REVIEW: West at On The Boards is kinda, sorta, almost Awesome…

Photo Credit: Victoria Lahti

REVIEW: West created by “Awesome” and Matthew Richter at On The Boards. Directed by Matthew Richter. Performed by “Awesome” (John Ackermann, Kirk Anderson, Basil Harris, Evan Mosher, David Nixon, John Osebold, Rob Witmer). April 22-25, 2010 at 8pm.

I goofed when I wrote this week’s “Theater Beat” column…I mistakenly entitled the new show by the musical/artist collective “Awesome” playing this weekend at On The Boards, as “The West” instead of simply, “West”, which makes a world of difference how you view this show. “The West” implies this is a show about the taming of THE American West and a history of the people who “tamed” it, but this show is not about any definitive place; a declarative article is unneeded and unwanted and false. WEST is about journeys and travels and searching and quests and the eternal yearning to seek out the edges of continents, societies and personal identities. It is frequently a brilliant show, with hauntingly original music, cleverly conceived concepts and imaginative and vital uses of stagecraft and design. And occasionally, it is also a bit of a pretentious mess, hampered by bits that don’t work and a second act that is cleverly conceived and undoubtedly looked brilliant as a design concept on a piece of paper, but ultimately fails as a piece of theater because a third of the audience can’t SEE what is happening on stage. West is a smart, arty show conceived by smart, arty people and it deserves to succeed and it probably will, but it needs some cutting, restructuring, and redesigning to achieve true artistic integrity and success. At this point, West is a journey about taking journeys and I can recommend you join them on it, but I need to be a good travel agent and warn you that while much of the trip is heart achingly beautiful, there are occasions when we have to pull over to eat a greasy meal at a truck stop diner or pay too much money to see the world’s largest ball of tinfoil. Frequently on trips, you have to take the banality with the beauty and at least once, someone is going to start kicking the back of the seat…

The show opens with a stage of boxes; packing crates really, of varying sizes and all are unmarked but newly constructed…you can almost smell the newly cut pine. One by one, the seven members of “Awesome” enter through a door in one of the larger crates. Each is dressed as an archetype of 19th Century America; a barber, a gambler, a railroad man, a clerk. As each man enters, he puts on a work apron and walks to one of the smaller crates and begins working on something; trimming a hairpiece or hammering a nail or sawing a piece of wood. All but one of the men is white and Anglo; a sole person of color emerges from the box, a Native American vaguely dressed in an outfit that suggests his status as an outsider. The Native has no defined occupation of labor. He is simply a “Native”. But, for the most part, he is always part of the group of men and isn’t treated any differently by the others. And, it appears that his motives and actions are no different from those of the other six men; he is just as intent on moving West as they are. It is not until the final act of the show, that he is shown behaving in perceived, stereotypical behaviours for a Native American in the “Old West”. There is a shocking physical attack and a man is killed. It is one of the few, realistically historical Western moments in the show, and it is also the most powerful. I wish the show had had a few more of them.

I very much enjoyed the first act of West. It wasn’t very long; 45 or 50 minutes, perhaps. It was a tad slow in spots, but the music was very good and there were some strong individual moments on stage, particularly the “camp fire” sequence. After a 15 minute intermission, we returned for the second act and a completely new set. The large pine crates were now in two rows parallel to each other center stage with a space of about 5 feet separating the rows. Attached to each row at the front and parallel to the audience was a white curtain, one on each row. Music played. The rows slowly undulated back and forth, pulling the curtains from side to side. Because of the small gap between the rows and the curtains which shrouded all the action, it was few minutes before the gap made it’s way over to my side of the audience and I could see what was happening. A man, with a suitcase was slowly walking, endlessly, between the rows, his back to the audiences. I only saw this briefly, as the action made its way back to the other side of the stage. This went on for several minutes as the tonal music increased in tempo and speed as it began building towards…something. The audience, or at least my section of the audience kept waiting for the curtains to be pulled or for the formation to change shape so we could SEE what was happening, but nothing ever happened. The music reached a climax, stopped and the theater went dark. Act 2 was over after about 15 minutes of….what? The applause was tepid. I was annoyed and outraged and made a rather loud comment, “What was THAT?” and I got a bit of applause from people around me. I understand what the show was trying to achieve; a man walking WEST between undulating rows of covered wagons but if HALF the audience can’t SEE what you’re trying to achieve, it’s a bit pointless. I’m guessing that the effect was pretty amazing for people sitting in the MIDDLE of the house or in the top part of the house where they had a larger vista to see the entire length of the stage, but for us poor sumbitches in the lower half of the house and on the sides, it was a bit fruitless. And, I bet it did look GREAT to the designer and the director when they conceived it but any set piece for a show, no matter how brilliant it looks from one angle, needs to be easily and well seen by the ENTIRE audience. And since the complex setting up and taking down of this set was responsible for there being TWO intermissions, it has to be labeled a FAILURE, no matter how “cool” it is. A two hour theater piece that consists of a 45 minute first act, a 15 minute intermission, a 15 minute second act, followed by a SECOND 15 minute intermission and a 45 minute third act is just bad, lazy, improperly structured theater. They either need to dump the second act, or find a way to incorporate it into the last half of the show.

Fortunately, the last act of West managed to redeem the infuriating second act. The performances were strong, the music was stirring, and there was some well-conceived set pieces including the earlier mentioned attack sequence and a rather cheesy but charming bit with bouncy balls falling from the sky. I was in a far better frame of mind at the end of the play, and I very much liked 80% of West but the remaining unliked 20% still stuck in my craw and I did NOT join in on the standing ovation because it was blatantly undeserved and Seattle is FAR too prone in giving out gratuitous ovations and I refuse to be bullied into following the herd as not to stand apart. People around me who were VISIBLY irritated by Act 2 were reluctantly getting to their feet to avoid being labeled a bad sport; have some backbone people and sit DOWN for your principles!

The program doesn’t go into specifics on which member of “Awesome” played what character so it’s difficult to single any of them out for praise (or ridicule) but as a musical ensemble, they are very good. Dialogue isn’t always there strong suit however, and some spoken word sections could have used some rewriting and stronger direction of the actors; they could be a bit difficult to hear and an odd monologue in Act Three involving a man relating a conversation with his woman, just seemed out of character with the rest of the show; it reeked of a Dramatic Interpretation piece in a high school speech tournament. And, except for the albatross of a second act, acclaimed Seattle set designer Jennifer Zeyl’s sets were clever and managed to combine the simplicity of a wooden box and the complexities of what might be concealed within those boxes. Zac Young’s Harmony Arnold’s costumes were theatrically realistic; not actually of any specific period but capturing the essence of 19th century fashions and adhering to a specific subdued, washed out color range. L.B. Morse’s lighting and projection designs wittily combined a similar washed out palette for some scenes, but alternated with lights and effects that were strong, bold and unafraid to explore the fantastic and magical in others. His use of lights for nighttime scenes was especially haunting and beautiful. And lastly, mention must be made of Zac Culler’s prosthetic make-up effects for the attack scene. The effect managed to be realistic without crossing over into the macabre and overly gory.

West is a journey in progress and “Awesome” will hopefully learn which greasy spoons to avoid, and what needs to be cut from the itinerary so we can enjoy the majesty of the Tetons and the Cascade Coast and Russian Hill and all the delightful bits associated with going “West” and ignore the banalities of Encino and Kent and that crappy truck stop outside the City of Industry…

-Michael Strangeways