Theatre: Story Time

 Metamorphoses, based on the works of Ovid, Written by Sami Ibrahim, Laura Lomis, & Sabrina Mahfouz, Directed by Shana Cooper, Seattle Rep through Feb 26

About 2000 years ago, a Roman poet named Ovid gathered together a collection of myths, legends, and stories and put them in epic poetry form. Some 250 stories, occupying 15 volumes. Lotta gods, lotta kings, lotta violence. That collection has survived to the present and has become one of our (usually unread) cultural foundation stones.

Here we have is a few of those stories, starting with a creation myth and running through the deification of Augustus Caesar (with Phaeton and the chariot of the sun as a bonus round). We have an Orpheus story (but not the one with Eurydice), Medea, Actaeon watching Diana bathing, Midas, and an argument between Jupiter and Juno arguing about who gets more out of sex - the man or the woman. It is not a "greatest hits" album, and there is a nice mix of the familiar and the forgotten.

And that's part of the problem here - it is a grab-bag of stories, so it starts, stops, and starts again. It doesn't build up a good head of steam, and you're left trying to figure out how everything fits together. The theme is stated as "what it mean to be human", but that doesn't seem to fit snuggly in with the vast variety of stories it contains.

What it does do is present a whole raft of storytelling styles, but it does it subtley, so I'm not sure if that's an intended point. The Juno/Jupiter argument opens up to audience presentation. It is followed by a tale of Bacchus that comes off as a flop-sweat comedian's routine. We have a singalong (geared to the age of most of the audience), a song about how sucky Midas is, and traditional story-telling of friends around a campfire. It is interesting, but uneven. 

What is excellent is the ensemble - Kjerstine Rose Anderson, Meme Garcia, Nike Imoru, and Darragh Kennan. Most have been at the Rep before, and I'm a sucker for returning actors. They also are excellent storytellers, and I could listen to them for much longer than the 90 minutes.

And the set is fine, though is outdone by the rotating platform and beaded scrim in the theater next door. The props are onstage, but come apart and enter into the stories, and in the end, the stage itself is a shambles. Which may be a point as well, but I'm just not sure.

It feels like a missed opportunity. If we're going to delve into various ways we tell stories (and, mind you, Ovid himself was all over the joint on his storytelling), they could expand it out. Daedelus and Icarus as a powerpoint. A point/counterpoint of Noah and Deucalion. The deification of Augustus as letter of recommendation. Something that could bring things together. As I said, 250 stories in the naked Greek isles, and these are just a few of them. AND telling stories in what makes us human.

Over twenty years ago, the Lovely Bride and I saw another production of  Metamorphoses. Mary Zimmerman's version, presented by the Seattle Rep at the former Intiman stage across the way. It told some of the same tales, and took advantage of the seats rising around a thrust stage to put a swimming pool in the center. And it felt that that production hung together more, though it took some of the same stories as the base. This production was OK, but pales in the memory of that one. It is not bad. It is just OK.

More later,

Theatre: Beauticians and the Beasts

 miku, and the gods by Julia Izumi, Directed by Alyza Delpan-Monley, co-presented by Pork Filled Productions

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This one left me confused. 

I'm not alone. The Lovely Bride and I always wait to get back to that car and start the drive home before discussing a play, mainly because we've had strangers dip into our discussions with their own insights (not a criminal offence, but not appreciated). And as we made our way down off the hill of West Seattle, she said, "That was ...." and she paused.

"Weird?" I said.

"Weird." She repeated almost immediately. "Nice costumes though."

And it was weird. More performance than play, it was narratively frustrating. It started strong, but threw me off the path about forty-five minutes in and I never quite recovered. Even now, I have a hard time describing what the play was ultimately about.

OK, here goes for a summary: Miku (Lola Rei Fukushima) is a brilliant 12-year old who lost her brother in an accident in a river. Determined to fix an unjust world, she seeks out the One Who Is Wise (NEVE), an acid-tongued beautician to find out how to become a god. She also encounters Ephraim (Ben Symons) who wants to become an Olympic-level swimmer. Seeing connection between Olympians and Olympians, she recruits Ephraim to help in her god-quest. Meanwhile, Miku's grandmother Seiko (Naho Shioya) is dealing with dementia, aided by Shara (Sherif Amin), who is a minor god of Beauticians and War. Or maybe just a beautician. We're not quite sure.

