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By Ronnie Ruff

Godzilla   –    Landless Theatre  

Godzilla is a product of pop culture; some say the birth of pop culture. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view, he has never become a part of my sphere of knowledge. Sure I laughed at the movie clips along with my friends and I even found the whole sci-fi scene rather (How I hate this term) cool. That said, I climbed the stairs at the DCAC to take in Landless Theatre’s US premier of Godzilla, wondering to myself if I would find it enjoyable.

To start off there is much to like about this show and a little to dislike. The Landless troupe are full of positive energy and show a tremendous desire to bring a new face to the DC Theatre Community. I was impressed with the idea of hawking the show to passersby on 18th Street which is a premier strip of entertainment real estate. I thought the “game show” lead-in to Godzilla was brilliant. The storyline of the play is brilliant as well — to have a young lady fall in love with Godzilla speaks to our desire as humans to aspire to a higher goal, one of looking at everyone as an equal and worthy of our respect.

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By Tim Treanor

Manicures and Monuments, produced by Journeyman Theater at Atlas Performing Arts Center

Manicures and Monuments, the latest offering from Journeymen Theater, has some very funny passages but it is not simply a comedy. It is, instead, that rarest of things - a play for grownups, composed of the small epiphanies and simple pleasures that ordinary people have to comfort them against the relentless buffeting of life.

We are in the day room of a nursing home which appears to cater to the neurologically impaired, somewhere in parched, bug-spattered Oklahoma. Lucinda Bailey (Marilyn Benner), a salty, blunt-spoken former nurse who seems to suffer from a Parkinson’s-like illness, and her sweetly addled friend Camille (Glee Murray) await the arrival of the new manicurist, Janann (Tiffany Fillmore). To us, Janann is nothing but an archetype - an empty-headed Okie girl, done with high school and dabbling in the manicure business while awaiting the arrival of her prince. But Bailey sees her as an original human being, complete with the imagination and force of will she needs to achieve her dreams. (more…)

DCTR Interviews Michael Baron, director of Signature’s The Sex Habits Of American Women

Hello Michael,

The Sex Habits Of American Women is such a visual production — tell us about the strong emotional currents that flow beneath the play’s stylish surface.

My goal with the designers was to recreate a 1950’s world and show what made it so appealing to many Americans. These new “modern” American homes were showplaces filled with bright colors and varied textures; the latest products made from newly manufactured materials, and helped define roles within the family unit. “Good, clean living!” Each room was designed with a clear purpose and held rules of behavior that were expected to be followed: the living room was for entertaining- with cocktails; the kitchen was the domain of the wife; the study/office was the domain of the husband; the twin-beds in master bedroom were meant for sleeping- not intimacy (except when the couple decided to share a twin bed for the time required to have sex); the foyer for greeting guests; etc.

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Updated!!!  New Jessi Burgess Interview Added!

Chief Ike’s Mambo Room was the venue for Solas Nua and  Forum’s Beckett 100 year birthday party on Tuesday night.  I arrived around five thirty just in time to find the Solas Nua crew blowing up the balloons. Our staff writer Tim Treanor and his wife Lorraine Treanor arrived shortly thereafter and our reporting crew was complete!  The party - happy hour was a big success and fun was had by one and all. Birthday cup-cakes impaled with candles were handed out and everyone celebrated Beckett by blowing out the candles and singing Happy Birthday. The party goers were then recruited to participate in irreverent readings on the Mambo Room stage.  There was even a short film in Beckett’s honor, all this wonderful fun was put together by Jessica Burgess, Michael Dove, Dan Brick and Linda Murray.  Solas Nua and Forum have announced a Beckett festival this October. 

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by Ronnie Ruff

I grew up in the late fifties when housewives all looked like June Cleaver, or at least the ones on TV did. No one talked about sex and at the age of eight I received a slap across the lips when I mentioned to my dad that a childhood friend had described a popular movie of the time as a “big whorehouse” and that he should take me to see it. I had no idea what that term meant but my father reminded me in no uncertain terms that was no language to use in front of my mother. That macho protection of women was part of an overall ignorance of what women felt about all the things that made up their lives. Today women speak out about what makes them happy and angry, thereby knocking down the walls that both confined and protected them. There is no doubt, in my mind at least, that women are far better off free of those so called protections.

The Sex Habits Of American Women by Julie Marie Myatt (currently mounted at Signature Theatre) explores some of the moral issues of the glorious fifties while providing a few laughs, some things to ponder and some pretty cool stage design along the way.

For one to break down Sex Lives to a simple concept is almost impossible because there are so many themes being explored in the play. Is the play a comedy or a tragedy? Is it making a statement about the sexual mores of the fifties? Themes like the desire for love, forbearance, achievement in life, and the damage overly self consumed men can do to the family all come to mind.

The Sex Habits of American Women is set in the fifties and the present day by using over a dozen monitors hidden behind screens in a huge decorative wall unit among other places to project the scenes set in 2004. The concept, of portraying the fifties live and in “living color” while using monochrome for those in 2004 is one of the most interesting used in the production.