The streak is broken. Playwright David Ives’ winning series of brilliant, hilarious “transladaptations” performed at the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) over the last decade ground to a creaking, impotent halt with his latest, The Panties, the Partner and the Profit: Scenes from the Heroic Life of the Middle Class. In retrospect, the labored, pretentious title […]
Archives for December 14, 2018
Kings, Sarah Burgess’ latest, a comedy on how political fundraising gets done in Washington
Growing up in Alexandra, Va., playwright Sarah Burgess saw first-hand the influence that lawmakers and lobbyists possess in fueling how Washington, D.C., is run. So, it’s no surprise that on the heels of her breakout play, Dry Power, which explored the cutthroat world of finance, Burgess turned to this all-to-familiar subject of powerful politics in […]
Review: Talley’s Folly from Theater J
Since its inception in 1917, 99 plays have received the penultimate Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The category includes musicals and only a few comedies. But the judges were taken with Lanford Wilson’s quiet, funny, yet powerful Talley’s Folly awarding it the 1980 Pulitzer. At first glance, it’s a simple story of a man who loves […]