Who Dares Drink the Poisoned Wine? A Cult Leader and a Cowboy Investigate.

At turns lyrical and unsettling, Washington Ensemble Theatre’s latest, a new play by Parley founder Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth, is a well-timed dive into power and delusion. Cowboys with Questions runs through 9/15 at 12th Avenue Arts. 

It feels like Greek mythology is having another cultural moment. Hadestown is still a hot ticket, and Netflix just put out another modern riff on those wacky Olympians with its Jeff Goldblum-led Kaos.

Into the arena rides Cowboys with Questions, local playwright Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth’s riff on the Greek tragedy The Bacchae, a classic chock full of fascinating takes on gender, patriarchy, religion, and xenophobia. Cowboys with Questions centers the action on a charismatic cult leader as a stand-in for the original play’s Dionysus, exploring the psychology and dynamics between cult leaders and their acolytes. The play is lyrical and unsettling at turns, anchored by an understated but effective performance from its main actor. 

Deep under the old Spanish Soledad Mission in California, a motley crew of acolytes worship their leader, George (Jesse Parce), who has a seemingly superhuman ability to resist poison. George uses this ability to keep the others in his thrall as they poach workers from other wineries and bottle wine laced with hallucinogens, making plans for their survival in the face of the inevitable crumbling of modern society. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Tristan (Kevin Tanner), the titular cowboy, with a connection to George that may speed up the group’s inevitable downfall. 

There are several bravura performances in the show, but it’s hard to imagine the piece being successful without someone sufficiently magnetic in the lead role. Parce, under director Suz Pontillo, resists any urge to overplay the part and turns in a quiet, controlled performance, only tipping over the edge into madness at the very end. Intimacy without warmth is a difficult balance to achieve, but Parce pulls it off in his interactions with the various followers he’s closest to, particularly Kelly Johnson’s Bryony and Jacqueline Tardanico’s Moonseed. (All the members are named after poisonous plants, BTW.) If I had a criticism of the performance, it was that it was occasionally a little difficult to hear, but it was only the show’s second performance, so there may be sound issues ironed out later in the run. 

Johnson, whose character is an ex-nurse from Texas who knew George before his ascension, pulls off a credible Texas twang, and makes a believable swing from earthy and grounded to swept away by George’s vision for the future, despite her insider knowledge of his more human frailties. Riley Gene as the cult’s sole other male member gave some of the funniest line reads of the night without undercutting the character’s sweetness and devotion to his found family, especially Jessica Marvin-Romero’s Lantana, who does a nice job playing up the psychological peaks and valleys of the relationship between cult members as she’s pressured to determine her own “consequence” for disobedience. 

I was somewhat less enthused by the character Tristan (performed by Kevin Tanner), whose swing from slightly goofy to villainous seemed a little out of left field; but Tanner had some nicely comedic moments after drinking a little more ceremonial wine than might be Surgeon General-recommended. The ensemble as a whole is impressively sharp and coordinated, especially in scenes of staggered dialogue evoking the Greek chorus aspects of the classical original and falling into the ecstasies of the original Bacchanites. 

The scenic design, by Devin Petersen, is fabulous, with a claustrophobic, low-ceilinged lower space and a staircase leading “outside” (i.e., an upper platform fronted by a scrim, through which silhouetted action sequences take place); and Parce makes good use of breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience to make the confined nature of the space disappear for long moments. 

As I said, the Greek classics are having a moment again; and even if they weren’t, there’s certainly a lot to unpack in examining a cult-like group of followers bamboozled by a deeply flawed but charismatic leader that speaks to the current moment in America. Cowboys with Questions is a dark, rich bottle of wine well-worth a sip or two. 

Cowboys with Questions runs through 9/15 at Washington Ensemble Theatre (at 12th Avenue Arts) on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Tickets are $34 (plus industry and supporter options for all shows, and a pay-what-you-choose show on 9/8), here. Accessibility notes: restrooms are multi-stall; there is one single-stall, gender-neutral, accessible restroom near the theatre entrance. Theatre and common areas are wheelchair accessible.

Run time: 95 minutes, no intermission. 

Jill Farrington Sweeney is a Texas ex-pat getting to know the Seattle-area arts scene, and is perpetually on the hunt for good Mexican food. Her writing has appeared on TheaterJones, Onstage NTX, and NWTheatre.