Tom Story provides a comedic tour-de-force as the frenetic and frazzled Sam and forty other characters in the hilarious Fully Committed at MetroStage.
Archives for December 2016
Funny, pungent, fierce. Dot at Everyman Theatre (review)
A holiday comedy about a family matriarch’s failing brain—what could be merrier? In truth, Coleman Domingo’s Dot is an absolute delight no matter what time of year. Funny, pungent and fierce, Dot is a noisy, necessary play about the need for home and the resilience of family—no matter what form it takes.
Pointless Theatre’s absurd – or is it? King Ubu (review)
The time may have come around when we need anti-art bombs like Ubu again. Regardless of your political leanings, you must admit that reality has once again become too strange and ridiculous for serious theatre to address by itself. Which is to say, don’t go see Pointless’ Google Translate-aided adaptation of the proto-absurdist King Ubu […]
A Christmas Carol: The Musical, pure gold at Toby’s (review)
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol: The Musical is to the Dickensian tale what Spamalot was to Arthurian legend. Perhaps it is smidge or two less slapstick, but it is still a fun, self-aware, frequently delightfully hammy musical romp through […]
Fiasco Theater’s Into the Woods: A delightful, inventive re-imagining (review)
Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods has been the subject of numerous stage productions since its debut in 1986 and even a critically acclaimed film. As a result, the discerning theatergoer with a taste for original work might review the Kennedy Center schedule and perhaps pick something more original. That would be a mistake: Fiasco Theater’s […]
Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Center Stage (review)
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is like any play by Oscar Wilde, except when it isn’t. Wilde punctured the piety and pomposity of 19th-century England, to show us the underbelly of lust and greed. In the epistolary novel upon which Liaisons is based, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos punctured the freewheeling lust and libertinism of 18th-century France, to […]
Wheel Company debuts with At Sea, Staring Up (review)
Playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer is having something a breakout year here in the District. The Kennedy Center recently premiered his new piece for young audiences Where Words Once Were, which I recently reviewed and quite loved. Now the new and young Wheel Theatre Company is presenting an earlier work of Kruckemeyer’s, a lovely piece of […]
In Transit Review: Broadway’s First All-Voice Orchestra
In Transit is the first a cappella musical on Broadway, and the rich harmonies and rhythmic beatboxing of a cappella evangelist Deke Sharon’s arrangements reveal the human voice as the most flexible of musical instruments. Unfortunately, the freshness of the voice-only orchestra doesn’t completely compensate for the flat familiarity of much else in the musical.
Magic abounds in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Adventure Theatre MTC (review)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe stars two excessively talented actors, a marvelous script, inventive technical design and a clever director, all waiting for you at Adventure Theatre MTC.
At Washington Stage Guild, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (review)
A play like this, where actors play fictional actors who play roles in an entirely different play, gives you a sort of double vision. You see not Joe Brack playing George Bailey, but Jake Laurents — a fictional character being played by Joe Brack — playing George Bailey. His interpretation of the character is not […]
Hairspray Live! Between commercials and cutaways, NBC proves they CAN stop the beat (review)
Now that we’re mired in Trump America, there’s unexpected profundity to the pop confection Hairspray Live!, the live TV version of the 2002 musical that aired Wednesday night on NBC. If Trump and his minions have their way, it’ll be the early 1960s all over again (the musical is set in 1962)—and we’ll have to fight […]
Synetic’s Sleeping Beauty a holiday treat for all ages
Since its beginning in 2001, Synetic Theater has included, among its unforgettable visceral offerings, shows targeted for younger audiences including the much ballyhooed Alice in Wonderland and Beauty & The Beast, both with little to no dialogue.