If you want to see a play about friendship, go see Art at Signature. But if you want to see a play about art, you should see Lee Blessing’s Chesapeake, now playing at the Bay Theatre in Annapolis.
Archives for April 2011
Fragments
Say the name Samuel Beckett, and most people think: Waiting for Godot, existentialism. Theatre of the absurd, where absurd means meaningless. As we watch Peter Brook and Marie Hélène Estienne’s spare but striking staging of five uneasy pieces by the late Irish playwright, the word also takes on its more everyday meaning. And we realize […]
2011 Curtain Call – the Helen Hayes Awards nominated Ensembles
“All acting (except for solo shows) is ensemble acting, and the folks in this section are among the best at it. You can sense when you’re in the presence of an excellent ensemble; everyone – even that guy sitting stage left with his feet up – seems engaged in the action, and when the characters […]
Fighting Improv Smackdown Tournament 2011
Summarizing what typically happens at the Fighting Improv Smackdown Tournament is like trying to write a travel article on a city after talking with a few crazy people in a back alley. Who knows what world a wandering soul speaks for, other than the terrain of their own cracked mind? And even if they’re an […]
Sidney Harman 1918 – 2011
Sidney Harman, businessman, author, philanthropist, has died. Sidney Harman, an extraordinarily successful businessman whose generosity contributed to the performing arts in Washington, died April 12 at the age of ninety-two. He suffered from acute myeloid leukemia.
2011 Curtain Call – the Helen Hayes Awards nominated actors
“We sometimes think of actors as men who put on a character, and duplicate whatever gestures and mannerisms the playwright describes or implies. But this isn’t true at all; the best actors are at every moment themselves on stage – it’s just that “themselves” have become the characters. The men in this section have dedicated […]
UrbanArias Festival defines a new kind of opera. Will musicals fans follow?
Washington boasts so much music-theatre these days that it’s not surprising the conversation has returned about what is opera, what is a musical, and what is music-theatre. People bring their prejudices, often based on limited experiences, to the conversation, and want to stake out their positions. But now, more than ever, these divisions seem artificial […]
Stage Door
The American Century Theater’s (TACT’s) current production of Stage Door at Arlington’s Gunston Theatre Two is a bit of a mess. Or at least it was last Saturday evening. That said, it’s frequently interesting, often amusing, and—albeit quite briefly—surprisingly sad.
Divorciadas, Evangelicas y Vegetarianas
Venezuelan playwright Gustavo Ott confronts us with close encounters of the domestic-violent kind. Divorcees, Evangelists and Vegetarians (Divorciadas, evangelicas y vegetarianas), an accessible play both tragic and hysterically funny, is about three needy women at the existential brink of self-destruction or complete madness. It exposes what women often hide from public view – the debilitating reality […]
2011 Curtain Call – the Helen Hayes Award nominated actresses
“There are more actresses than actors, and they chase after fewer roles. Thus the women in this section deserve to be celebrated not just for their art, but for their courage, optimism and perseverance. In Shakespeare’s time, women’s roles were played by boys, and to this day women’s characters are often written by men; when […]
Rags – from auditions to opening night
It’s Rags time at Theatre Lab I never had a chance to see the 1986 Broadway production of the musical Rags because, with only 18 previews and 4 performances, it closed before I could use my tickets.
Art
What does it mean, this big, bold painting hanging right in the middle of Art? You can try to read between the lines for some hidden message, but you’ll draw a blank. The painting has no lines to read between. No color, form, pattern, or texture either, for that matter, save for some tiny diagonal […]