After its abrupt mid-season closure in 2011 due to financial woes, Intiman Theatre is back with new staff and a new concept, due largely to the creative and youthful energy of then Associate Director, now Artistic Director Andrew Russell.
Intiman’s summer festival presents four plays in repertory with 17 actors playing over 40 roles, through Aug. 26. The resulting artistic and practical challenges to cast and crew, as well as the sense of recognition seeing the same actors in diverse roles, add to the fun for audiences viewing multiple plays during the festival.
“Hedda Gabler”
Directed by Andrew Russell with an updated script, this production of the 1890 classic feels contemporary and relevant.
Marya Sea Kaminski delivers a nuanced performance as spoiled, bored Hedda Gabler, socialite daughter of a celebrated general who, much to everyone’s surprise, has chosen to marry devoted pushover Jorgen Tesman (Ryan Fields making the most of a quiet role).
Upon her return from a month-long honeymoon, Hedda spirals into madness as her future options constrict due to the realities of financial circumstance; her husband’s lack of social standing; pressure to enter an extramarital affair with the smooth-talking Judge Brack (Devil-like Timothy McCuen Piggee); the reappearance of former admirer, the brilliant but dissolute Lovborg (convincingly played by Michael Place); the confines of provincial life and the social restrictions placed upon women.
Kaminski externalizes Hedda’s madness through dance-like movement choreographed by Oliver Wevers.
Jennifer Zeyl’s gauze-hung set dominated by an oversized portrait of Hedda’s father, the dead general; Matt Starritt’s sound design with its disturbing background humming and piano notes that continue after the player leaves the keyboard; L.B. Morse’s subtle lighting illuminating Hedda’s internal thoughts; dirge-like singing by the cast — all elements of the production help create a haunted atmosphere that lingers after the final curtain.
“Dirty Story”
Directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton, this political allegory about the Arab-Israeli conflict launches the intimate new Intiman Studio space.
Act I opens in a park where two men sit alone at a table, each with his own chess board. One of the men, Lawrence (Allen Fitzpatrick) sports a bowler derby against a backdrop of fluffy white clouds and blue sky, the entire composition reminiscent of a painting by the surrealist Magritte; a super title displays the word “Fiction”; all is not as it seems.
Enter aspiring writer Wanda (Carol Roscoe) hoping for mentorship from established author Brutus (Shawn Law). Brutus proceeds to eviscerate Wanda’s writing and declares that “fiction is dead.” Scene 2 finds the pair in Brutus’s apartment where Brutus moves from conciliation to bullying to threatening to eviscerate the hapless Wanda (literally, this time.)
Without giving too much away, suffice it to say that Shanley personifies interaction between nations as unhealthy personal relationships.
The performances and timing are spot on, and Shanley keeps the zingers coming, poking fun at national stereotypes. But cleverness, like a surfeit of sweets, craves variety, and the laughs become forced as Act II continues with too few surprises.
“Romeo and Juliet”
In Director Allison Narver’s vision of “Romeo and Juliet,” two clans indistinguishable to an outsider fight an absurd, neverending war in an unnamed third world city.
Romeo (Quinn Franzen) runs with a crew led by the charismatic, mocking Mercutio (an excellent Michael Pace) in a fine depiction of sex and turf obsessed lad culture.
The first act bursts with teen energy: Juliet’s (Fawn Ledesma) convincing 14 year old’s declaration of love, Romeo’s mercurial changes of heart, the energetic duel between Tybalt (Shawn Law in intense mode) and Mercutio. (Realistic fight choreography by Geof Alm had the front row cowering.) Unfortunately, the second act fails to live up to the promise of the first. With the exception of performances by the grieving Lord and Lady Capulet (Timothy McCuen Piggee and Carol Roscoe) and Nurse (Marya Sea Kaminski, who also provides excellent comic turns in Act I), the pathos fails to rise to the level of tragedy.
“Miracle”
The Stranger’s Dan Savage delivers laughs and guilty pleasures in his version of “The Miracle Worker” set in a drag bar. Featuring drag acts, disco music, high heels, false eyelashes, poetry slams, tasteless sexual references and lots of sequins, “Miracle” democratically satirizes gay, lesbian, straight, even deaf and blind people.
But even at its most provocative, “Miracle” retains a sweet natured story at its core.
With costume design by 1990’s drag scene veteran Erik Andor and choreography by classically trained burlesque artist Waxie Moon, “Miracle” is just plain, not so clean fun.
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