Four shows for early 2025
Here are some shows that I’m looking forward to in the new year. Two of them are definitely shows I’ll get to, since I’m requiring my students to see them. Let me know if you get to any of these, or what else you’ve been to recently!
Where is Here?
Seattle Public Theater (coproduced with Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble) January 15 – February 2
https://www.seattlepublictheater.org
It’s always fun to see a show at the historic Bathhouse Theater on Green Lake, combined with a walk around the lake or dinner in the neighborhood. Where is Here? is a solo show that takes place in an airport baggage claim – an in-between space that isn’t quite “arrived” but also isn’t exactly “still traveling.” Writer/director Naghmeh Samini uses that liminality to explore an American immigrant experience and how that experience can shape one’s identity. Seda’s previous show (English, at ArtsWest) was intelligent and touching, and examined the complex makeup of its characters’ identities with care and grace. Where is Here?, performed in two languages but designed to be engaging and enjoyable for bilingual and monolingual audiences alike, promises to do likewise.
Gruesome Playground Injuries
SecondStory Rep, January 17 – February 2
Tucked away on the second floor of the Redmond Town Center, SecondStory Rep is an eastside gem. Gruesome Playground Injuries, described as darkly comic, follows the friendship of Kayleen and Doug starting from childhood. The two bond in the school nurse’s office over their injuries, and that sets the pattern for the rest of their relationship: sharing their wounds and stories with each other in various hospitals and offices. Each scene takes us to a new time in their lives, a new injury, and a reconnection with an old friend. Does this relationship take the place of romance? Are Kayleen and Doug conflating feeling pain and feeling seen? I don’t know, but I’ve enjoyed plays by Rajiv Joseph, a Pulitzer finalist and Obie award winner, and I’m looking forward to this one.
Crave
Intiman Theatre, February 11 – March 2
Many lawyers ask for brutal honesty or vulnerability in voir dire. I’ve never seen anything more honest, more vulnerable, or more brutal than Sarah Kane’s plays. Kane’s ability to put the world she experienced onto the stage is staggering, and that world is harrowing, raw, and traumatizing. Crave is a challenging play. The four nameless characters lack stable identities, and the dialogue is lyrical and evocative but eschews coherent narrative. The quartet of voices creates a hypnotic experience, with inner thoughts and others’ words emerging and melding and dissipating in an intricate weave. Thematically, the play expresses a deep need for connection while hoping but perhaps not believing that meaningful human connection is possible. Crave contains stark references to trauma and suicidal ideation, and is filled with human pain of all kinds. It is beautiful but shattering. While it is the least punishing of Kane’s plays on the audience, it is still unnerving and, like a request for brutal honesty, it should not be entered into lightly.
The Last Five Years
ACT Theatre (coproduced with the Fifth Avenue Theatre) February 8 – March 16
This musical alternates between two characters’ perspectives of their entire relationship: meeting, falling in love, getting married, growing apart, and separating. Jamie starts with their meeting and moves forward in time, while Cathy begins with their breakup and tells her story in reverse. Each character is almost entirely on their own onstage – it’s almost like two interwoven solo shows. Not only do we get starkly different emotional arcs, we get an object lesson straight from David Ball: to reveal the essential elements of a story, you should read it backwards and forwards. The Last Five Years may help you think unconventionally about how stories can be told.