Theater review | "Arabian Nights" entrances in innumerable ways

Theater Review |

Autumn nights in Seattle are crisp and chilly. But the body heat of the passionate actors in "Arabian Nights" is turning Balagan Theatre's small, Capitol Hill space into a sultry dream factory.

Sexy, smart, funny and occasionally dazzling, "Arabian Nights," derived from an ever-evolving, multicultural and ancient series of stories (also known as "The Book of 1,001 Nights"), is full of bare female midriffs, shirtless male torsos and a certain amount of writhing around.

But while all that skin and simmering eroticism is warm and pleasantly sensual, it is also democratizing, a reflection of the show's theme that each of us is a story worth telling.

Adapted for the stage by Chicago writer-director Mary Zimmerman (whose work has been produced at Seattle Repertory Theatre), "Arabian Nights" is a sprawling narrative rooted in the familiar tale of Scheherazade (Allison Strickland), wife of a murderous Persian king, Sharyar (Ashley Bagwell).

Scheherazade stays the knife-wielding hand of Sharyar night after night by engaging him with tales concerning the court of a caliph, Harun Al-Rashid (Curtis Eastwood). Her vignettes unfold before our eyes through a witty and inventive cast surrounded by K.T. Goeke's satiny lights.

Eschewing Ali Baba, magic carpets and other clichés from Westernized versions of "1,001 Nights," Zimmerman's script is a cascade of lesser-known stories. Among them is a sex farce about a married woman whose four illicit lovers show up at the same time. More troubling is the tale of a faux caliph whose sexual odyssey ends horrifically.

Some of Scheherazade's stories concern one or another comeuppance for selfish deeds; others reveal nobility even in foul hearts. All her stories capture whatever nuance she is trying to communicate to her ill-tempered spouse.

The play's highlight is the story of Sympathy the Learned (Terri Weagant), a brilliant, haunting and deeply attractive woman who shows up at court one day and trounces each of Al-Rashid's learned counselors in their respective fields of expertise.

Director Jake Groshong undertook this production following an inspiring journey through the Middle East. The play's closing moment jars one's awareness that "Arabian Nights' " world of exotic fable is long overshadowed by the brutality of modern military adventurism.

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com