‘Alki’ opens ACT’s 40th season
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, June 10, 2004
Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre opens its 40th season with a new play about mythic goings on in the Pacific Northwest, circa the 19th century.
“Alki” is a comedy by Seattle native Eric Overmyer, the author of a number of important plays and a prolific writer for such TV programs as “Law &Order” and “St. Elsewhere.” Overmyer, who was born in Seattle, drew on the region’s early history to create a play adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt.”
“Alki,” which plays through June 27 in ACT’s Fall’s Theater in downtown Seattle, finds the wily Peer Gynt wandering not in Norway but through the Pacific Northwest in 1851. Along the way he tangles with saints and robber barons, an Inca curse and the Devil himself.
“Alki” features an ensemble cast of 13 Seattle actors portraying more than 50 characters. R. Hamilton Wright stars as Peer Gynt.
Kurt Beattie, ACT Theatre artistic director, directs this production.
“The Play’s the Thing”: Seattle’s Intiman Theatre continues its new season with “The Play’s the Thing,” a barbed satire by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar adapted by English humorist P.G. Wodehouse.
The setting is the Italian Rivera of the 1920s, where a celebrated playwright concocts a “play within a play” to keep a pair of lovers together and prevent his own financial ruin.
The idea of Molnar’s 1925 farce “Play at the Castle” came about after he overheard his wife, actress Lilli Darvas, talking of another love interest. Turns out she was only rehearing a new part in a play, and Molnar was so relieved it inspired him to write a comedy. His play was adapted in 1926 as “The Play’s the Thing.”
Intiman’s production is directed by John Michael Higgins, known to audiences for his performances in the Christoper Guest “mockumentaries” “A Mighty Wind” and “Best in Show.”
Performances continue through July 11.
“Travels with Charley”: John Steinbeck wrote one of the great “road trip” books of modern American literature with the publication of “Travels with Charley: In Search of America.”
In 1960 the 58-year old Steinbeck set out in a camper on a 10,000-mile journey across America. His only companion was Charley, a standard poodle. His agenda: to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.
From truck stop waitresses to Texas millionaires, Steinbeck paints a funny and fascinating portrait of America.
Seattle’s Book-It presents a world premiere adaptation of “Travels with Charley” in a production that opens tonight at the Seattle Center House Theatre. David Quickstall has provided the stage adaptation, with direction by Jane Jones.
Set during the fall of 1960, this was America on the eve of the Kennedy-Nixon presidential election, the height of the cold war and the beginning of the civil rights movement.
“The book is more than 40 years old and we are definitely approaching it as a period piece,” Jones said.
Performances run through July 3.
New Cirque show: “Cavalia: A Magical Encounter Between Horse and Man,” the latest spectacular from the folks at Cirque du Soleil, opens Thursday in Renton.
“Cavalia” has more than 60 performers, including horses, riders, aerialists, acrobats, and dancers, as well as musicians, a vocalist and famous European “horse-whisperer” Frederic Pignon and his wife, trainer and rider Magali Delgado.
The show, which has enjoyed sold-out runs in Toronto, Montreal, San Francisco and Los Angeles, is a grand-scale spectacle involving acrobatics, music, projected images and a troupe of 36 horses from all over the world.
In “Cavalia,” horses cavort with acrobats, aerialists and riders in front of a constantly changing background projected on a 200-foot wide screen. The audience faces a single, 160-foot wide stage, which allows the horses space to gallop at full speed.
All of this takes place in a 26,000-square-foot circus tent that rises 100 feet in the air.
Chris Bennion photo
Cast members Doug Moening, Deborah Fialkow, Julie Briskman and Suzanne Bouchard surround director Kurt Beattie (third from left) at the first rehearsal of Eric Overmyer’s “Alki” at ACT Theatre.
Chris Bennion photo
David Cromwell, Heather Guiles and Laurence Ballard in “The Play’s the Thing” at Intiman Theatre.
Erik Stuhaug photo
John Hutton as John Steinbeck and David Goldstein as Charley in Book-It Theatre’s production of “Travels With Charley.”
Where to see it
“Alki”: An ACT Theatre production through June 27 at ACT’s Greg Falls Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle. Tickets, 206-292-7676, www.acttheatre.org.
“The Play’s the Thing”: An Intiman Theatre production through July 11 at Intiman Playhouse, Seattle Center. Tickets, $27-$46, 206-269-1900, www.intiman.org.
“Travels with Charley: In Search of America”: A Book-It Theatre production through July 3 at the Seattle Center House Theatre, Seattle Center. Tickets, $15-$26, 206-216-0833, www.book-it.org.
“Cavalia”: Thursday through June 27 under the big top next to the Renton Boeing plant; take exit 5 from I-405. Tickets, $25-$73, 866-999-8111, www.cavalia.net.
Where to see it
“Alki”: An ACT Theatre production through June 27 at ACT’s Greg Falls Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle. Tickets, 206-292-7676, www.acttheatre.org.
“The Play’s the Thing”: An Intiman Theatre production through July 11 at Intiman Playhouse, Seattle Center. Tickets, $27-$46, 206-269-1900, www.intiman.org.
“Travels with Charley: In Search of America”: A Book-It Theatre production through July 3 at the Seattle Center House Theatre, Seattle Center. Tickets, $15-$26, 206-216-0833, www.book-it.org.
“Cavalia”: Thursday through June 27 under the big top next to the Renton Boeing plant; take exit 5 from I-405. Tickets, $25-$73, 866-999-8111, www.cavalia.net.
