What I liked
Sidney’s physical work is front and center from lights-up, and his subtle specificity throughout takes a story that could easily become a tangle of names, dates, and places and lays it all out clear. The show hooks us from the opening lines, and gently guides us back in time to contextualize everything that is to come. We learn of Doc Maynard and the relationships, businesses, scandals, and – let’s be honest – even hijinks he got up to in his mission to build what we now know as the city of Seattle.
Chris Hutchings’ projections strike that nearly-impossible balance of engaging and attractive without distracting from Sidney’s performance or the story being told. Their complete integration into the show and script have them feeling almost like a second performer (deftly wrangled by Stage Manager Claire German).
The show draws parallels to our current national political and social climate and provides a surprising mirror with which to view today’s news. Whether you’ve never thought to yourself, “Gee… How DID Seattle come to be?” or you’ve had a note on your phone for sixteen years that says, “who fOunded seattle?” or you simply want to catch an entertaining, informative, and engaging piece of theatre, check out No Better Man.
What I didn't like
As is almost always my feeling, the biggest improvements that I could see are simply byproducts of the nature of Fringe. The herculean requirements of load-in and load-out in mere minutes before and after each show, the lack of stage crews, the technical limitations of the spaces and time to work those elements before the opening performance… all of this is going to create some inherent holes that would otherwise be filled. That said, No Better Man manages a degree of technical stagecraft I have rarely if ever seen pulled off effectively in any Fringe show.
My overall impression
Jacob Sidney seemingly effortlessly guides the audience from the pre-colonial Pacific Northwest through the founding of Seattle and beyond in this tight, one-hour exploration of how history is distorted by the “victors,” and what is lost along the way.