And that's about as far as I can go before I get kinda confused. I am not sure exactly who the story is about and whether it is real or in one of the characters' headspace. There is interpretive dance. There are announcements. There are muffled announcements, and I'm not quite sure if that was intentional. There is a strong feeling if these characters are the characters they have declared themselves to be, or are gods, or mortals, or memories. The play has good bits, but defies me to put them together in a coherent order. Which, since they are talking about gods and mythology, may be part of the point. The play ends softly, and again, I am not sure that it has ended, except for an announcement that "The Play Has Ended." But has it ended? Really?

The actors are great, committing to characters that are over the top gods and super heroes - you know, maybe. Fukushima had been at the Arts West previously, and brings that same direct energy into holding the center together here. The stage is minimalistic and effective, bringing the question of where are we to the front. 

But ultimately is does not bring me anywhere close to enlightenment or closure or comprehension. Gods, death, memories, all sort of get thrown up at once. That's cool. Some forms of art don't engage at a cerebral level or an emotional level, but rather at a quasi-mystic feeling. Ballet and poetry come to mind, which are spider-webs, beautiful but incredibly delicate, unable to withstand a harsher examination. I didn't hate it. I was just puzzled and frustrated by it. The play ultimately feels like it is still trying to figure out what it is.

Nice costumes, though.

More later

Theatre: Those Girls

This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing by Finegan Kruckemeyer, Directed by Johamy Morales, Arts West, through 10 April.

Another expedition to the Hermit Kingdom that is West Seattle. Last year, the main span to that region from the mainland was shut down, forcing traffic to approach by lesser roads from the south. This particular trip we did not get lost, but the traffic was slow and jammed along those routes. However, we had an excellent meal at Mashiko Sushi (tuna tartar, grilled squid, and the Lovely Bride's favorite, spider roll (actually a soft-shelled crab)). Then the play itself, just next door.

How was the play? I liked it a lot. The LB felt it lacked depth and gravitas, and was more suitable to children's theatre, and indeed both the award-winning writer and director have serious chops working with young audiences. But after musical plays, improv rap, and blocking set dressings, I was ready for a simple, straightforward play, and I thought it was great.

The play itself is as linear and as convoluted as a faerie tale. There are three sisters, triplets at birth, identical but different. Their mother dies, their father remarries, the stepmother is of the evil variety and (it is supposed) commands the father to lead the children (Age 13) out to the forest and abandons them. The sisters are distraught and go their separate ways into the wider world. One goes East and has adventures. One goes West and has adventures. One remains in place and has adventures. Eventually they come back together, both united and changed.

And it works. I complain about actors who have to fight with tough material, who are visibly struggling with the lines and characterizations. Not here. The ensemble grasps, internalizes, and conquers their world. They dance, sing, laugh and make the world a living and (mostly) pleasant place. The roles are broad and yes, it is a fairie tale, a fable, a simple thing, but they nail it. 

The company is great and many of them are making their first appearance on the ArtsWest Stage. Mara Palma, Bella Orobaton and Lola Rei Fukushima are the triplets, who sell their unity and their differences wonderfully. Anjelica McMillan has the quicksilver ability to shift characters, ages, and genders smoothly and effectively. Tyler Campbell is equally versatile as heartbroken father and a very unpleasant badger. All fill in the other roles and encounters that the daughters encounter, effortless dropping one guise and taking on another. 

And yeah, the set works this time. a collection of 20-odd stools, tables, trunks (with additional props within) and a ship's wheel are transformed and re-transformed through the play. The stick is a cane. The stick is a sword. The stick is mixing spoon. The props are just tools in the hands of capable actors. 

So. A wonderfully pleasant play delivered by talented and capable actors. An excellent evening. And yes, if you have daughters, this is a great play to take them to (most of the Friday evening house was traditional mix of middle-aged local supporters and some folk in their 20s). A good yarn, with excellent actors. A nice fable. Worth seeing. 

