Nightlife: On Stage: Serious psychology meets quirky comedy

Playwright Rebecca Gilman is not here to comfort us. Two adjectives that fail to come to mind when considering her work are "nice" and "reassuring."

As a play crafter, Gilman is a wonder. Every scene, every character -- every speech, practically -- contains a surprise. The surprises build to neatly engineered climaxes and conclusions. But the neatness is all technique. Emotionally and morally, Gilman's work is confrontational, transgressive, unsettling -- and uniquely admirable.

Her plays are popular in Chicago, New York, London and wherever audiences enjoy provocative theater. Seattle Repertory Theatre produced "Boy Gets Girl" (a melodrama about stalking) in 2003 and "Spinning Into Butter" (a satirical comedy/drama about race and political correctness) in 2001. Last year Bad Monkey Productions staged "Blue Surge" (a comedy/drama about hookers and the vice squad cops who love them).

"The Sweetest Swing in Baseball," a joint ArtsWest and Seattle Public Theater production now playing at ArtsWest, is primo Gilman.

Dana, the protagonist, is a well-known New York painter. The pressures of success are exhausting her morale and her talent. Feeling forced to produce, she puts together an exhibition of inferior work. Public rejection crushes her. She slashes her wrists.

Next she finds herself in a psychiatric hospital. She shares an arts-and-crafts therapy table with Gary, a homicidal maniac, and Michael, a gay computer geek seeking (for the second time) alcohol rehab. The men talk sports. Dana decides that her own rehabilitation would be enhanced by taking on an alternate personality -- that of Darryl Strawberry.

In many ways, Strawberry had the same performance anxieties as Dana. But he was tough. He was bad. Between 1983 and 1999 he was baseball's rookie of the year, a frequent All-Star, a multimillionaire and a formidable home-run hitter. On the debit side were multiple legal problems. Charges ranged from battering women and using illegal drugs to tax evasion and child-support delinquency. Making matters worse were bouts with various forms of cancer.

Genteel Dana finds relief in adopting the persona of flashily tough and anti-authoritarian Darryl.

Director Shana Bestock stages a vigorous "Sweetest Swing in Baseball." Nothing is predictable. Everything is peculiarly satisfying as serious psychology meets quirky comedy.

As Dana, Heather Hawkins is dryly weird. Hawkins' portrayals of bizarre eccentricities have an amusingly matter-of-fact quality. As Gary, the psychopath, Gavin Cummins is a toxic mix of wacko nuttiness and astute viciousness, battering cynicism and pathetic disingenuousness.

Kelly Kitchens and Karen Nelsen are vaguely sinister and vaguely benign as art merchandisers. Totally benign and endearing is Trick Danneker as the gay geek who is just what Dana needs: someone who is quirky but detached, self-aware but sympathetic.

"The Sweetest Swing in Baseball" plays through March 15 at ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., whereupon it transfers to Seattle Public Theater, 7312 W. Green Lake Drive N., where it runs March 20-April 6. Tickets: $29, under 25 $10; 206-938- 0339, artswest.org or seattlepublictheater.org.

Unreality bites

Sometimes, life being what it is, a person could almost suppose that innocence had been abolished. Playwright Noah Haidle takes that notion to the limit. Forget "almost." Forget "suppose." In Haidle's dark comedy "Mr. Marmalade" it's as if there could never have been any such thing as innocence in the first place. There's nothing to abolish.

Lucy is 4. Larry is 5. To them, sex and drugs, violence and crime are games. They have imaginary friends who excel at all things gross and nasty. As for reality, Lucy's mother is a drunken slut. Lucy's teenage baby sitter is a sober slut. Larry's parents shun him. His brother is a violent brute. Lucy knows a lot about battering, abusive men. Larry holds the record for youngest attempted suicide in the state of New Jersey.

While the brutish brother is upstairs hooking up with the slutty baby sitter, Larry and Lucy have some quality time playing doctor. Then unreality intrudes. Imaginary friends are so much more intense and yet predictable than here-and-now three-dimensional people.

