Purgatorio Seattle Rep closes Nov. 26
Seattleplays.com review By Tom Scanlon
				If this is what David Esbjornson’s sojurn is going to be like, bookmark the Seattle Rep as the place to be. This world premiere of Ariel Dorfman’s play is the first Esbjornson has directed here since taking over as artistic director for long-timer Sharon Ott.      Purgatorio is challenging, aggressively explorative and massively disturbing. Theater simply doesn’t get much uglier than a woman describing how she murdered her children; then again, this shouldn’t surprise, as Dorfman is best known for the twisted Death and the Maiden, in which a woman confronts her former torturer. T    his play is almost certain to have a long life, as it is inexpensive to mount, with one simple set – here, Nick Schwartz-Hall does a sort of after-life-by-Ikea, very white, very effective – and a cast of two. Though there may be many more productions of Purgatorio, few will likely match the level of artistic acting achieved by Charlayne Woodard and Dan Snook.      The two give highly calibrated performances, covering just about any emotion you can imagine, with great skill; Esbjornson modulates their performances seamlessly, as the two take turns in playing, essentially, the accused and the prosecutor, as the ingenious script wraps the two characters (Woman and Man) in increasingly complex layers of Satrean confinement.      What exactly is this after-life? It may or may not be Hades, but it’s a hell of a good show.