It’s the easiest thing in the world to talk about how talented Reggie Watts is, so let’s just get that out of the way up front: you really get the impression that he can do anything on stage. One of the early vignettes in ‘Transition’ consists of Watts delivering “an soliloquy” [sic] in the classical style, and not only is the piece hilarious and deft in its send up of the tropes of the genre’s writing and performance styles, but it convinces you that Watts could almost certainly step on stage with any Shakespearean company and own the room with integrity.

Likewise with the numerous songs in the show. The lyrics bounce between brilliant and funny (with regular overlap between the two), and have wicked beats and hooks. With just his voice, loop machine and tiny keyboard, Watts can stand-in for a rap super-group, an opera company, a jazz combo, or a worldbeat music festival, and the listener is no worse off for it. Plus, he can dance. And I don’t just mean like he can get down – which he can – I mean he is a really excellent mover.

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In the dance classes I teach, I often spend a lot of time talking about transitions. The way you get from one place to another is often more important than the arrival. The nature of the transition can give deeper meaning and impact to where you came from and where you end up. Without thinking about how you get from one place to another, you are just going through the motions. And what is true for dance is true for life. (Insert smirk right here.)

Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith have created an hour long unapologetic performance experience that strings together one transition moment after another. It is an interesting concept to take on in a time based art form and a ripe opportunity for thwarting audience expectation. From the beginning we are set up to believe one thing will happen, then something else completely unexpected occurs instead. One example of this that I cannot stop laughing about, is a video of Reggie making out with with a super hot girl in a car. The kissing is steamy and as a viewer you are really getting into the whole thing. Who doesn’t enjoy watching two hot people making out like they are honestly enjoying themselves? Then bing! The Nabisco logo pops up in the corner and we move on to the next thing.

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There are times I wish I was clever enough to understand the cleverness of other people. I feel this way at times when I witness something I like, but don’t quite fully understand, like Ingmar Bergman…or the Scottish. Reggie Watts’ collaboration with director and playwright Tommy Smith, Transition is very clever (not a put down), full of pop culture observations and references, pieces (I don’t want to call them sketches) on the alienation of social networks (‘I have 2-300 friends on Facebook, and, maybe, 10 in real life!’), songs on racism, parodies of Shakespeare and the deadly seriousness of performance theater itself. I liked it, some parts more than others, but I can’t say I understood everything.

Reggie Watts is a one-man variety show, a very talented comedian-singer-actor-musical artist, one of the original hyphenated men. Containing him totally in one simple, coherent piece is probably an impossibility. Tommy Smith has fashioned around Reggie’s talent a show that doesn’t try to contain, but showcase and highlight . Using monologues, video screens and other actors intertwined with Reggie’s songs (I’m going to call them songs, but that’s pretty limiting) and comedy the show throws enough points and thoughts at the audience that it keeps moving, even while you keep wondering how it all connects. Yes, like all of humankind, I look for connections and patterns, the curves and knobby edges of the jigsaw that fit together seamlessly Transition mocked me, it was all seams.

I shouldn’t have liked it. I sat, poised and ready to call forth my full on, theatre major, BFA wielding judgment to slice and dice it, point out the flaws, underline and yellow highlight jokes that fell flat and indulgences carried to the point of fetish. But I didn’t. I hardly used that expensive education once (about as much as my mother said I would), I just sat there and enjoyed the show, laughing at Reggie’s Shakespearian monologue, his song on racism (‘Racism only works when we all work together), the scene of a couple (and one extra) explaining why they love each other but that’s also the reason they couldn’t be together, the chunk of Michael J. Fox’s Teen Wolf, for some reason thrown bodily into the middle of the show, the dance and Reggie’s gentle mocking of it. It was fun and thought and I tapped my foot a few times to the beat. At the end, people still sat in the house-half of the theatre, not quite sure it was over and several hoping it wasn’t. It wasn’t until the first couple audience members stood and let their seats sprong back up that most other followed suit.

I didn’t understand it all, yes I said it out loud, let it be on my head, but I liked it. It you’re a theatre geek like me, you’ll probably like it too.

- Tom Stewart

I’ve never seen Reggie Watts live. Nor have I seen Tommy Smith live. I’m glad I did. I think you should too.

Reggie and Tommy are like two irregular galaxies colliding in the universe at a rate that no one can measure. I left the theater seeing stars. Reggie has a magnetic persona, the ultimate showman, backed up by his golden voice, stunning beats and loops, and hip-hop-funk-jazz-uncategorizable theatrics that transports the audience to a joyous and weightless plane of existence, alongside his quick wits and authentic storytelling. Then there’s Tommy, whose singular voice is unmistakable, in the words, in the direction. The ease in which the words float and attack is a front to its complexity and power. The awesome film work by Joby Emmons/Nick Bentgen/Austin Elston, provide the evening’s stunning moments, full of rhythm and style, shifting perspectives and genres in unexpected ways. Transition pulls you in with the humor, the sort of young, hip sensibility that’s attractive and slick, but there’s something deeper than that happening here: ideas of reality, subversion, voyeurism, technology, time, psychosis, and control are at play-a fresh look at a new model of total theater; this work is experimental, non-linear, sensory, fragmented, and slippery, but swiftly engaging and supremely well executed. Reggie and Tommy (and a virtual factory of collaborators) take ‘multimedia theater work’ to a new level and are successful in creating a mesmerizing, immersive experience. Go see it!

Coming to see the show? Just love Reggie Watts? Listen to him talk about Transition and other funny stuff.

If you regularly read this blog, you know On the Boards is the place in Seattle to see the best in contemporary performance. The Inter/National Series brings just that – performance groups from outside Seattle, giving locals a taste of what’s going on outside of our city. Some of these groups have never presented in Seattle, some are making a welcome return, and some may never come back. These opportunities are HUGE – for artmakers and art spectators alike – the best in the world here in your backyard. You either see it, or you don’t. And you definitely don’t want to miss it.

The very same can be said of On the Boards’ NW Artist Series which starts this week with Reggie Watts | Tommy Smith – Transition.

Where do you think superstars of the performance world started? On the local level. And On the Boards is doing their part to showcase up-and-coming artists with roots in the Pacific Northwest region to present what is the future of contemporary performance – theater, dance, and music. Here’s why you shouldn’t miss it…

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