Let The Right One In, Roz Chast, Capitol Hill Art Walk, And More Picks
by Stranger Things To Do Staff
Our music critics have already chosen the 25 best concerts this week and we've compiled a list of big-deal art events this month to get tickets for, but now it's our arts and culture critics' turn to recommend the best events happening this week in their areas of expertise. Here are their picks in every genre—from New Yorker-themed talks (staff cartoonist Roz Chast and Short Stories Live: Stories from The New Yorker Magazine), to art walks on Capitol Hill and in Georgetown, and from the closing week of performances Mothers and Sons and Cendrillon to food and drink events like the Seattle Blind Cafe and Ada's Radioactive Love Story Dinner.
MONDAY
FILM
Silent Movie Mondays: Ramona
The Paramount will screen little-known films that prove you don't need synced sound for touching romance. Ramona (1928) stars the legendary Mexican actress Dolores del Rio as the adopted daughter of a sheep-ranching matriarch whose decision to elope with a Temecula Indian (played by one Warner Baxter—oy) leads to tragedy at the hands of white Californians. This film was thought lost until the 2010s, when a print was discovered in Prague's National Film Archive.
MONDAY-TUESDAY
FOOD & DRINK
One-World Dinner: Syria
As part of their One-World series to "foster an appreciation of our global neighbors through the sharing of delicious food and drink," Nue will pay tribute to Syria's stunningly tasty cuisine, from mezzes to kataifi dessert and clotted cream squares.
MONDAY-SATURDAY
ART
The Design of Dissent
Get some poster-design inspiration for the next protest from The Design of Dissent exhibit at new Pioneer Square gallery Non-Breaking Space. The gallery specializes in graphic design, and this exhibit digs deep into the past 50 years of visual rebellion against racism, sexism, the Vietnam War, the AIDS crisis, poverty, gun control, and more. Originally curated in 2005 by Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic for New York's School of Visual Arts, the exhibit got a refresh by Seattle design firm Civilization, featuring new work along with recognizable posters from Silence = Death, Guerrilla Girls, Ahmet Ogut, Ken Garland, and many others. AMBER CORTES
MONDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Proof
Strawshop honcho Greg Carter directs Proof, David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize– and Tony Award–winning play about Catherine, the daughter of a late University of Chicago professor and mathematical wizard of prime numbers. Catherine is a math genius herself, and she worries she's inherited her father's mental illness along with his smarts. Invariably, one of Seattle's theaters produces this contemporary classic each year, but Carter's sure to pull out the political fire burning just beneath the play's surface. RICH SMITH
There will be no performances on Tuesday or Wednesday.
FOOD & DRINK
#SeattleBurgerMonth: Will You Survive?
Lil Woody's regular menu is extravagant enough: you can always order a Painted Hills beef burger slathered in bleu cheese and pickled figs or topped with two fried eggs and bacon. In February, the cheap burger joint is adding chef specials from local stars. Monday is the last day to try the "Relay Burger" from Rachel Yang (of Joule): It's a third of a pound of beef with Korean pickled peppers and onions, kimchi-caramelized bacon mayo, and lettuce. Then, starting on Tuesday and continuing through next Monday, try the Ras El Hanout Fried Oyster Roll from Zoi Antonitsas (named a best New Chef by Food and Wine Magazine in 2015): It will have tzatziki, butter lettuce, mint, pickled onions, and fried Pacific oysters on a seeded oyster roll.
TUESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Alan Burdick: What Makes Time Fly?
Discover why your perception of time can be so inconsistent with "objective" clock time, i.e., why time flies when you Netflix-binge but crawls when you do your taxes. Alan Burdick's Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Exploration is the New Yorker science writer's exposition of time—whether and how we're born with a sense of it, and how we live with it.
Ross Gay
Ross Gay, who just won the Kingsley Tufts Award (a $100,000 purse for outstanding mid-career work), is a poet who is the exact opposite of pretentious. He will read from Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, which won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award. The book is full of chatty and joyful and warm-but-not-smothering poems that are easy to grasp on a first read. "A Small Needful Fact," a short poem about Eric Garner working for a spell at the Parks and Rec. Horticultural Department, makes me burst into tears. RICH SMITH
COMEDY
Sarah Silverman
Watch celebrated snarky weirdo and proud vagina-haver Sarah Silverman perform an evening of stand-up at the Paramount.
