Opening
Nights

PThe Habit 13

Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Green Lake Ave. N., 800-838-3006, thehabitcomedy.com. $19. 8 p.m. Fri.–Sun. Ends Dec. 1.

What do TV cop shows, zombies, the League of Justice, jumpsuits, and the Founding Fathers have in common? Nothing, yet that’s the challenge for this fun, zany sketch-comedy show. Its six writer/performers create a rough through-line that brings disparate skits not into harmonic convergence, but a kind of parallel burning of the fuse. Successive vignettes are swiftly interrupted, with costumes concealed by those handy gray jumpsuits, then resumed again.

The Habit was formed at the UW in the mid-’90s, though the troupe is now scattered around the U.S. (They are Ryan Dobosh, John Osebold, Jeff Schell, Mark Siano, David Swidler, and Luke Thayer. The very able Montana von Fliss was a sub on the night I attended.) What they preserve is a kind of collective muscle memory, the desire to push a gag further than the vaudeville laugh.

Early in the show, two guys enact a bizarre conversation of lewd hand gestures and pelvic thrusts; later they add dialogue that makes it a (near-) harmless sidewalk encounter. The priapic figure of Detective Crash Jackson, an uber-cop extraordinaire who enters to his own fog machine and theme song (Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold”), humiliates his colleagues before getting his just deserts. Poor, disrespected Aquaman suffers the gibes and pranks of his colleagues (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.), but finally . . . no, let’s not give anything away.

The topical bits can feel like a concession to headlines and audience sympathies. (Drafting the Second Amendment, Jefferson scoffs at the notion of “automated muskets,” while Franklin despairs at their inability to agree on the Bill of Rights: “This isn’t candle science!”) Yet amid all the cheesy ’80s musical segues, what The Habit really nails is the everyday slapstick of social misunderstandings and faux pas—how we constantly say and do the wrong things, then desperately try to dig ourselves out. The show never underestimates the power of silliness, but it’s also grounded in hurt feelings (see: Aquaman) and a bit of heart. Brian Miller

PLes Miserables

Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N. (Issaquah), 425-392-2202, villagetheatre.org. $33–$68. runs Tues.–Sun through Jan. 5, THen at Everett Performing Arts Center, Jan. 10–Feb. 2.

There are very few famous reviews in the annals of journalism. One is the 1978 Rolling Stone capsule rave for Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. It read simply: “Springsteen aims for moon and stars, hits moon and stars.” I could say the same of this miraculous chamber production of Les Miserables. Director Steve Tomkins and company have created what has to be the best-ever pocket-size rendering of the 1985 smash musical; you’re not likely to see it done this well—or so intimately—ever again.

As in Victor Hugo’s 1862 class-struggle novel of revenge, retribution, and redemption, French parolee Jean Valjean (onetime Seattleite Greg Stone, now a Broadway mainstay) is pursued by inspector Javert (Eric Polani Jensen) while seeking to regain the good name he lost after stealing bread to feed a starving child. Also assisting Valjean’s salvation are Fantine (Beth DeVries), who tasks Valjean on her deathbed to care for her daughter, Cosette (Alexandra Zorn); would-be revolutionaries Enjolras (Steve Czarnecki) and Marius (Matthew Kacergis), who falls for the adult Cosette at first sight; and a riotous pair of comic foils who seek to undo Valjean at every turn, the treacherous Thenardiers (Kate Jaeger and Nick DeSantis). For once, the crucial child roles aren’t cutesy moppets, but fully realized, three-dimensional characters: Victoria Ames Smith as the young Cosette and Josh Feinsilber as the street urchin Gavroche.

To complement his sure-footed cast, Tomkins has a brilliant musical general in the pit, R.J. Tancioco, who captures every nuance of Claude-Michel Schonberg’s score. Scott Fyfe’s sets come in a dizzying array—sometimes minimalist marvels, other times dense with detail. The redoubtable Tom Sturge lights them in rich patinas ranging from umber to somber browns and shadow-gathering violets. Add to all that Cynthia Savage’s costumes—from prison rags to gaudy prostitute regalia to upper-crust finery—and you have a singular achievement in regional theater.

Not a loose stitch has been left to chance in the three-hour staging (with intermission). This little Les Miz aspires to be as great as any production of the show ever mounted, and it’s better than any I’ve ever seen, ever. Kevin Phinney

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