When Rick Foucheux retired from acting, he did so as one of the most popular, award-winning, one might even say beloved performers in town. Many bemoaned the prospect of no more Foucheux on local stages. Well, he’s back; only it’s not as an actor. He’s written a play. It’s a play about…actors. “Yeah, that’s what […]
Archives for October 2018
Review: The Agitators. Friends and fighters, Frederick Douglass and Susan B Anthony
The first time they met in western New York, in the fall of 1849, playwright Mat Smart imagines, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony would have had a wary interchange. Both are strong willed social activists, but as a friendship develops, Douglass reminds her that, while her life’s devotions are honorable, his view is based […]
Librettist Mark Campbell on Silent Night, the WWI Christmas Eve miracle on the battlefield
Librettist Mark Campbell and I last spoke when he was mentoring young librettists in a “supportive role” for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative. Now Campbell is front and center for Silent Night, his highly acclaimed opera with Kevin Puts – for which Puts won a 2012 Pulitzer for musical composition – at Washington National Opera. Silent […]
Review: Venus in Fur. Ives’ cheeky play of obsession, bondage and revenge at 4615 Theatre
The masochist believes in the transformative power of magic, of the variety that the goddess Circe used to turn Odysseus’ men into swine. To the masochist, the beloved is a goddess (Venus, perhaps), who, in Her infinite power, squeezes everything out of him which is not consumed with her. He loses all free will, and […]
Review: Sheila and Moby, a perfect fit for Flying V
Local playwright Patrick Flynn has spent the last two years developing his new comedy about growing up and proving how“adults can be idiots, just like children.” Sheila and Moby receives its world premiere in an intriguing and entertaining production by Flying V Theatre, whose motto: ‘Be Awesome’ could have been the rallying cry for young Sheila.
Review: Sweat, Lynn Nottage’s brutal, brilliant sucker punch at Everyman Theatre
The white-hot rage and caustic bitterness against de-industrialization, unemployment, minorities, and immigrants, not to mention races and religions other than white and Christian, may have escalated in the Trump administration, but it didn’t start in 2016.
Review: King John. Aaron Posner rescues this lesser Shakespeare
Director Aaron Posner has assembled some of the most splendid, certainly several of them among the most beloved actors who tread the local boards. Indeed, Folger Theatre has done further valuable service by bringing King John, a little done and most notoriously challenging play, to their stage.
Review: East of Eden at NextStop Theatre
East of Eden is an American classic, a huge and sprawling novel, stretching from the Civil War to World War I and from California to Connecticut. John Steinbeck — who won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes — considered it his best work. “I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice […]
Review: Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay! High food prices skyrocket Dario Fo’s farce
Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay! could just as easily be titled “I Love Antonia” for the heroine’s strong similarities to Lucille Ball and the crazily comic situations navigated by two working class couples. Antonia is as funny as Lucy, but she balances her quirky nuttiness with a shrewder understanding of the forces that conspire against her […]
Playwright Ntozake Shange has died at age 70
The novelist, poet, performer and playwright Ntozake Shange, best known for her 1976 Obie-winning choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, died last Saturday at the age of 70. Shange had suffered from a series of strokes and was battling a severe neurological disorder, but no cause of death […]
Review: Long Way Down. Justin Weaks’ solo performance a revelation
You’re a fifteen-year-old boy named Will, and your eighteen-year-old brother has been shot. Shawn was your friend, your protector, and your teacher ever since your father was killed, and now he’s dead. You’re riding down the elevator with your brother’s gun in your waistband in order to kill the man you’re sure is responsible for […]
Review: A Midnight Dreary, horror with a dash of humor, shaken and stirred
Darkness, corpses, catacombs, and cats: welcome to the world of Edgar Allan Poe. His stories embody the spirit of Halloween, which is why it’s fitting that We Happy Few is performing his poetry and prose now.