Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
The Empty Space Theatre is your one-stop shopping emporium just now, ready to meet nearly any theatrical entertainment need. Comedy? Tragedy? Satire? Pathos? Significant social comment? Daffy character vignettes? There's even a bit of music and dance. All this under one roof, and a spiffy roof it is, too, covering the new $6.75 million Lee Center for the Arts at Seattle University.
Inaugurating the Space's tenure at the Lee Center is "Bust," a one-woman show. The woman is writer/performer Lauren Weedman. Those who have seen previous Weedman works -- including "Rash," "Amsterdam" and "Wreckage" -- know that this artist is a master of multiple portraiture. In "Bust" she must depict, caricature, sketch or suggest something like 50 characters, ranging from high-power media monsters to the lowest of low-status unfortunates.
At the same time Weedman has been making a career as a performing artist and writer in Los Angeles, she's been working a few hours a week as a volunteer advocate in a women's jail.
Adding emotional ambiguity to Weedman's tale is an intense awareness of her own dubious moral standing. She told a heinous lie when she was in college (recounted in "Wreckage"). And she found a way to profit by that experience, writing about it for a glossy national magazine. And then, when the article appeared (sensationalized by canny editors), Weedman became an object of nationwide loathing.
So there she is, trying to help a prostitute, a fraud perpetrator, an aggravated assailant and an inscrutable liar. And she's juggling her own conflicting feelings of unworthiness and righteous indignation.
To give dramatic depth and background to "Bust," Weedman supplies vivid sketches of jail personnel, fellow volunteers and casual acquaintances. Sometimes the panorama is just too much, like those 15th- and 16th-century European paintings that depict every imaginable sin, folly, excess and atrocity.
But, taken as a whole, the 1 1/2 hours of "Bust" are entertaining and absorbing. The show represents a step forward for Weedman. She ridicules not only harmless nobodies but also really unsavory somebodies. And she evokes not just derision but also compassion.
Director Allison Narver balances hectic stretches with moments of reflection and contemplation. There are times when the audience can catch its breath between "Bust's" wild plunges through chaos and confusion.
Giving a sense of everywhere and anywhere is Carol Wolfe Clay's expansive steel and concrete setting. Lighting by Jessica Trundy and sound by Mark Nichols compartmentalize the stage into visiting room, chapel, health club, audition studio, editorial office and jail labyrinths.
"Bust" runs at the Lee Center, 901 12th Ave., through Aug. 5. Tickets are $25 and $30, with discounts for students, seniors and groups; 206-547-7500 or www.emptyspace.org.
'Julius Caesar'
The question here is, "How do Rome in 44 B.C., England in 1599 and the U.S. in 1956 resemble one another?"
It's a question posed by Seattle Public Theater director Sean Begley. His production of "Julius Caesar" doesn't answer it -- unless the answer is, "In no way that serves to illuminate or enrich one of Shakespeare's many plays that undermine the notion that war brings peace and devastation brings prosperity."
The Mamie and Dwight Eisenhower costumes are innocuous. But the sound design, with its mélange of crooners, doo-woppers, proto-rockers, radio static and, of all things, chamber music, is unenlightening and distracting.
The show's only asset is that it is well-spoken. Begley's 12 actors (playing two-dozen parts) give a clear account of a tragic fusion of idealism, opportunism, assassination and lust for power. As a chamber recitation performance of "Julius Caesar," the production works nicely.
"Julius Caesar" runs through July 9 at the Bathhouse Theatre, 7312 W. Green Lake Drive N. Tickets are $10-$15; 206-524-1300 or www.seattlepublictheater.org.
To see more of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for online features, or to subscribe, go to http://seattlep-I.com.
© 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All Rights Reserved.