FOOD & DRINK
Lost Lake Cares: Antioch's Civil Rights Tour of the South
Expanding on its monthly fundraising tradition, and in honor of Black History Month, Lost Lake will donate ten percent of every Tuesday's profits to a campaign to send Antioch University students on a civil rights tour of the south. Students will get: a trip around Alabama's civil rights movement monuments and museums, guided by Dr. Bernard LaFayette, an activist colleague of Martin Luther King, Jr. You will get: a good meal and the moral satisfaction of helping raise the necessary $10,000.
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Let the Right One In
You definitely spend the first 20 minutes of this impeccable stage production of Let the Right One In reluctantly surrendering your devotion to Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 film—which is, let’s be serious, the greatest vampire movie of all time. But then you’re right there with it, and the rewards feel surprisingly deep. Reworked as a play, the story benefits from the marriage of spectacle (please give the designers a medal) and intimacy (give one to star Lucy Mangan, too), of literalism and gesture that a beautifully staged, very expensive bit of theater does best. When the tears start welling in the second act, it becomes clear that however brilliant the film was, it may be that the source novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist has tapped an immortal vein of romance, friendship, and impossibility—the eternal triumvirate of adolescence. (Plus, I should mention that the production is by the National Theatre of Scotland, so the whole cast has Scottish accents.) SEAN NELSON
ART
Jim Woodring: The Pig Went Down to the Harbor at Sunrise and Wept
Jim Woodring's meticulous and inventive comics earned him a Stranger Genius Award in literature in 2010. About his first full-length graphic novel, Weathercraft, Paul Constant wrote, "Because of Woodring's dense, obsessive line work—the man can't even draw a sky without adding 37 meticulous squiggles dancing from the top of the panel to give the impression of a distant haze—his stories feel longer, and maybe more involved, than they really are." This solo exhibition will feature a series of large ink drawings created using a comically oversize fountain pen (that Woodring made himself).
WEDNESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Ignite Education Lab: Unexpected Adventures in Learning
Students, teachers, and parents will tell true stories with "20 slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds" in this slam-journalism event with the Seattle Education Lab. Converse at intermission and over drinks with Lab staff, and cast your ticket in a raffle.
Stephan J. Guyenet: The Hungry Brain
Stephan J. Guyenet is the author of The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts that Make Us Overeat and the author of the blog WholeHealthSource, and he has a PhD in neurobiology from the University of Washington. Tonight, he'll "draw on research from neuroscience, biology, chemistry and nutrition to explain the instinctive brain circuits that compel us to overeat."
COMEDY
Fist and Shout
Local comedic geniuses El Sanchez and Marita DeLeon sail onto new territories with their latest project, Fist and Shout, a QTPOC-centered comedy and variety show. This week's show will be a "Valentine's Gay" edition.
FOOD & DRINK
Oysters and Bubbly No. 3
Cold weather means cold water. And in the Puget Sound area, that means the delectable, fresh oysters all winter long. Indulge in winter's best delicacy at this event, where $35 (and seven cents) gets you six Hama Hama oysters and five tastes of various champagnes picked to pair with them. Ooh, and there's also live music.
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY
ART
Richard Rezac and Julia Fish
This exhibit will feature works by painter and mixed media artist Julia Fish alongside pieces by Richard Rezac, who has created quiet, clean, and stunningly pared-back sculptures for a collaboration with painter Eric Elliott, as well as curiosity-provoking works inspired by American minimalism, Zen gardening, and baroque architecture.
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Bring Down the House
Bring Down the House is a two-part adaptation of William Shakespeare's Henry the VI trilogy, aka the history plays about the War of the Roses, wherein a backstabby personal beef between the House of Lancaster and the House of York grows increasingly backstabby while the country rots around them. (Sound familiar?) Seattle Shakespeare Company has never produced the Henry VI plays before. They've also never collaborated with Rosa Joshi and Kate Wisniewski of upstart crow collective before, a group that produces plays with all-female casts. And I don't think I've ever seen a director employ hyper-dramatic (and hyper-loud) Taiko drums in a Shakespeare play before. All of that seems like reason enough to go. Plus, any time Keiko Green is in something, it's probably worth a look. RICH SMITH
ART
Inye Wokoma: An Elegant Utility
Inye Wokoma is a filmmaker and visual artist known for his explorations of place and identity, including last year's exhibition This is Who We Are, about his experience as a black man in Seattle. An Elegant Utility will examine Seattle's Central District, through the lens of Wokoma's own family as well as the larger experience of African Americans in Seattle, and will feature artifacts including photographs, mementos, and legal ledgers.
Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series
Last year around this time, I was so excited about the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition of all 60 of Jacob Lawrence's paintings of the Great Migration that I wrote about it, even though I couldn't get there to see the art in person. But now all 60 panels—all 60 panels!—are coming to Seattle Art Museum. This is the first time they've been seen all together on the West Coast in two decades. Lawrence lived the last years of his life in Seattle, teaching at the University of Washington, so the venue makes good sense. At MoMA, it was the first time in two decades they'd been seen together on the East Coast. It nearly takes an act of heaven itself for it to happen, since half of the series is held at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, and the other half at MoMA. MoMA's iteration included included works of poetry, music, and photography, to place the 23-year-old Lawrence, whose own parents fled north, in the creative context of his peers. The exhibition was appealing and in-depth, unlike the all-too-often "uniformly flat-footed and sentimentalist uses of Jacob Lawrence,” described by Darby English. JEN GRAVES
THURSDAY
ART
Capitol Hill Art Walk
Once again, it's time to fill the streets of Capitol Hill with tipsy art lovers. In February, check out Tabaimo: Utsutsushi Utsushi and Terratopia: The Chinese Landscape in Painting and Film at the Asian Art Museum, Push Play at Hedreen Gallery, The Boomer List at Photographic Center Northwest, Drink & Draw at Capitol Cider, and Occupy Space: In Other Words at Fred Wildlife Refuge.
READINGS & TALKS
Paul Auster
Author Paul Auster (known for a variety of works, from his debut memoir The Invention of Solitude to the detective fiction series The New York Trilogy) will speak about his writing and share his latest project, a novel about parallel timelines and life choices titled 4 3 2 1. He will be joined by Paul Constant, former Stranger staffer and co-founder of the Seattle Review of Books. Tickets include a copy of Auster's book.
Roz Chast
If you've ever leafed through a copy of the New Yorker, you know Roz Chast's cartoons. With thin, nervous lines she populates domestic scenes and urban life with frazzled, nervous people. Her dry, absurd, lightly cynical humor is so entertaining you almost forget she's always thinking about the big stuff: death, end times, and the awkward beauty of being alive. "The magazine’s only certifiable genius,” as New Yorker editor David Remnick calls her, will give a talk about her new memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, which tracks the process of her parents's aging. RICH SMITH
FOOD & DRINK
Guest Chef Night
FareStart is a fantastic organization that empowers disadvantaged and homeless men and women by training them for work in the restaurant industry. Every Thursday, they host a Guest Chef Night, featuring a three-course dinner from a notable Seattle chef for just $29.95. Tonight, Chef Kurt Beecher Dammeier (The Butcher's Table) will cook a menu of beef and peperonata crostini, polenta verdure with crispy turkey confit, and cardamom butter cake.
FILM
Viva Italia! Italian Film from Neorealism to Fellini
Revisit the greatest works of mid-century Italian cinema with works by Monicelli, Rossellini, Fellini, and other masters of postwar Neorealism and the more stylized movements that followed. Tonight, watch the 1960 Monicelli film The Passionate Thief.
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCE
As You Wish
Seattle Experimental Theater's improvised take on the delightful and hilarious movie The Princess Bride will be directed by Paul Levy, and will hopefully feature some entertaining Rodents of Unusual Size and comical full-body rolls.
Mothers and Sons
Terrence McNally's Mothers and Sons is a Tony Award-nominated play about queerness, AIDS, family, and romance. It's a drawing room drama, showing just an hour and a half of the characters' lives, and is about a woman visiting her late son's former partner.
FOOD & DRINK
Seattle Blind Café
The Blind Café bills itself as "NOT just another dinner in the dark." You eat tasty vegan food and drink a glass of wine, yes, but you also hear live music and take part in a social justice workshop led by legally blind speakers—all in inky blackness.
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Cendrillon
The Pacific Northwest Ballet presents another take on a classic tale: this time, a ballet production with Jean-Christophe Maillot and Bernice Coppieters that offers a new take on the story of Cinderella, the ash-covered young woman who is (eventually) rewarded for her goodness.
The Cherry Orchard
The Seagull Project and ACT Theatre present Anton Chekhov's last play, The Cherry Orchard, directed by John Langs. The play—a strange mix of humor and tragedy—is about a group of family and friends hiding out in a Russian country estate as the world they know is about to fall apart.
French Kiss
French Kiss is a sexy production that features dancers performing original choreography by Fae Pink, elaborate sets and projections, and themed food and cocktails.
