Dry Land, though set over 100 years later than its companion piece, What Every Girl Should Know, Forum Theatre’s #nastywomenrep, is an alarming reminder that young women continue to face shame and castigation over sexual issues, in this case, dealing with unexpected pregnancy.
Archives for March 2017
What Every Girl Should Know at Forum Theatre (review)
What Every Girl Should Know opens in pitch darkness with barely audible intermittent sounds of female pleasure, various tones and tonalities and an intermittent gasping groan. What in the world? Soothing lighting ever so slowly reveals shadows of four cots where it finally becomes obvious that young women are under the covers trying to find […]
Conor McPherson’s Night Alive at Scena Theatre (review)
“Blessed is he who expects nothing,” Alexander Pope once wrote, “for he shall never be disappointed” but Pope was wrong, for you can have little and expect less, like Tommy (Barry McEvoy); like Doc (Brian Mallon) and Aimee (Mollie Goff); hope only to have a warm cot and a turnip or two, and still have […]
The deep dive that is Mnemonic at Theater Alliance
“It’s a really hard play to put into words. I think it’s an exploration and a dive into what we call home, where we come from, and how we connect with what that means both in a larger societal way and in a very individual, personal way.” That’s Theater Alliance Artistic Director Colin Hovde talking […]
Seneca: The Library Mouse / Ratón De Biblioteca at GALA (review)
Actor Adrián Iglesias, who plays Séneca, the mouse who has lived in a library for the past ten years, ambles on stage, carrying a wicker basket, filled with large books and eating utensils. Iglesias wears large oversized glasses, identifying him as an intellectual. We sense something is weird or a little wonky.
Mnemonic takes a dramatic journey to discover our shared origin (review)
So we know the what of history — Truman over Dewey, say, or U.S. and England over Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II — but do we know what history smells like? Knowing the past by facts is like knowing the Eroica Variations by musical notation. And so we struggle for more: to […]
Suffrage comedy takes the stage at Venus Theatre (review)
Seeing something unlike anything you’ve seen before can be curious, mystifying, and even jarring. That was my experience this weekend with Venus Theatre’s presentation of what was, at least for me, a whole new genre of work. There were, I learned, 400 British Suffrage plays written between 1900 and 1920 – in little monologues and a few […]
2017-2018 DC area Theatre Season at a Glance
See why the DC region is one of the busiest theatre hubs in the United States.
Grug and the Rainbow at The Kennedy Center (review)
The best children’s shows for young audiences are often ones that are the most like silent movies: minimal talk, maximum action, and if you happen to miss any dialogue because of the rustle of a young crowd, you still get the essence of it. So it is with Grug and the Rainbow, making a 2 […]
A deeply moving Ragtime at Ford’s Theatre (review)
Ford’s has given us a magnificent and deeply moving musical about where we’ve come from, featuring, as its main character, America. The superbly attuned ensemble announces with full emotional authority that the stakes are high to resolve who we are as a people. As the character Coalhouse Walker Jr. and then the whole ensemble sing, […]
Paper Dreams, dance theatre for the very young, at Imagination Stage (review)
A charming Continental vibe pervades Paper Dreams, the latest offering at Imagination Stage in its series (called “My First Imagination Stage”) that is specifically designed for very young audiences.
Round House turns 40 with a season that embraces the new
Bethesda’s Round House Theatre has staked its claim as the area’s premiere space for new stuff in the 2017-2018 season. That season — Round House’s 40th — will feature one world premiere, one American premiere, two regional premieres, and what Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote before he wrote Hamilton.