More later,

Plague Books: Time Travel, By the Rules

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers, Ace Books, 1983

Provenance: I only read this about 10 years ago. I didn't read it when it came out in part because it released in one of those sections of my life where I didn't read a lot of new fiction. I had graduated, got a "real job" as civil engineer, was laid off from that "new job" and had found another job in Wisconsin, moved, got married, and eventually was hip-deep in Dragonlance and Marvel Super Heroes. So I was, like, BUSY at the time. So lay off, OK?

Anyway, I missed the boat and the book, though friends recommended it strongly over the years. And I finally came across a copy in 2009. I know this because I have the receipt as a book mark, from the Barnes & Nobles Booksellers at the University Village (now no longer there). Also in the book was a take-out menu from the Delfino's (really good Chicago Deep Dish), and a flyer for a Butoh performance at the Richard Hugo House that I never attended. So I have a good idea of the time and place for this one.

Review: I'm sorry I missed it the first time around, but happy I caught up with it later. I've gone on about playing fair with the reader, and Powers does this in spades. But first, let me give you the back story:

A group of Egyptian cultists back at the start of the 1800s try to summon their god to drive the English out of Egypt. They don't succeed, but do manage to punch a number of discrete holes in the timestream. In the present day, a dying millionaire discovers those holes and sees them as a way of time travel. He hires Brendan Doyle, English professor and expert on an obscure author named Ashbless to lead a group back in time to a lecture by Samuel Coleridge. Of course the millionaire has a secret agenda, as almost every does - well, everyone except Doyle.

Things go casters up  in the past, and Doyle is kidnapped and stuck there, with multiple factions all with different aims hunting for him. Now, the book does two things I like - one is how Powers handles the man from the future in the past, and the other is writing a book in which time travel is inelastic while still maintaining suspense.

For the first part, there is a classic bit of SF from L Sprague DeCamp called Lest Darkness Fall, about a modern archaeologist who finds himself trapped in Late-Roman Empire Times. Using his 20th Century knowledge of the past, he proceeds to turn things around, rally the Ostrogoths, and stave off the Dark Ages. DeCamp's protagonist is the capable, competent, professional that inhabits such stories. 

Doyle? Not so much. His knowledge of the future doesn't help, and his ineptness with his current present results in him being reduced to starvation and begging almost immediately. Far from being the competent nigh-omniscient, Doyle is overwhelmed by his new situation. Things he knows from the future turn out to be untrue, and things get worse as the other factions move in.

The other thing I liked about the plot is that it works off the fact that time travel is inelastic - you can't change the past. No bumping off the Emperor, because your history will not allow it. Now, writing a book with the protagonist having agency in a deterministic universe is a bit of a challenge, but Powers pulls it off neatly, because a lot of specific knowledge gets lost over time, and the escapes lay in the details. Doyle knows his "death date", which cannot be changed, but if and how he avoids it is part of the charm of the book.

Yeah, I can see how this hit a lot of people hard when its first came out. It is tightly written, and plays by the rules while opening the doors to some truly strange occurrences (which we don't know about tucked away safely uptime). We have werewolves, we have ancient gods, we have wizards so evil that they cannot walk on the earth (one has stilts). We have body swapping and simulacra. We have history and secret history.

There feels to be long standing effects on gaming Shadowfist/Feng Shui (card game and RPG set in the same universe) uses the idea of multiple fixed time portals. World of Darkness embraces the entire secret history (though there are other volumes of this ilk). And the entire vibe of Egyptian Cult and 19th centruy England has a very Masks of Nyarlathetop feel to it. And while it does not make the list of various Appendix N's, it feels like a D&D adventure in many ways. So I'm going to hazard a guess that this has book, combining fantasy with strict adherence to history, had a definite impact on gaming.

It is worth digging out all these years later, so go take a look.

More later,

 

Plague Book: Loom of Myth

Circe by Madeline Miller, Back Bay Books, trade paperback edition 2020

Provenance: Selected by my Science Fiction Book Club at work, to be finished by the end of July. Ordered from Amazon. Did not finish until the first week of August. Took this long to put a review together.

