In the westerns we read growing up, cowboys were always punching each other right in the solar plexus. A scene in the lonelyhearts drama By the Waters of Babylon did that to the Seattle Rep audience last night, leaving people gasping and in tears. It was a lucky punch, though -- most of the time the play telegraphs exactly what's coming next: quips and tedium. If you go, go for Suzanne Bouchard's outstanding performance as......

Initially, we were a little surprised to hear that ACT--A Contemporary Theatre--was putting on Clare Booth Luce's The Women. Although having debuted in 1936 placed the play in the Modern canon, its view of women is about as un-p.c. as they come: in short, the play presents women as gossipy and back-stabbing, assumes marital infidelity is a function of the Y chromosome, and ends with a note suggesting that for the sake of a healthy......

Intiman's first-ever Richard III opened last Friday. 25 actors pack onto the company's intimate stage for the scheming, slander, and swordplay of Shakespeare's morality play. It runs through July 15. Tickets are $27 - $46, but if you're under 25, prove it and they'll sell you a ticket for $10 for any performance. $20 rush tickets (if any) go on sale 15 minutes before curtain time. [Box Office: 206-269-1900.] The costumes are period, while......

Few people can make spousal abuse laugh-out-loud funny, yet that's what Noel Coward did with Private Lives. (Though maybe Yanni should get an honorable mention for musical abuse.) "Certain women should be beaten regularly," proclaims Elyot Chase, with conviction, "like a gong." Last night's audience erupted with laughter, as if they'd never seen Sleeping With The Enemy. The trick is to make it tasteful. When the curtain rises on the art deco, fairytale hotel where......