<em>deCOMPOSITION</em> Explores Life and Death, Intimately

Melissa D Brown and Shelley Virginia in “deCOMPOSITION” at the Erickson Theatre. Photo by Reed Nakayama.

deCOMPOSITION, (previewed here last Friday and running this Friday through Sunday at the Erickson Theatre; tickets $12-$20) is an original play framed by, and tangentially about, the scientific process of decomposition. At the outset, and for anybody who’s seen a fair amount of experimental theatre, this might sound like a risky proposition, sort of a theatrical bridge to nowhere. What emerges instead is intelligent, intimate, and fresh.

deCOMPOSITION unfolds as three separate threads that entwine but rarely intersect: a childhood friendship gradually unravels as two women’s adult lives begin to diverge; another woman whose grandfather has died struggles to understand loss; and a biology professor delivers a lecture on the life cycle of the king salmon.

At its best, deCOMPOSITION examines loss and decay as ever-present forces of entropy that we experience in our relationships and everyday lives. Dissecting the word into its linguistic roots for the audience, the professor (Alaska native Ty Hewitt in a nearly pitch-perfect performance) explains that salmon begin to decompose even before their deaths.

This plays out metaphorically in the other two stories. Insecurities and resentment gradually create a rift between the two friends, while the grandfatherless young woman tries to make the absence in her life amount to something emotionally palpable by compiling memories, enumerating facts, and, unexpectedly, baking. All of this hints at the many ways that even as we live our lives things are crumbling down around us, often just as we begin to make sense of them.

This is a show that encourages its audience to actively participate but stops short of anything that should make the introverts in the house squirm in their seats. As one of those introverts, I will admit to cringing somewhat when upon walking into the theater the audience was invited to sit in two rows of chairs set up directly on the stage rather than in the existing seating. The effect is a successful one–by bringing the audience into the minimalist set, this performance in the already intimate Erickson Theatre gains a certain approachability it may have lacked otherwise.

Director Jess K. Smith and her talented ensemble originally created and refined deCOMPOSITION at Columbia University with the guidance of renowned director Anne Bogart, and it shows. The staging is crisp and effective, obviously the work of a director and cast with a firm rapport and an eye for striking stage pictures. The performances are uniformly detailed and engaging, and the cast includes a couple of Seattle faces that regular theatergoers here should recognize: Sean Patrick Taylor (Seattle Shakespeare Co., Wooden O, Theater Schmeater,) and the wonderful Melissa D. Brown (Seattle Rep, Book It, Macha Monkey, et al.)

Several days after the fact, I’m still uncertain what to ultimately take away from this show, but that struggle itself is both meaningful and worthwhile. This is challenging, interesting theatre, and it’s great to see this company with extensive Northwest ties bringing their work to Seattle. Though it falls short of what it aspires to at times, deCOMPOSITION is full of intriguing ideas presented in ways that are smart, deeply personal, and moving.

Oh, and there’s cake.