The argument of whether this is a "science fiction book" can be made, but really that does not matter. No, it is not SF in that there are no aliens, robots, or other futuristic trappings. And I could argue against fantasy as well, as it is well-grounded in mythology. But ultimately, genre terms like SF and Fantasy are marketing terms - "If you liked X, you will like Y". Like all those fantasy books in the 80s that were "In the tradition of Lord of the Rings", no matter how tenuous the connection was. Ultimately, genres are a mall map, telling you where in the bookstore you can find books that are science-fictionish (remember bookstores? I remember bookstores). Amazon, by the way, slots SF and Fantasy in a more generic "genre fiction" categories and trusts to its algorithms to send the consumer to related works.

But the nature of genre marketing reaches down into the physical presentation of the book itself. From initial contact with the dead-tree copy you can tell this is "Literary Fiction", or "Bestseller Fiction", or even "New York Times Bestseller Fiction". The book cover is dramatic and high-concept, it is embossed and foiled (this stuff ain't cheap, in book terms). Two-color endpapers, a map on the inside cover. Listing of praise and awards on glossy insert on page 1, five MORE pages of praise follow that one, concluding with one from Gwyneth Paltrow, actor and owner of Goop. Reading Group Guide in the back and recommendations for further reading. Everything about it says "This is literary! This is important!"

This is marketing.

But what about the words themselves, Jeff?

Actually, it's pretty good.

Review: Here is the short version: All gods are A-holes. Humans are only marginally better.

Circe is a goddess. A very minor one, but a general-terms a goddess nonetheless. And despite her goddess status she gets kicked around a lot. Her family are notable names in the mythos. She is the Daughter of Helios (pre-Olympian Titan of the Sun), sister to Aeetes (original owner of the Golden Fleece), and Pasiphae (Mom of the minotaur). There is not a thimbleful of empathy or self-reflection anywhere in the family, and that's what sets Circe apart from them. Circe has a sliver of concern for others, and worries about her own lot in life. She discovers real magic, she creates the monstrous Scylla out of petty jealousy, she is exiled to an island lest she upset the Olympian gods (shown here as another godly crime family), hooks up with Daedalus and later Odysseus, raises Odysseus' child, and ultimately comes to terms with what she wants in the world. 

 A lot of what I just said is already in the mythology. I knew Circe primarily from the Odyssey, and yeah, I get her confused with Calypso, with whom she shares some traits (has an island, has powers, slept with Odysseus). There is a lot of Circe threaded through Greek Mythology, and more got added over time. Miller weaves together all these connections to create a solid tale with Circe at the center.

 In writing this up, I went to the Emily Wilson translation of Homer's version for the traditional story of Odysseus. In that version, Odysseus' men are welcomed, fed, and transformed by Circe, with no idea why she acts that way. One sailor escapes to warn Odysseus, who is then given a cheat code (antidote) by Hermes, and when he does not fall to her spells, Circe throws herself at the hero's knees and begs his forgiveness. Mind you, the story doesn't make a lot of sense, but then it is Odysseus' retelling of the encounter. Miller's makes much more sense, grounding Circe's actions, and her heroine is taking the measure of clever man who will not walk blindly into a trap. Miller is much more sympathetic to Odysseus as well, and more grounded, portraying him both as hero and villain.

And through the bulk of the book, no act of kindness, sympathy, or honesty goes unpunished. Miller's Circe lives in an unjust world, and has to deal with that continual injustice. She gets her moments - her relationship will the brilliant human Daedalus, raising Odysseus' child, life with Penelope after Odysseus' death, and there is even a reference at the end of a wandering carpenter and his wise-woman wife which bespeaks of the new god that will replace the old (but perhaps I read too much into it). Having confronted a horrible world, Circe ultimately dreams of making a better one.

Miller's Circe its into the category of a lot of modern retelling - take a traditional villain and turn her (it is often a her) into a fully-rounded protagonist. Wicked. Hook. The latest Beowulf translation with more space allotted for Grendel's Mom. Challenges to a (usually male-dominated) traditional canon, adding nuance to the tale. Miller weaves like Circe at Daedalus' loom, pulling the scraps and threadbare references together, adding new work entirely, to end up creating a better portrait of what has been a traditionally wafer-thin antagonist. 

More later,