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Stories that were once excitingly contemporary become intriguingly mythic as presented in two shows that opened during the past week. One production, "The Great Gatsby," is exceedingly serious. The other, "Bye Bye Birdie," is exceedingly not serious.
In very different ways, both shows deal with the fraught disruption created by young, supervital proletarian men who are deplorably attractive to nice, respectable young women from good families.
"The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald's celebrated 1925 novel, has served as an X-ray diagnosis of the social fracturing that followed U.S. participation in World War I. Daisy and Tom Buchanan are American aristocrats -- rich, idle, irresponsible and supposedly insulated from riff-raff.
But Tom lusts after trashy sluts. And Daisy, before she was married, met the love of her life at one of those socials at which nice girls cheered up soldiers who were due to be shipped overseas to fight in France. Jay Gatsby, a poor farm boy from North Dakota, was one of those soldiers. He and Daisy made rash promises to one another.
Five years later, Gatsby is fabulously wealthy and amazingly polished. Bootlegging in the '20s opened unique opportunities for supervital proletarian young men like Gatsby. He buys a Long Island mansion near the Buchanans' estate. He lays siege to Daisy. At first, events are romantic. Then they are messy. Then they are tragic.
Playwright Simon Levy does a beautiful job of distilling Fitzgerald's sometimes fussy prose. Levy's combination of narration, dialogue and action delivers most of what is best in the novel and leaves out nearly all the contrived straining for effect.
Seattle Repertory Theatre artistic director David Esbjornson's staging of Levy's play is beautiful. Scenery by Tom Lynch evokes both limitless luxury and cramped squalor by means of significant pieces of furniture, a few walls and a gorgeous backdrop of Long Island Sound summer clouds right out of a painting by Maxfield Parrish.
Similarly effective are costumes by Jane Greenwood.
As Gatsby, Lorenzo Pisoni is stunning. The supervital proletarian male energy he projects is refined and focused. When Pisoni gazes at Heidi Armbruster, who plays Daisy, the yearning is overpowering. Armbruster overdoes the Tennessee Williams Southern lady gush and flutter, but she still manages to give Pisoni a plausible target for the Gatsby passion.
Erik Heger as Tom is amazing. He portrays a white supremacist proto-fascist, a Nazi sympathizer in the making -- one of those nice, respectable guys from good families who will be seduced by the super vitality of such proletarian upstarts as Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Heger doesn't hold back. He fills in the details of a temperamental polo-playing plutocrat who is self-absorbed without having much of a self to be absorbed in. The admirable thing about Heger's work is the professional detail and artistic intensity that he brings to bear.
As narrator Nick Carraway, Matthew Amendt gives voice to Fitzgerald's sometime vaporous effusions. Nick is Daisy's cousin. Effusions aside, he imparts a certain depth to what could be a frivolous romance/melodrama/crime story. Hit-and-run heedlessness and obsessive delusions are not for him. Amendt shows how Nick is changed by what he lives through.
"Gatsby" plays through Dec. 10 at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center. Tickets are $10 (for those under 25) to $48, various individual and group discounts available; 206-443-2222, 877-900-9285, seattlerep.org.
'Bye Bye Birdie' The 1960 Broadway musical "Bye Bye Birdie" paralleled news stories about the advent of rock 'n' roll. The show picked up a few details from Elvis Presley's early career and spliced them into standard farce scenarios. The result was exceedingly not serious.
The current Village Theatre revival of "Birdie" is clever and peppy. As Conrad Birdie, an Elvisoid teen idol, Dan Connor nicely reproduces historic poses, wriggles and writhings. His hair, his demeanor and his voice are right.
Handling some of the farcical elements are Jason Collins as Albert, Conrad's agent, Stacey Harris as Albert's secretary and Laura Kenny as Albert's mother.
Collins and Harris are admirable song-and-dance comics. Collins, in particular, is an amazing amalgam of professional grace and equally professional klutziness. Director/choreographer Steve Tomkins wrings laughs from Collins' canny ability to explode serious moments with ludicrous colliding, tripping and falling.
Kenny's clowning plays out variations on the theme of the clinging, manipulative, smothering mother.
The "Birdie" story starts with Conrad's draft notice. Albert decides to stage a preinduction publicity stunt in which Conrad gives an adoring fan "one last kiss" before going off to basic training.
The fan, her family and her community add farcical elements. These roles are played even more broadly than the principal parts. Director Tomkins' whole concept has a campy, cartoonish edge. Brightly colored scenery by Robert A. Dahlstrom underscores the show's comic-strip quality.
"Birdie" is one of those shows about which Broadway habitues joke, "During the first act, I wished that it would never end. During the second act, I feared that my wish was coming true." Yes, the second act drags. The lively business in "Birdie" comes out early. And then there's some laborious mopping up to do.
The show does, however, bring to life that archetypal drama of a wild bad boy colliding with respectable society. The ancient Greeks had myths about the rowdy god Dionysus. Modern Americans have such legends as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elvis Presley and ... Conrad Birdie.
"Birdie" runs through Dec. 31 at the Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N., Issaquah, then transfers to the Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett, where it runs through Jan. 5. Tickets are $28-$49, assorted discounts available; 425-393-2202, 866-688-8849 (Issaquah), 425-257-8600, 888-257-3722 (Everett), villagetheatre.org.
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