Ready? OK! Cheers, sneers in suburbia

Oregon's innovative Artattack Theatre Ensemble makes its Seattle debut this month with a splashy production of one of the Ashland-based company's favorite plays: Annie Weisman's sly 2001 satirical drama, "Be Aggressive."

Using a small Capitol Hill space to imaginative advantage, choreographer Ryan Baret and director Justin C. Lockwood make the most of the cheerleading spectacle that drives the play and lends it a unique appeal.

Later, they turn the show into a theater-in-the-round road movie, complete with snippets from radio — including gospel and foreign-language stations — and light beams that shoot from a mobile table that's supposed to represent a stolen Lexus.

From time to time, the story stops for a fantasy variation, a thought-revealing moment heightened by lighting and sound effects (and sometimes by a Greek chorus of cheerleaders). The well-cast actors grab at the opportunity to underline the characters' feelings, and they never overdo it.

The mostly female collection of characters is led by 17-year-old Laura (Colleen Robertson), a conscientious cheerleader whose impatient father, Phil (Timothy Kelly), doesn't have much use for the kind of "jumping up and down and yelling" that she clearly regards as an art form. He thinks their California home, Vista Del Sol, is paradise; Laura is beginning to feel otherwise.

When her mother dies in a traffic accident, everyone's in denial. Laura strains her relationships with her 11-year-old sister, Hannah (Carolyn Marie Monroe, an adult, as is the entire cast), who implores her to "stay where you are"; and with her father, who admits he doesn't like change. Busy at work, Phil wants her to play substitute parent, cleaning the house, preparing meals and baby-sitting Hannah.

Laura and her hyperactive, manipulative pal, Leslie (Amy Lynn Watson), have other plans. They set off for the Spirit Institute of the South, a semi-

legendary North Carolina cheerleader training camp where they hope to acquire the kind of "Bible Belt intensity" that will give them professional status.

Complicating the break is Leslie's mother, Judy (Walayn Sharples), an environmentalist who resigns herself to putting up with her daughter's all-but-permanent adolescent sneer. Abandoned by her husband, Judy finds herself drawn to Phil — even though his job as a freeway planner presents a potential speed bump.

Lockwood, who founded Artattack seven years ago, builds and sustains momentum, emphasizing Weisman's cinematic structure (the San Diego playwright is probably best-known for writing the cable show "Dead Like Me"). Especially engaging are the musical transitions and asides that interrupt or comment on the action. The first act ends with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," revived in a context that's similar to its recent use in "The Sopranos." A cellphone lecture to the audience is cleverly worked into the opening number — along with acerbic advice to any theater critic who might be attending the show. There's a reason it's called "Be Aggressive."

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com