Steam Spiegel

Category: Theatre Reviews

  • Raul Sanchez, When We Were Water

    Sunday mid-morning. I have just completed my first “write,” and am now casting about for some way down.

    I’ve had Raul’s e-reading tabbed on Facebook for some time. It looks like that time is today.

    You know you’ve made it in Latinx Seattle when an Alfredo Arreguín painting is associated with your work. I doubt I will ever have such an honor, but what’s not to like about coyotes?

    Alfredo Arreguín

    Here is the recording of the reading. I particularly liked the poem “Brown Angels.”

    Word Enough Writers Poetry Book Release Reading

    Raul and I have been friends since the mid-90s when we were both in the Seattle Latinx writers group Los Norteños. It has been a pleasure following his art and his career as a poet and, more recently, Poet Laureate of the City of Redmond (2019-2021). He manages and stocks a poetry box in North Seattle and a Thursday midday poetry reading in the park.

    Raul Sanchez

    The idea that there is justice in the world resonates through my entire being when I marvel at the through-line of his accomplishments.

    A poetry reading is not an easy art. To hold an audience accustomed to rapid-fire visual stimulation in rapt attention for an hour with only the spoken word takes considerable practice and expertise. Thus this particular event is a superb example of the entertainment genre poetry reading.

    Fellow reader C. W. Emerson rounds out the event with a polished set of pieces featuring lyric descriptions of his life in the heyday of gay San Francisco, the era we old timers remember, the real A.I.D.S. epidemic that is probably playing out in poorer parts of town even now. Those of us in the arts all lost friends to it.

  • REVIEW: How Much the Heart Can Hold by Bryan Willis & Linda Kalkwarf, Harlequin Productions (2/14/26)

    Valentine’s Day, and what more can anyone possibly say about love? But Bryan Willis has pulled it off.

    Twenty or more years ago, I keep refraining, Bryan and I were chatting down at Theatre Schmeater on Capitol Hill. He told me he left New York because the actors there put a pause at the top of every line, and it destroyed the timing of his work. I nodded. The tiniest thing can make a huge difference.

    So here he is, in Olympia, near the pony farm where he grew up and where he learned to speak, to listen, and to write for the spoken medium.

    It is, indeed, the most delicate prosody, and when he engages with his subject, it is an ecstasy to behold.

    My teacher Edward Albee used to look away from the actors when he evaluated a play. His wiring was so auditory that he demanded we kill the eye to write for him. He used to say that a play is more like a string quartet than a novel.

    Bryan Willis can make a string quartet.

    The piece was gentle and genteel, perfect for a grand old house with fifty-dollar tickets, and it reminds me, a still-slugging fellow playwright who prefers the day job racket to the nerve-wracking BUSINESS of never having any real money, that I should nail it in the big house from time to time, not just throw things.

    The other piece, by the late Linda Kalkwarf, was a short one, an exploration of a seasoned couple in a state of perpetual mild conflict that daily resolves into acceptance and enduring love.

    The occasional quotes on love by poets and writers lent a frissón to the overall effect. I left nourished and inspired. I will be back to Harlequin theatre. The set for the running show spoke of extreme competence.

    There is a McMeniman’s down the street still serving the inimitable $13 glass of Black Rabbit Red. Next time, before-show eats, and more of a sense of the house. I know how to get to Olympia.