J'Adore!: A Burlesque Valentine
Enjoy a sugary sweet Valentine's Day burlesque performance from the Atomic Bombshells with special host Ben DeLaCreme.
A Moveable Feast
Café Nordo and Book-It will team up to bring you A Moveable Feast, a show based on Ernest Hemingway's memoir about living as a struggling writer in 1920s Paris—paired with a four-course meal and signature cocktail. Conceived by Jane Jones and Judd Parkin, adapted by Judd Parkin, and directed by Jane Jones.
Sweet T: The Physical Album
Sweet T: The Physical Album is a "performance practice/protest" centered on race, gender, and sexuality, by Dani Tirrell and Jhon Stronks.
FRIDAY
PERFORMANCE
Shlong Song
Woody Shticks, one of the interarts storyteller troupe known as the Libertinis, will put on a frenetic one-man show about "his days inside a Puritan cult" and "his nights inside consenting adults" at the new theater space 18th & Union.
SCIENCE
Adult Swim: Love & Reactions (21+)
At this event, which involves drinking in a children's science museum, scientists will explain the chemicals basis of falling in love. Having just fallen deep in, I'd happily drive to Olympia and pay $25 for someone to explain to me just what the fuck is going on up there. Like, I have so much half-assed food writing to do in dark Seattle bars this weekend, and instead I booked a ticket down to LA for a 36 hour trip. On Spirit, no less. Have you ever flown Spirit? It's the air travel equivalent of stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork. Love is crazy. TOBIAS COUGHLIN-BOGUE
Radioactive Love Story Dinner
Share a three-course with your science/sci-fi-loving sweetie. Of course, Ada's Technical Books has to spell it out in Klingon, Dothraki, Elvish, and some kind of magical number thing: "If 'QamuSHa',; 'Anha zhilak yera norethaan,' 'Gi melin., or '01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00001010' makes you swoon, then The Lab at Ada's is the place for your pre-heart day dinner." Nerds, you scare us sometimes.
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCE
The Pajama Game
Check out director Bill Berry's production of 1954 musical The Pajama Game for dazzling dances in a signature Fosse style, and hit numbers from Broadway's Golden Age.
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
SPORTS & RECREATION
Smash Putt
It’s the week of Valentine’s Day, so nearly every food-related event has to do with love. But there are tons of people out there who don’t, merely for the sake of the greeting-card industry’s profits, want to be incessantly reminded of love for a week. Whatever your reason for wanting to ignore Valentine’s Day, I support it. And I strongly recommend you take yourself out to Smash Putt as a reward, which is basically the zenith of fun in a dreary Seattle winter. You get wasted, you play bizarro-world mini golf (including a hole featuring a golf-ball cannon), and you are generally reminded how fun works. Last time I went, they even had the Infernal Noise Brigade marching around the venue, sowing chaos. You can enjoy this single, you can enjoy this with your sweetie, or you can enjoy this with your poly triad. It doesn’t matter—every human enjoys mini golf anarchy. TOBIAS COUGHLIN-BOGUE
PERFORMANCE
Well
Well by Lisa Kron (who adapted the Broadway hit Fun Home) is a fourth-wall-busting comedic play that deals with family, maternal relationships, and ideas of "illness" and "wellness."
ART
John Grade: Middle Fork
John Grade's gigantic sculpture Middle Fork is shaped like a tree and made from bits of old-growth cedar. It also grows like a tree—it's currently 40 feet long, and will become more than 80 feet long by the time it's installed in the Brotman Forum at SAM. Like a broken mug with sentimental value pieced together with glue, Grade will repair something important that we've lost.
SATURDAY
ART
The 2017 Henry Gala: Mercury Ball
The Henry Art Gallery's annual gala will this year honor artist Chuck Close with a cocktails, dinner, and "raise-the-paddle" program beginning at 6 pm—individual tickets start at $500 and a 12-person "visionary" table is $10,000. If that's out of your budget, a limited number of $75 tickets are available for the Dance Party only, which begins at 9 pm and will feature the DJ talents of Amateur Hour. The dress code is "Black Tie (use your flash)* "—the asterisk standing for "attitude, sparkle, shine, pomp, pageantry, shimmer, glow, show, swagger, dazzle, bedazzled, metal luxe, fancy pants."
Georgetown Art Attack
Once a month, the art that resides in the tiny airport hamlet of Georgetown ATTACKS all passersby. In more literal terms, it's the day of art openings and street wonderment. During February's event, check out (in)compatible at Interstitial and Sue Danielson: Permeability of Hardness at Bridge Productions.