For all his exulting in jolly corruption, Haidle is overcome by mercy and benevolence just as it starts to seem that he has created his characters only to ridicule, torture and destroy them.

Washington Ensemble Theatre director Katjana Vadeboncoeur keeps this witches' brew bubbling. Marya Sea Kaminski and Jonah Von Spreeken are unsettling and captivating as Lucy and Larry -- preschoolers who are postgraduates when it comes to adult dysfunctions. Rhonda J. Soikowski and Aaron LaPlante are cheerily dismaying as dysfunctional adults who are childish in the worst sense.

As the seductive and abusive Mr. Marmalade, Michael Place is a vibrant "borderline personality" case. Marc Kenison is the abuser's ideal victim, ever eager to excuse, rationalize, forgive and go back for more. The fact that these two are both imaginary somewhat mitigates their grueling relationship.

Haidle excels at grit. His Mr. Marmalade is a connoisseur of sex toys, porn and cocaine. But Haidle also excels at making fun of grit. Right there on stage, with aerosol cans out in the open for everyone to see, Kaminski and Von Spreeken mainline Reddi-wip and Easy Cheese.

Ghastly and jolly at the same time, "Mr. Marmalade" is intriguing and entertaining as unreality circles back and bites reality.

"Mr. Marmalade" plays through March 16 at Washington Ensemble Theatre, 608 19th Ave. E. Tickets: $10-$18; 800-838- 3006 or brownpapertickets.com.

Despair in the desert

After World War II, French existential philosophers offered this cheering insight to a demoralized Europe: The three essential qualities of modern life are loneliness, forlornness and despair. This news was encouraging, it seems, because it gave a bit of intellectual prestige to what otherwise might be considered a bad attitude.

Then came self-help books and self-improvement strategies, especially in America and Asia. Gloomy resignation was replaced by remarkably profitable products and services.

Playwright Julia Cho takes the post-World War II evolution to its next phase. Lack of self-acceptance and constant rummaging around for ways to be acceptable can lead to ... yes ... loneliness, forlornness and despair.

Such is the fate of the characters in Cho's play "BFE." (Don't ask what those initials stand for. It's very rude.) Panny, the protagonist, is an Asian-American high school freshman. She is not beautiful according to the standards of her small Southwestern hometown. For her 14th birthday her mother offers her a makeover -- a trip to the plastic surgeon. Mom has had her share of such procedures. She's attractive. Never mind that she's an agoraphobe who hasn't left the house in years.

Supporting these two is Uncle Lefty, a Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast whose day job is working security in a department store. Lefty gets involved with a woman who sells jewelry at the store. Lefty's sister Isabel, Panny's mom, has a sophisticated fantasy affair with Gen. Douglas MacArthur and tacky tryst with a pizza delivery boy.

As for Panny, she has an awkward phone romance with a boy who answered Panny's wrong-number call. And she narrowly avoids rape and murder by the local serial killer (heavy irony there -- even forced to wear a blond wig, she's not his type, a fact for which she is severely punished, but not killed).

Director Leticia Lopez's production of "BFE" at Richard Hugo House has a muffled quality. Bits of humor, irony and critical social insight succeed in fending off complete dreariness. The actors clearly understand their characters. But, with a few exceptions, their portrayals are sketchy and pale.

Among the exceptions is Maia Lee as Panny's Korean pen pal, an America worshipper who has clearly overdosed on MTV mannerisms. Also vivid is Trina Griffin as the jewelry saleswoman, a character who imbibes vitality from multiple improve-your-life gurus. As General MacArthur and also as the pizza guy, Eric Riedmann is fun to watch. As MacArthur he is ludicrously suave. As the delivery boy he is ludicrously gauche.

"BFE," an SIS Productions show, runs at Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., through March 16. Tickets $12, students, seniors and actors $8, discounts for groups; 206-323-9443 or tickets@sisproductions.org.