I’m a Seattle Mariners fan and that revelation should call the remainder of my judgments and this review into question. Or at least I think I was a Mariners fan until this season pretty much sucked all the professional baseball watching joy out of me. I just gave up even trying to care this year. Even the allure of cheap tickets and a cordial Safeco, excuse me, T-Mobile field atmosphere is not enough for me to waste another dollar to watch this season’s nightmare. It is fitting they built the stadium next to a train yard to remind us that every season will eventually derail into a train wreck. Next year’s Mariners slogan should be “Joy denied!”
I thought briefly about the joyless Mariners about ten minutes into experiencing the Seattle-based The Habit comedy troupe’s satisfyingly silly production of Indy Jones and the Raiders of the Last Temple of the Doomed Ark, now playing at the Seattle Public Theater on the shores of Green Lake. As I laughed along with the majority of the audience at a rather juvenile site gag, I thought, “More theater, less sports!” Seriously, this should be the mantra of the Puget Sound region, “More theater, less sports!”
The Seattle area has one of the top thriving theater communities in the nation, or at least that’s what David Armstrong of Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre fame keeps saying and I assume he’s not a compulsive liar. This region has so many theatrical options to satisfy one’s live theater appetite and honestly most of these options are better and even frequently less expensive than going to a baseball game. Even so, we dedicate massive amounts of media time to sports while our theater community is often barely mentioned.
With this in mind, I try to occasionally highlight Seattle theatrical productions with the purpose of honoring our vibrant theater scene. I entered into last night’s production of Indy Jones and the Raiders of the Last Temple of the Doomed Ark (yes, I will write the long form of this title every time in this review) with really no expectations, but to hopefully laugh and be surprised. I found my expectations were fully satisfied.
The show’s title clearly reveals that one will not experience a night of sophistication. This is simply a show about how much fun parody can be when addressing a shared beloved cultural phenomenon. If you are familiar with the Indiana Jones trilogy and indifferent to the unnecessary fourth installment, then you’ll find plenty to laugh at as playwrights Jeff Schell and Ryan Dobosh do their best to playfully mine both verbal and visual comedy out of the original movies in a way that is far more slapstick than cynical, focusing more on the absurd and silly than the overtly editorial and brutally lampoonish. It is clear their goal is for the audience to have fun first and foremost; as a result, their negative commentaries concerning the failings and insensitivities of Spielberg’s works seem more like a friendly roast than a satirical rebuke. This obviously keeps the night from having any real depth, but it doesn’t prevent the show from having a consistently happy vibe.
I guess comedy groups are not ensembles but troupes. Regardless of their classification, the troupe worked well together and truly seemed to be having fun along with the audience. Although the show wasn’t improvised, I enjoyed the improv vibe of the actors who seemed to welcome the energy of the audience. The second act is much stronger than the first and this might be an intentional move of the writers. During intermission I told my wife that I was somewhat surprised by how tame and linear the show had been up to that point. My concerns were quickly addressed at the start of the far more zany second act. The parody arc of the night made sense as the show progressed and digressed rapidly towards its finale.
Highlights of the night included some great visual gags, including some really impressive “cart work.” I was somewhat nervous that I was about to see an unplanned collision during some of the most chaotic and well-choreographed fight scenes. I will also never envision the glory of God coming forth from the Ark of the Covenant in the same way as a result of experiencing their ingenious stage solution. Honestly, I was pretty impressed that they could provide that much visceral movement and visual energy in such a small theater.
The show has some course language and bathroom humor, but nothing a teenager hasn’t heard many times before. Please don’t blame me if your teenager hasn’t heard those things; I don’t know who is locked away and who is allowed to wander the world occasionally unsupervised.
Director, producer, composer and actor Mark Siano seems to be having a lot of fun doing this show. I’m familiar with Mark’s name and work. This is the first time I’ve actually seen one of his shows. I feel kind of bad that I haven’t seen something of his sooner. I have wasted so much money on sports when I could have had many more nights of laughter and actual fun. Live theater, it is happening all over Seattle and it is really way more enjoyable than a lot of the activities we are wasting our time doing. Maybe embark on a new quest this week along with Indy Jones and the Raiders of the Last Temple of the Doomed Ark. Or I guess there is always the Mariners.
Douglas Bursch is the author of Posting Peace: Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It. He also hosts The Fairly Spiritual Show podcast.