Kijiji Festival
The Seattle Art Museum and One Vibe Africa (a local nonprofit that aims to educate the general public about African culture and promote social welfare and economic empowerment) present this free festival, the name of which means "village" in Swahili. There will be traditional music performances, an African market, and a screening of Madaraka The Documentary.
READINGS & TALKS
Matt Eisenbrandt: Assassination of a Saint
At this event, co-presented with the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, hear from Matt Eisenbrandt, author of Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Oscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice. Eisenbrandt was the former Legal Director for the Center for Justice & Accountability and is currently the Legal Director of the Canadian Centre for International Justice, and his book centers around the California lawsuit against former Air Force captain Álvaro Saravia for his role in the murder of Archbishop Romero.
Umar Faruq Abd-Allah: Muslim Roots in America
Muslims have lived and worked in the USA for ages. Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, author of A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb, will share his expertise on this history and its effect on contemporary Muslim Americans as well as the wider culture.
PERFORMANCE
Oroboro
K. Brian Neel has taken on a variety of roles in Seattle theater, from an elastic solo performance about a man dreaming that he's falling from a top of a building to staging Waiting for Godot (twice!) at the Seattle Fringe Festival. Now Neel has written and directed a new 18th & Union production, Oroboro, which is described as a comedy "made up of scenes that swirl and wrap around each other...brainy and physical, a psychedelic fractal of a show."
Rapture
Oh sure, you've been to more than your share of drag shows with lip-synching and wigs and princess gloves. But where are the fringed monsters, the viscous fluids, and the couture that you initially mistake for a pile of abandoned construction equipment? Kick-start your weird Saturday with Rapture, hosted by unidentified frocking object Arson Nicki. Expect to see the avantest of the avant-garde creatures, peculiar performances, and a runway that may double as a portal to the Negaverse. You will be unable to forget any of what you see—or to make anyone believe that it happened. MATT BAUME
FILM
Children’s Film Festival
The Children's Film Festival promises a wide variety of shorts—from adorable stop-motion animals to contemplative messages about climate change and the environment to trippy fantastical voyages—plus a selection of full-length feature films appropriate for kids. The children might walk out of the theater feeling they've had a pleasant and cheery experience, or it might spark an intellectual curiosity that lasts them all year. Whatever your aim, with over 150 films from around the globe, there's plenty to choose from.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Mimosas Cabaret
The great protest art of the Donald Trump era is already happening, with the Mimosas crew choosing a daring show to stage as their latest 30ish-minute musical. They're doing the show Cabaret, a song-and-dance extravaganza set in the days of Hitler's rise to power. The allegories to today are chillingly perfect, from nationalist Nazis singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" to the gut-wrenching appearance of the Star of David. For 50 years, Cabaret has been a reflection on the past, but now it's a scream of alarm about the future. You won't just cry at this show, you will sob. MATT BAUME
SUNDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Mira Shimabukuro and Bob Shimabukuro
Learn about the history of Japanese American experiences in the United States from a father-daughter duo. Bob Shimabukuro is the author of Born in Seattle: The Campaign for Japanese American Redress, and Mira Shimabukuro's new book is titled Relocating Authority: Japanese Americans Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration.
Short Stories Live: Stories from The New Yorker Magazine
This edition of "Short Stories Live" will focus on tales from The New Yorker Magazine, showcasing stories from the '40s through the '80s, including work by Oliver La Farge and Renata Adler.
Speakeasy Series: KT Niehoff
Next month, Velocity Dance Center will present a new show called Before We Flew Like Birds, We Flew Like Clouds, in which KT Niehoff asks extraordinary people, "What does it feel like to be in your body?" Niehoff and two of the individuals from the piece—astronaut and first Korean woman to go into space Soyeon Yi and professional in-line speed skater Maurice Hall—will engage in conversation as part of Velocity's Speakeasy Series, which aims to "encourage cross-disciplinary dialogue, promote civic engagement, create meaningful links between artists and communities, and support initiatives at the cutting edge of change."
FOOD & DRINK
Planned Parenthood Fundraiser: "Keep Your Hand Off Our Pils!"
Drink for a good cause at this Planned Parenthood benefit night in conjunction with the Blue Moon, wherein $1 from each pour of the ten beers on tap goes to PP. Even better news, the tasting room is both dog- and kid-friendly.
Records, Pancakes, & Bach
Brunch unconventionally with a pancake breakfast and morning interlude of six of Bach's most famous cello suites played by marimbist Erin Jorgensen in the OtB lobby.