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Henry IV, Part 1
by William Shakespeare
directed by Paul Mason Barnes
produced by Folger Theatre
reviewed by Tim Treanor

Oh, what a wonderful story this is, the apparently fictional but well believed and beloved account of England’s greatest King, when he was but a drunken sot, the scourge and embarrassment of his father. And what a magnificently powerful job Folger does with it, thrusting us through four-hundred-year-old dialogue into a world almost two hundred years older than that. (more…)

The Way of the World
by William Congreve
directed by Michael Kahn
produced by Shakespeare Theatre Company
reviewed by Tim Treanor

Let me lay this on the table at the outset: this plot-thick, character-heavy Restoration comedy, a paean to the benefits of estate planning, is not for everyone. To enjoy it, we must be willing to look at human nature at its most puerile.  We must be willing, not just to laugh at ourselves, but to laugh at the worst part of ourselves. If we have the stomach for it, there is a satisfying evening of theater waiting for us.

The challenge is not simply that the language is unfamiliar or frame of reference different than our own. We go to the Shakespeare for new experiences, drawn from olden times. It is, rather, that after forty years of restoration, England had become an emotionally and spiritually barren place, its denizens exhausted and insensible. We may think of ourselves as cynical. We don’t know what cynical is. (more…)

Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

produced by Shakespeare Theatre

directed by David Muse

reviewed by Tim Treanor

All rise; court is now in session. We turn to The Matter of the All-Male Romeo and Juliet, and immediately address the question on everyone’s mind: does the Shakespeare’s admitted act of gender discrimination enhance our understanding of this classic play, or, through the play, of the world? The answer is (more…)

• The Imaginary Invalid
• By Molière
• Adapted by Alan Drury
• With original music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
• Produced by Shakespeare Theatre Company
• Directed by Keith Baxter
• Musical staging by Gillian Lynne
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

All great comics, wherever they are, for whom dignity is not an issue - and I’m thinking specifically about Steve Martin, John Belushi, Benny Hill, Monty Python (collectively), the Three Stooges, (more…)

• Antony and Cleopatra
• By William Shakespeare
• Produced by Shakespeare Theatre Company
• Directed by Michael Kahn
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Forget all you’ve heard about Antony and Cleopatra, the great romantics. Forget all that claptrap about Antony as a love-addled cat’s-paw for the seductive Cleo. Throw it in the ash heap of history. Instead, believe Bill Shakespeare and Michael Kahn. Antony (Andrew Long) and Cleopatra (Suzanne Bertish) are political allies who cement their bond with great sex. They are much too self-absorbed to love each other, or even to know what love means.

Seeing this play as a sequel to Julius Caesar (with which it is running in rep) clarifies it in startling ways. Antony here is a hard-drinking party boy who lies as easily as he breathes. (more…)

• Julius Caesar
• By William Shakespeare
• Produced by the Shakespeare Theatre Company
• Directed by David Muse
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Shakespeare Theatre’s sturdy and handsomely-mounted Julius Caesar leaves things… unresolved.

Are we helpless pawns to a hapless fate, as Director Muse works hard to imply by his staging? Or can a clever politician, such as the formidable Mark Antony (Andrew Long), engage his rhetoric in such a way as to twist both men and fate to his own design? (more…)

• The Screwtape Letters
• Adapted by Jeffrey Fiske and Max McLean from a novel by C.S. Lewis
• Directed by Jeffrey Fiske
• Produced by the Fellowship for the Performing Arts at the Lansburgh Theatre 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

I respectfully recommend that you commit to memory the name of Karen Eleanor Wight. There will be a day, I predict, when every member of the theater-going public will know it, and on that day will use it as a reason to shell out a hundred bucks to see a show. It will be good for you to get in on the ground floor, and to see her before prices get astronomical. I mean no disrespect to the estimable writing team of McLean and Fiske - who are Screwtape and Director, respectively - or to their superb technical staff, but the best reason to see this production is Wight.

(more…)

• Major Barbara                                                                
• Written by George Bernard Shaw
• Directed by Ethan McSweeny
• Produced by Shakespeare Theater Company
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

It’s starting to feel like a Shaw love-fest. Here he is again. This time it’s Major Barbara at the exquisitely designed Sidney Harman Hall of the Shakespeare Theater, directed by Ethan McSweeny, a hometown guy does good. McSweeny demonstrated his formidable shake ‘em up talents with The Persians several seasons back.  So, how does he fare in breathing new life into this iconoclastic piece that everyone seems to have heard of even if not actually seen in production?  He does fine with what he’s got to work with-it’s just that Shaw gives him an awful lot of material.  (more…)

• Argonautika
• First presented in written form by Apollonius of Rhodes
• Adapted and Directed by Mary Zimmerman
• Produced by Shakespeare Theatre Company
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Before Aristotle, before The Iliad, a thousand years before the birth of Christ, we were these people: vain, ambitious, passionate, heroic, cowardly, treacherous, capable of great valor and generosity of spirit, and willing to risk life and treasure to obtain something of trivial intrinsic value. Sound familiar?

Tony-award winning director Mary Zimmerman has served up a crispy, tasty version of the ur-myth of Western Civilization, (more…)