Flashes of brilliance lift 'Ghetto' over rough spots

THEATER REVIEW
GHETTO

COMPANY: Seattle Public Theater

PLAYWRIGHT: Joshua Sobol, adapted by Jack Viertel

WHERE: Bathhouse Theatre, 7312 W. Green Lake Drive N.

WHEN: Through Nov. 12

TICKETS: $10 (under 25) to $19; 206-325-6500
This 1984 musical drama by Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol, produced by Seattle Public Theater, follows a theater company in Vilna, Lithuania, during Vilna's World War II Nazi occupation.

At other times, however, this 3 1/2-hour show slows down, mired in heavy exposition and a few so-so performances. But overall, high drama dominates in Seattle Public Theater's inaugural show in its new home.

"Ghetto's" hottest performers are Julie Olsen as the chanteuse, Michael Denini as the theater's leader and a puppet master, and Shana Bestock as his puppet. In a party scene, Olsen, as Chaya, must dance and flirt with Kittel, a Nazi commander. The air pulses with the horror of imminent rape and slaughter.

In several scenes, Chaya must sing for her very life. Olsen, a sinuous, intense actress-singer, can make you hold your breath. Denini, as Srulik, glows with adoration for Chaya -- and for his puppet. It's through the puppet that he tells of his love.

Bestock, as the puppet, is a master of mime. In her beaver hat and red ribbon hair, she cavorts, flops about and tosses flippant one-liners at the Nazis. She's always on the verge of getting her wooden head smashed. Denini and Srulik work as one.

Nazi commander Kittel's scenes, however, can bog down. Actor Bob De Dea is too mild to be convincing as the Nazi demon who on any entrance is capable of either taking his saxophone out of its case to jam with the company or take his machine gun out and mow them down. Zachary Preston as Dressler, Kittel's henchman, provides some of the threat that De Dea lacks.

As a whole, the company does nice ensemble work, and three musicians (Mary Kantor, Kim Goldov and Laurie Andres) provide the hypnotic klezmer music that weaves throughout the play.

Seattle Public Theater's artistic director Lauren Marshall directs with a good eye for movement and stage effects. In tone and sensibility, "Ghetto" echoes the political plays of Bertolt Brecht and Friedrich Durenmatt. Its final scene, with 8-foot-tall puppets, recalls The Bread and Puppet Theatre, a mainstay of political street theater in the 1960s.

The three-level set, dominated by crumbling brick arches, is well designed by Nathan Rodda.

Emotional impact is provided by the theater building itself. Several people walking into the Bathhouse Theater at Green Lake shed tears on Thursday's opening night in memory of the Bathhouse's long, memorable run under artistic director Arne Zaslove before financial failure forced his company out of the building more than a year and a half ago. It's the building's inaugural show by Seattle Public Theater, which has been granted a six-year lease.

"Ghetto," with its gutsy, in-your-face presentation, seems to echo just right in the old building.