the great physicist with great humor (though it took a while on occasion.) The rest of the cast were also wonderful. Seanjohn Walsh was a hoot as the frequently urinating Gaston, Ray Tagavilla was marvelous as the pompous art dealer Sagot, and Megan Ahiers was busting out all over as Germaine the barmaid. Jason Harber stole his several scenes, as he is wont to do, as the bombastic Schmendiman. Balagan regular Mike Dooly had the sneer down as the strage visitor from the future, though my Sweetie, the official scorer, thinks he still needs to work on the pelvis action if he's going to be king on this stage.

In between all the tomfoolery the cast are able to shed some light on a bunch of key subjects: love, sex (Einstein gets the girl by going to a bar other than the one he tells her to. Try it, guys!), creativity in art and science, business, and how darn fine the 20th Century is going to be.

My friend Mark, who attended the performance (and actually visited the Lapin Agile in Paris), gave the show thumbs up, and felt the best of the many great laugh lines was delivered by Jane May as Suzanne, a lover of Picasso's: "When Picasso looked at me, the word 'no' became like a Polish village -- unpronouncable."

That was a great one. I give top joke to another, a one-liner from Terri Weagant as "Female Admirer" late in the show. I'm not giving it away, though. You'll have to see for yourself. Picasso runs at Balagan through May 30, though there's already talk of extending the production for at least a week. Go see it!