Before the show started in earnest, Lyle James, one of the choreographers for “Devilfish” introduced an ear worm of a blueberry picking song that is featured throughout the play and explained in Tlingit culture approval and connection is expressed through foot stomps rather than applause.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
![\"Emily](\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/18660488_web1_190917Devilfish11.jpg\")
<\/a>Emily Sera, playing Koontz, left, and Erin Tripp, playing Aanteinatu, rehearse in Perseverance Theatre’s production of “Devilfish” written by Vera Starbard on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2019. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Also ahead of the opening night performance, playwright Vera Starbard spoke names of and gave gifts to people she said were essential to the long journey that took “Devilfish” from a book to a six-hour draft to a lean two-hour-and-change show.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Her emotional investment was obvious, and it’s hard to divorce the material from the passion poured into the show.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
However, artistic investment and laudable goals aside, “Devilfish” earned thunderous stomping on its merits as a play.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
It’s a satisfying and enjoyable narrative with big ambitions, and it pulls it all off.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
That’s especially impressive because the play, which tells a story spanning years and features multiple mythic characters, could have been a slog. Through creative use of flashbacks, guilt-wracked dream sequences and montage-like fastforwards “Devilfish” tells an epic story without becoming unwieldy. It’s snappy enough that it absolutely could be a modern Disney princess story with next to no reworking.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Devilfish” is also a creative introduction to aspects of Tlingit culture — wedding traditions, halibut hooks, memorial rites and more — without becoming totally didactic since there’s a natural audience analog in Aanteinatu (Erin Tripp).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Since Aanteinatu is the lone survivor of a sea monster attack on her village, her natural outsider status and adolescent age give exposition a natural reason to flow.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
All that world building does mean “Devilfish” moves more slowly in its first half than its second half, but the first half of the play does include the culling of a village by a vengeful octopus in a hypnotic and kabuki-like sequence of artful slaughter. It also concludes with a memorable and interactive wedding scene.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
While the first half of “Devilfish” essentially introduces, a stove, a pot and dial set to boil, the second half of the play is all about that pot boiling over and the cleanup that follows.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
It also featured my favorite sequence in the show, which laid out the central brewing conflict in an utterly captivating way. For an absolute knockout few-minute stretch, halibut fishing is communicated via a mesmerizing, semi-comic dance routine that underscores all of the play’s major character motifs while telling its own neat story. I gushed about it on the way home, and it still stands out to me as an excellently composed and understated bit of storytelling.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
In addition to that highlight, Act 2 also features the play’s most comic moments and some tragic twists.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Aanteinatu’s manically insecure brother-in-law, Tundataan (Kenny Ramos), and sardonic father-in-law, Wakeesh (Skyler Ray-Benson Davis), earned some of the show’s loudest laughs through their depictions of men at very different stages in their development.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
![\"Rio](\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/18660488_web1_190917Devilfish07.jpg\")
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