Double Up on Odd Couples with the Rep's Opus

(l-r): Allen Fitzpatrick as Elliot, Shawn Belyea as Alan, Charles Leggett as Carl, Todd Jefferson Moore as Dorian, Chelsey Rives as Grace.Photo by Chris Bennion, Post Editing by Andry Lawrence.

"Wouldn't it be cool if there was a play about string quartets, and the interaction of the characters was like the interaction of instruments?" Michael Hollinger asked himself one day.

Being a playwright and a former violist, he was uniquely positioned to provide an answer that question. The creative genesis of Opus (through December 6 at the Seattle Rep, tickets: $30-$52, $12 for 25-and-under), though, belies the play's biting humor and sitcom pacing. And its cast of local all-stars knows from close-quarters pressures and catty infighting. Witness the invention of "reality theatre"--slightly trashy, sometimes squirmy, but mostly fun.

To borrow his expression, Hollinger starts off a little "flat" with Opus, with the members of the famed Lazara String Quartet front-of-stage delivering a scene from their documentary, filmed when they were riding high. It's pure exposition, leavened with gag set-ups.

Time has brought divisions to the group, and with one member out (and gone missing)--the mercurial, over-sharing Dorian (Todd Jefferson Moore)--the remaining male trio are interviewing Grace (Chelsey Rives), who is young, very talented, and female. They think they are filling a vacant chair, but they are about to learn a quartet's chemistry is more than the sum of its parts.

If the character-sketching initially is broad strokes and the jokes are a little too on the nose, as the cast gets more stage time they deliver character that transcends the pat disclosures of banter. In particular, Charles Leggett's Carl (who doesn't banter, doesn't have time for it) turns out to be more violent and more alive to life than even the bipolar, poetic Dorian. As Alan, Shawn Belyea is lovably lecherous and sloppy, a musical Oscar Madison who's not sure if that's a bag of old tea on his counter or pot from his last trip to Amsterdam.

As the group's unofficial leader, the violinist Elliot (Allen Fitzpatrick) may be the hardest part to play. Snippy control freaks are not particularly sympathetic characters, unless you have Jack Lemmon on hand. And Fitzpatrick (not a criticism, an observation) is no Jack Lemmon. His closeted fussbudget Elliot might be tragic, but I never got close enough to see beyond the snits and petulance.

Director Braden Abraham (Seattle Rep stagings: My Name Is Rachel Corrie, Pinter's Betrayal, and Breakin' Hearts & Takin' Names) keeps the actors close-grouped, unless emphasizing a rogue action. It helps with the emotionally overheated responses--these people are in each others' faces day in and day out.

That's the reality, and their trip to the White House for a command performance, personal relationships, and even a cancer prognosis somehow take a backseat to the cauldron of rehearsal and performance in which they become a new, four-part entity. This idea of musical craft as almost literally a craft--prone to swamping in life's heavy seas and giving rise to questions about whom to throw overboard--elevates the play at moments above its mannered drawing-room demeanor.

The set, by the way, is the work of Etta Lillienthal. It is both spare and beautiful, featuring a sliding wooden wall inscribed with musical notes that sums up how music structures the quartet's environment.