If you’ve never felt goosebumps rise on your arms in 80 degree weather, you have a week left to seek out the experience. The powerfully haunting spectacle that is Swampoodle — hatched by Solas Nua in partnership with The Performance Corporation of Ireland — has been shrouded in mystery for weeks. The only real signs […]
Archives for May 2011
The Normal Heart
The theatre continues to dispense its magic in mysterious ways. Before visiting the current Broadway revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, I’d thought of it as an old warhorse of a tract against the inertia on the part of government when the AIDS epidemic first reared its head in 1980. I remembered it as […]
As If It Were Tonight (Como si fuera esta noche)
Spanish playwright Gracia Morales transports us into a dream world so magically real, so filled with painful love, you have to remind yourself to breathe. A dressmaker and her daughter allegorically undress slowly until the raw truth of their lives is exposed.
In the Blood
In 2008, Danielle Drakes founded TheHegira as a commitment to showcasing the stories of women of color. Now, after two years of mentorship at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint, her theatre company makes one of its boldest brush strokes yet. Using bright red — the most vital color of all — they’ve painted Suzan-Lori […]
Pygmalion
In the midst of a rainy spring, the real sunshine can be found indoors, courtesy of Everyman Theatre’s fresh-as-a-daisy production of Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, directed with wit and relish by Eleanor Holdridge.
A Year with Frog and Toad
The hits just keep coming for the Helen Hayes winning Adventure Theatre and the current production, A Year with Frog and Toad, shows why. They focus on the art in artistry while totally tuned in to fun bringing unanticipated twists to well-known tales. A winning combination.
Night and Day
To say that Tom Stoppard has a way with concepts and words is like saying birds have a way of flying in the air, or the Beltway has a way of congesting in rush hour. He can be trusted to grasp complex ideas and relay the issues via well crafted characters without sounding (too) polemic.
Picked
It’s an intriguing title, no? Short and sweet, if a little hard to distinguish among This, Doubt, Proof, Contact et al, and equally difficult to probe for meaning. But early on in the first scene we learn that who has been “picked” is an unlikely struggling young actor who’s been, along with his actress girl […]
Amadeus
From its sleekly stunning set to its phenomenally talented cast, Round House Theatre’s new production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus is first-class all the way. It’s a visceral, enthralling evening of theater, an absolute must-see for any avid area theatergoer and proof positive that you no longer have to take the Acela Express to New York […]
Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3
At Lumina Studio, the Next Generation invokes a story set twenty generations ago The young prince Edward (Aidan Close) kneels down to be knighted by his father, King Henry VI (Emma Bergman). It is a moment of greatness for Edward, but also of rage and pain, and the three emotions struggle for dominance upon his […]
The Moscows of Nantucket
Family reunions and vacations often provide rich material for stage and screen. In Theater J’s world premiere of The Moscows of Nantucket, simmering tensions, clashing personalities, and close quarters combine for high comedy and family drama at a picturesque beachfront hideaway.
Born Yesterday
It’s always with fear and trepidation that I approach a revival of a classic Broadway hit of the 1940s or 1950s because some of them were head and shoulders above the crowd in their own time, and some were blessed with star turns that became iconic.