Open Circle’s The Who’s Tommy shakes the establishment not with its hard-hitting guitar riffs but with its fearless use of American Sign Language (ASL), a move more rock ‘n’ roll than rock ‘n’ roll itself. The power and fervor sign language adds to the theatre-going experience will move you like the lighter-infused tribute concerts of […]
Archives for October 2016
Eurydice at NextStop Theatre (review)
In the ancient tale immortalized by Ovid, the great poet and singer Orpheus married a woman named Eurydice. Shortly after the wedding, a poisonous snake bit Eurydice, and she died. Orpheus was inconsolable — so inconsolable that he entered the Underworld and begged its Lord, Hades, that he allow Eurydice to live out her normal […]
Debbie Allen’s Freeze Frame…Stop the Madness at The Kennedy Center (review)
Debbie Allen’s Freeze Frame…Stop the Madness is a multi-media show about gun violence at the hands of cops/authority figures. Dance is its beating heart. Which is good. Because the dialogue isn’t always great, the music is sometimes flat, and the video footage often distracting. That said, Freeze Frame has a lot to offer a viewer, […]
Freaky Friday is freaky fun (review)
A musical about a suburban mom and her teen daughter having a bad day doesn’t scream high-octane or joyful or laughable, but Freaky Friday is lively, agile, and full of fun, fun, fun.
Open Circle Theatre’s groundbreaking The Who’s Tommy. Russell Harvard stars
When Open Circle Theatre announced it was staging The Who’s Tommy, OCT’s artistic director Suzanne Richard also announced she had cast Broadway actor Russell Harvard in the title role of the infamous “deaf, dumb, blind kid who sure plays a mean pinball.”
Rameau’s Nephew at Spooky Action Theater (review)
Rameau’s Nephew is a stage adaption of enlightenment era philosopher Denis Diderot’s fictional dialogue between a moralistic philosopher (“I”) and his foil, the greedy and hedonistic nephew of a famous composer (“He”). Too risqué to be published when it was written in the 1700’s, Rameau’s Nephew was made available to the public posthumously in a […]
The Night Alive at Quotidian Theatre (review)
Playwright Conor McPherson has a signature knack for framing the big questions inside quiet, unassuming lives. In Quotidian Theatre Company’s moving production of McPherson’s The Night Alive, his downtrodden characters share existential debates, flickering hopes, and brief kindnesses in a dingy flat on the outskirts of Dublin. Beneath the hanging gloom and pessimistic Irish humor, I […]
Jason King Jones on bringing Mary Poppins’ magic to Olney
While most people might hear the title “Mary Poppins” and instantly think it’s a kid’s musical, Olney director Jason King Jones doesn’t feel that way at all. “I think, for me, it’s a story for grownups. How we as adults want to present ourselves to the younger generation and what we want the younger generation […]
dog & pony dc’s BEERTOWN in DC (review)
I’ve seen my fair share of interactive theater. I’ve even seen the occasional “immersive show” or two. But I’ve never quite been to something like Beertown, and you owe yourself this experience.
Compass Rose takes on Hamlet (review)
It is a brave company which takes on Hamlet, the most difficult play in the Bard’s canon and one of the most difficult plays in the English language. When done correctly, it yields not only great dramatic rewards but deep insights into the human character. When done badly, it is not only excruciating but three […]
Anne of the Thousand Days at Chesapeake Shakespeare (review)
Sexism, and the responses women make to it, do not seem to have evolved in any simple or linear way, if Anne of the Thousand Days is any indication. Written in 1948 by Maxwell Anderson, some of its depictions of the relationship between Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII are shockingly modern – you almost want […]
The Front Page Review: Nathan Lane leads all-star newspaper comedy revival
The best way to sum up the fourth Broadway revival of The Front Page, the 1928 play about Chicago newspapermen, is the way their ads do: Nathan Lane, John Slattery, John Goodman, Jefferson Mays, Holland Taylor….Robert Morse. The show’s appeal, in other words, rests largely in its star turns, which often feel like cameos.