In a new prologue written by David Grimm for Susanna Centlivre’s The Gaming Table, Tonya Beckman Ross promises verbal virtuosity and laughs.  It is a promise that is kept in spades by Folger Theatre’s sparkling and witty production of this Restoration era comedy.  [Read more...]

With earsplitting audio effects rivaling those of the latest Michael Bay films movie sequel “Transformers”  , the Folger Theatre’s new production of William Shakespeare’s Othello is geared toward attracting a new generation to the brilliance of the Bard. And it just may succeed. [Read more...]

Cyrano is one of the great male leading roles.  Yet the dominant character in the Folger Theatre production of Edmond Rostand’s classic tragic swashbuckler is not Cyrano De Bergerac, but the world premiere adaptation itself, translated by Michael Hollinger (Opus, Red Herring) and co-adapted by Hollinger and director Aaron Posner.  This version of Cyrano de Bergerac is interesting and entertaining, but ultimately is diminished in impact. [Read more...]

Dial the Wayback Machine to the year 2004. The Folger Theatre is mounting Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, directed and re-imagined by veteran DC director Joe Banno. He’s transported it to an Italian neighborhood in New York City loaded with tricksters and Mafiosi, all speaking in dialect. It’s a laff-riot funny, a production for all time. Why bother ever doing this play again? [Read more...]

No heads will roll at the Folger this month. Ian Merrill Peakes strikes a brooding tone on the promotional art for Henry VIII, with an unbuttoned tunic and a smoldering stare to rival the one summoned by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. But unlike that actor’s fiery exploits on Showtime’s drama “The Tudors”, Peakes must act his regal role within the confines of a script that, although written by our greatest playwright, isn’t actually that great. [Read more...]

Folger’s Hamlet may be modern dress, but it is old school at heart – shorn of irony, eschewing post-modern, post-Stoppardarian self-reflection, without inside jokes or other evidence of meta-theater. [Read more...]

Top Pick! – Electra (Holly Twyford) stands before you, quivering. She wants to explain her brother Orestes (Jay Sullivan), lying motionless as a bag of rags behind her, but she is almost too filled with loathing and regret and rage to do so. [Read more...]

Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare’s best comedy, if we properly understand The Merchant of Venice to be a tragedy and A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be a freakin’ miracle. It is full of breathtaking wit; its characters are ripe and full and deep; and the second chances it arranges [Read more...]

Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is a moveable feast for the eyes, ears, heart and mind.  The time period shifts between 1809 and modern day, characters express their philosophical meanderings at the slightest provocation, [Read more...]