TANK PLAYS

Annex Theatre

If Sarah Rudinoff ain't the kickassest vocal talent adorning Seattle stages today (or yesterday, for that matter), I'll kiss a hog. The woman is superlative, squared. She can tear through a tune like it's a cheap prom dress, and that deep jazzy croon of hers can melt your spine to puddles of scrumptious goo. Even when she's crooning some unfathomably crazy bits about bacteria or raising her " raison children" or La Niña, as she does in unfathomably crazy Tank Plays --an über-bizarre collection of seven individual, sometimes-musical, sometimes-multimedia works.

When Bret Fetzer, Annex Theatre's artistic director, introduced Tank Plays , he promised a night overflowing with eccentricity, peculiarity, and plain old American weirdness. He didn't lie. The seven original works feature some popular and interminably watchable talent (Josh List, the wonderful Heidi Darchuck, and, of course, Sarah Rudinoff) and run the gamut from quirky to surreal to "What the fuck were they ON?". This is the fringiest of fringe theater--floating marshmallow pieces and soggy cornflakes are menaced by a giant cardboard spoon (I'm guessing that "shoestring" is an extravagant way to describe their production budget), and talking, legged dolphins lead the unwary to an ominous place called " Vacation Land." Much of it is cute, much of it is clever, and all of it is indulgent and ultimately perplexing.

But I simply adored Sarah Rudinoff. Did I mention that she's funny? Big-time funny. What a presence. And gosh darn it, I want to see much more of her. And don't get some strange notion that I'm just gushing because she's a friend or something. No such thing. We, like, shook hands once, but that was a hundred years ago. I simply believe that Sarah is an extremely underappreciated talent, and it's time somebody pointed it out.