To experience a fresh, modern translation of this 400+ year old Molière play, performed by a youthful, invigorating company, under nearly athletic direction by Karl Kippola is a treat, and would be as sumptuous as the exquisite costumes by Heather Lockard were it not [Read more...]

The Inspector General
By Nikolai Gógol
Directed by Kathleen Akerley
Produced by Journeymen Theater Ensemble
Reviewed by Steven McKnight

Gógol’s The Inspector General is both a great classic work of 19^th century Russian drama and an odd duck.  It can be described as anything from a prose comedy to a dramatic satire.  In the hands of Journeymen Theater Ensemble, The Inspector General is a comedy of frequently inspired silliness.  [Read more...]

As American As
by Ken Prestininzi
directed by Shirley Serotsky
produced by Journeymen Theater Ensemble
reviewed by Janice Cane

The premise of the dark comedy As American As is promising. What is the ultimate price of freedom and security? What does it mean to be patriotic in our post-9/11 world? How much would we sacrifice for our country? One family agrees to convert their basement into a “black site” for terrorist interrogation. [Read more...]

• Neglect
• by Sharyn Rothstein
• Directed by Jessie R. Gallogly
• Produced by Journeymen Theater
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

Neglect– the very title sounds dreary and dire, the premise even more so — a drama set in Chicago during the 1995 heat wave that resulted in 700 deaths, particularly hard hitting the home-bound elderly.  [Read more...]

• Life’s a Dream   
• by Pedro Calderon de la Barca
•  Adapted by John Barton and Adrian Mitchell
• Directed by Alexander Strain
• Produced by Journeymen Theater Ensemble at Church Street Theater
• Reviewed by Rosalind Lacy

When it comes to performing world masterpieces, better done than shunned. So bravo to Journeymen Theater Ensemble for dusting off this rarely produced 17^th century play.

The adaptation by Mitchell and Barton, both from the Royal Shakespeare Company, is a refreshing, freely translated interpretation of what is generally a convoluted text from the Golden Age of Spanish Theater, albeit filled with philosophical monologues such as the famous “.. all life, it seems, Is but a dream, and dreams are only dreams.” – in world lit courses, as familiar a speech as Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to be” soliloquy. [Read more...]

Getting Out

• By Marsha Norman
• Directed by Deborah Kirby
• Produced by Journeymen Theater Ensemble
• Reviewed by Ronnie Ruff

As the house lights come up after Journeymen Theater’s production of Getting Out and the acoustic magic of The Indigo Girls’ Closer To Fine spills out of the speakers at The Clark Street Playhouse, one is reminded of exactly what playwright Marsha Norman was seeking to convey. Getting Out is a reminder that life is a journey that contains pitfalls all along its winding road and we hopefully will learn from those low points and excise our demons leading us to a place that truly is closer to fine. [Read more...]

By Timberlake Wertenbaker

Produced by Journeymen Theater

Reviewed by Ronnie Ruff

I have seen so many abstract plays recently! Abstract plays are great really, all the intense chat with your friends about the true meaning of the play over coffee at Lotzabucks. A few days ago I had the opportunity to see a wonderful play with a fairly stright-forward plot called After Darwin at the Church Street Theatre in Dupont Circle.

[Read more...]

The Christmas Foundling

by Norman Allen (inspired by the stories of Bret Harte)

Produced by Journeymen Theater

Reviewed by Tim Treanor

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,” Robert Frost said famously, in The Death of the Hired Hand, “they have to take you in.”

The very young Tom (Sean McCoy) has to go somewhere, and right quick, for his lease on his mother’s womb is coming to an end, and so is she. He ends up in the rough cabin of two grizzled gold-panners; Old Jake (Jim Zidar) and Hoke (JJ Area). They take him in, and he is home. [Read more...]