Laughter rules the Seattle stage with colorful Joseph, romantic Emma, and cookie-munching Mouse

October 27, 9:25 PMSeattle Theater ExaminerRosemary Jones

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When times get tough, the entertainment turns to comedy and music to lighten the load. Call it the Fred & Ginger equation of economics. By that formula, Seattle must still be deep in a depression, because its stages are full of funny and talented people doing hilarious comedy. Whether it is a bubbly Biblical musical satire, a swoon-worthy Regency romance with properly British hijinks, or the modern equivalent of a vaudevillian knockabout routine for the kindergarten set, you’ve got some great choices for serious laughs.

Anthony Fedorov gives Joseph plenty of vocal appeal. Photo: Curt Doughty.

Any fan of Glee should appreciate Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a musical created in their youth by the then unknown Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for a school choir. To keep the schoolboys engaged, they stuffed their retelling of a dreamer and his mutlitude of brothers with wacky humor, from parodies of famous song styles to some of Rice’s funniest lyrics about early Egyptian rulers. The 5th Avenue production gives this Joseph plenty of high caliber zing with candy-colored sets, spot-on performances (especially by Joseph’s madly jealous eleven brothers, the hardest working bunch of singing cowboys in Old Testament drag that you will see this season), and a sweet soulful center provided by lead Anthony Fedorov. As an extra treat for Seattle audiences this Halloween, the 5th is offering two-for-one tickets for the Oct. 31 performance if you buy online by midnight Oct. 28.

Emma (Sylvie Davidson) and Harriet Smith (Ashley Marshall)
Photo by Adam Smith.

Book-It’s Emma retains all of Jane Austen’s pointed humor about the trials and tribulations of a young lady determined to rearrange other people’s romantic lives (if that sounds familiar, the novel inspired the movie Clueless). This original production done in the Book-It style adds plenty of physical sparkle but retains more of the author’s interior musings on the foibles of small town life than most BBC adaptations. From a Mr. Knightly (Dylan Chalfy) who could give Colin Firth a run for his Regency boots to an Emma (Sylvie Davidson) truly as witty as she is pretty, the actors snap from scene to scene with the timing that is everything in a finely tuned comedy. A true treasure of the evening: a Harriet Smith (Ashley Marshall) as broadly comic as a young Dawn French. Harriet’s every swoon and infatuation invoked howls of kindly laughter from the audience. All ends exceedingly well for all, the characters finding their perfect match and the audience discovering a perfectly splendid evening’s entertainment. For their Halloween performance, Book-It may draw a little inspiration from this year's popular mash-up of the undead and Austen (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). Expect the unearthly on Saturday night!

MJ Sieber offers Don Darryl Rivera a cookie.
Photo:  Chris Bennion.

If there was a category called vaudeville for the under-5 set, then Seattle Children’s Theatre would be its master. Shows at their smaller stage for their smaller audience members often turn picture books into riotous productions of physical absurdity. I still remember with great fondness the brilliant adaptation of Go, Dog, Go! a few years ago. Give A Mouse A Cookie is a trifle more wordy, at times almost unnecessarily so. Long lines of explanation are not needed to convey the disastrous consequences of letting the wrong mouse into your house. Of course, when confronted with a cookie-begging, want-to-be-helpful darn cute Mouse (Don Darryl Rivera), it’s hard for a Boy (MJ Sieber) to say no. Rivera bounces from scene to scene, singing, dancing, and even skating across the kitchen floor aboard scrubbing brushes, as Sieber frantically tries to control the chaos left in his wake. This silliness inspires big giggles from the audience, including the parents, but everyone agrees in the Q&A at the end of the show:  that Boy is going to be grounded once his mother sees what the Mouse has done!