Show

Saw Wayne Rawley's "Live! From The Last Night Of My Life" at theatre twenty-two, tonight.  Believe the hype: it's fantastic, best show I've seen in Seattle.  First off, the script was original and had a perfect mix of pathos and humor, the comic elements never being used to distract from the pain, and in fact heightening it, partially due to Ryan Higgins as Doug Sample, always remaining in that excruciating place of hopelessness and knowing that he made a decision that he plans to follow-thru with.  (Gist is a man working the graveyard shift at a convenience store, a man "full of potential," who has decided that he will end his life at the end of the shift, and he narrates this to the security cameras.  There are flashbacks of the people in his life - his parents, his sixth grade friends, meeting his college girlfriend - and also the people who come into the store that night.  And a certain amount of fantasy/delusion in his head: the way things could play out, his own dance troupe, Danny Zuko.)

The play kept me off balance as to how it would end.  And there were places where it could've ended, albeit cliche (not the play, but a type of ending it might've taken), where it happily did not.  (It took me a while to realize the clock was actually counting down the shift, and that the play wouldn't end before the clock reached 6 am, which also made me realize how essential every part of that set was, no fluff.)  The end was unexpected (by me, at least. I hadn't seen it the first run in 2011.)  Looking at the audience after, everyone looked a bit emotionally wasted and subdued.

(I want to add that the other option for an ending, the one we ultimately didn't get, would also have been believable: it had been earned.  Again, what an awesome script.)

And I will add the caveat that if you've ever been suicidal, you might avoid the show.  There's a point near the end, where Doug is talking to "Danny" about his decision, and "why", and the "why" is so spot-on hopeless that I wanted to plug my ears and sing "la, la, la, la, not listening" so I couldn't hear him.  It's the downward spiral of thought, the one that's hard to break, the one that should have a "do not enter" sign.

I'll write a little more later. It's late.  (Remainder of run is sold out.)