You may feel like you’ve landed in a retro church service for the first 15 minutes of the sparkling new production of The Amen Corner from Shakespeare Theatre Company, what with the “praise Gods,” spirited hymn singing and Sunday-best hats on display. That’s because the play—a drama by mid-century African-American writer James Baldwin (with newly […]
About Jennifer Barger
Review: Folger Theatre takes leave of Capitol Hill with an hilarious sendup of the 70s, Merry Wives of Windsor
“The plot is certainly thin,” said one grouchy-looking woman as she left Folger Shakespeare Theatre’s new staging of the Bard’s Merry Wives of Windsor. But the friend she was talking to was still laughing, which is kind of the point. Wives, like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, exists mainly to twist characters in plotting knots, and […]
Review: Dear Jack, Dear Louise at Arena Stage
When Army Captain Jack Ludwig (Jake Epstein) first speaks his full name early on in playwright Ken Ludwig’s new dramedy Dear Jack, Dear Louise, audiences probably realize that this World War II romance is going to end with wedding bells. But the play, based on the correspondence of Ludwig’s parents-to-be, crackles with humor and real […]
Review: Stormy Weather. IN Series reimagines Tempest by way of Billie Holiday
She devils. Film-noir temptresses. Crazy women in attics à la “Jane Eyre.” In art of all sorts, women who speak up, sashay to a different drummer or who just challenge male authority often get branded by such less-than-flattering terms. And they often suffer violent or at least unpleasant ends. That’s what happens to Sycorax, the […]
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