OK, so you’re Eric, a cop, played by Noah Schaefer, and you’re in charge of the highest-stakes stakeout of the year — the one which will get you off your desk duty and into the world where the real cops operate. You suspect that the Mayor (Mario Baldessari) has embezzled huge sums from the municipal […]
Archives for January 2018
American Opera Initiative 2018: three new short operas
Opera has a promising future, judging by this past weekend’s plethora of riches delivered in the newly renovated Terrace Theatre at The Kennedy Center. As part of the American Opera Initiative, Washington National Opera (WNO) produced the opera Proving Up, and teamed up three pairs of young librettists with composers who were mentored in a year-long process […]
New comedy theatre debuts with The Consul, The Tramp, and America’s Sweetheart (review)
The debut production of Best Medicine Rep, a new theater company dedicated to comedy, is not really a comedy. The Consul, The Tramp, and America’s Sweetheart, written by artistic director John Morogiello, is more of an historical drama with comedic elements and a light heart about the serious issues it raises. The play supports its […]
Hamlet from Shakespeare Theatre Company – cue the comedy (review)
Be honest with me: when you saw Michael Urie in his one-actor show, Buyer and Cellar, about working in Barbara Streisand’s basement, did you think “Hey, that guy should play Hamlet!”?
Franz Kafka’s The Trial at Synetic Theater (review)
In a world where facts are malleable, the working government gets shut down, good people are without protection of the law, bureaucrats are colluding with the powerful and mad, and officials are left to stir up chaos wherever possible, who better to turn to than Franz Kafka? And who better to deliver theatre that speaks […]
World War II love story continued: See Rock City at Washington Stage Guild (review)
History books shroud World War II with specific imagery: soldiers, Nazi salutes, atomic bombs, Rosie the Riveter, and a victorious kiss from a sailor in Times Square. But See Rock City breaks through these grandiose symbols and reveals a refreshingly simple story.
Proving Up, a ghost story opera from Washington National Opera (review)
This weekend a new opera, Proving Up, proved itself indeed – a chamber opera worthy for the 21st century. Born out of a spirit of inquiry, Proving Up is mysterious, mesmerizing, startling in moments, and highly atmospheric. The work is less plot-driven than most traditional opera; it has earmarks rather of an extended tone poem.
All the Things You Are: Jerome Kern from In Series (review)
“I hear you’re a son of a bitch,” said Jerome Kern, introducing himself to a producer. “So am I.” But he was one productive son of a bitch, composing more than 700 songs in collaboration with an all-star rotation of lyricists, among them Oscar Hammerstein II, P.G. Wodehouse, Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Fields, and Johnny Mercer.
This Is All Just Temporary from Convergence Theatre (review)
Autism, family obligation, and innovative design collide on stage in Olivia Haller’s This Is All Just Temporary, Convergence Theatre’s contribution to the 2018 Women’s Voices Theater Festival. Using projections, movement, and some classic storytelling techniques, this production puts a new spin on the theme that the people we love the most can also make us […]
Waxing West, a Romanian immigrant’s American dream (review)
Waxing West is a rich, moving story of immigration, culture clash, and revolution—the common political kind and a deeper, internal, personal kind. A little over a decade after the Romanian Revolution its aftermath has proved disappointing. The new government resembles the old, the economy languishes, and the people still suffer from the psychological horrors inflicted […]
Pointless Theatre’s Imogen, a romance with puppet (review)
It’s always a treat to see what Pointless Theatre does with a story, and they rise to new levels with their take on one of Shakespeare’s rambling masterworks. The program notes that Shakespeare’s Cymbeline mentions Imogen throughout the script but the character’s storyline is mostly offset as secondary. Wonderfully adapted by director Charlie Marie McGrath, […]
Everything Is Illuminated at Theater J (review)
Brilliant ideas are charming on paper. They coax professors to smile and experts to furiously nod in agreement. Ideas that you think, when executed, would fly without a falter. But brilliant ideas can lose their luster when we concretize them.