Thread by @seananmcguire

All right, Seattle-area people, gather 'round and attend the tale of THE DEVIL AND SARAH BLACKWATER.

Initially pitched to me as "an Americana take on the ballad of Tam Lin and the story of Orpheus," the show definitely achieves both those things, but I'd be doing it a disservice to not also mention the hefty debt it owes to Thomas the Rhymer.

This is a brand-new musical, being staged at the Annex Theater in downtown Seattle. Things to know: you must climb two flights of stairs to access the theater. There are more stairs involved (two steps) if you want to pee while you're there.

(To be clear, I've done local theater, I've done small theater, performance spaces are a nightmare to find, I'd rather the theater exist and have limitations than not exist. But knowing about the stairs is still important.)

The theater seats under a hundred people; every seat in the house is up-close and intimate in relation to the stage. This also means that every seat in the house is potentially very, very loud. Plan accordingly.

The set is clean and beautifully designed, with rotating flats representing both the living world and the lands of the dead. Every time they turn around is another katabasis. Excellent handling of limited resources and real estate.

And now...the show.

THE DEVIL AND SARAH BLACKWATER seems like it's going to be a familiar story: here's Sarah, and her first song ("Roll On") is cocky and bold and about running away from your problems, because fuck those problems, anyway.

Clearly, if anyone here sold their soul for a music career, it was Sarah, and not her sweet, somewhat quiet and gawky boyfriend, Sam. We spend a little time with them...and then the titular Devil shows up and whisks Sam away, as his debt is due and his soul is forfeit. Whoops.

What follows is a quite literal katabasis, as Sarah follows her lost lover into the lands of the dead with the intention of bringing him home. It's a much snarkier, much queerer answer to HADESTOWN, and the mythology at its core is solid enough to support both shows.

I'm not going to spoil the whole performance for you, because it's something that really does deserve to be seen. I say this as a "Tam Lin" scholar and a fan of musical theater.

A few thoughts:

The casting of the three leads is transcendentally good. Sarah is played by the show's lyricist/musician. This is her Lin-Manuel Miranda moment, and she owns it, no question.

Sam and Kelly are both played by strong, versatile performers, capable of standing up to the sheer amount of invested vigor of Sarah's actress.

The balance in the chorus is...not always good. In last night's performance, one of the crow/devil performers was both very, very loud and very, very flat, which pulled several of the others off-key. It could be painful. I winced.

(This also sadly obscured some of the remarkably clever and nuanced lyrics, which was a little frustrating. I wanted to have a better understanding of what was going on.)

The crows also seemed to have received the direction "just do you, make the character your own," which led to some really funny moments...and one crow over-acting so severely that I had some regrets.

I say this not because I hated the show--I didn't--but because if I'm going to say "hey, you should spend your time and money going to a small theater production," I don't want you to come back at me with "but it was flawed, you lied."

This show is absolutely worth your time. It's sweet and funny and tender and queer in a way that is incredibly refreshing to see on stage. I cried, several times. I'd love to see it be such a success that it can be staged again, maybe with a higher budget.

THE DEVIL AND SARAH BLACKWATER is playing at the Annex Theater through the end of February. I think, if you enjoy the kind of weird shit I habitually do, that you will enjoy it.