Border Songs

A Jim Lynch novel adapted for the stage by Bryan Willis has winner written all over it.

I’ve been a Bryan Willis fan since I first saw “The Incredible Undersea Trial of Joseph P. Lawnboy” in the back room of an art gallery with the audience standing around in a circle and the performance in the middle. That must have been close to 20 years ago. “Lawnboy” has been done by Harlequin Productions and Tacoma Little Theater and many other theater companies, and Willis’s plays have been performed all over the world -- off-Broadway, on the London fringe, throughout the U.K., Israel, and in theaters across the U.S. and Canada, including ACT, New York Theater Workshop, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, Unseam'd Shakespeare Co. and Riverside Studios in London. He is probably best known by South Sound theater goers for his traveling show about the life of Edgar Allan Poe.

I’ve been a Jim Lynch fan since he released his first novel, The Highest Tide, a wonderful story set in Olympia about a young boy who knows more about ocean creatures than almost anyone.

Now Bryan, with director David Quicksall, has adapted Lynch’s second novel, Border Songs, for the stage, and it is being performed by Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle.

Quicksall most recently directed his critically acclaimed adaptation of Moby-Dick, or, The Whale, a Seattle Times Footlight Award winner. 

Border Songs is the story of Border Patrolman Brandon Vanderkool, a 6-foot-8, dyslexic, bird-watcher who discovers by accident that he has an uncanny ability to catch the bad guys. It was a wonderful novel. I liked it even more than his more famous first novel.

Performances are at 2:00 for matinées, or 7:30 for evening shows. Post-play discussions are will follow the Sunday matinees on September 25 and October 2.

Box Office 206.216.0833, Tues. through Fri., Noon – 5:00 p.m. (Wed. – Sat. during production)

BOOK-IT REPERTORY THEATRE

305 Harrison Street, Seattle