In his 1996 speech, “The Ground On Which I Stand,” acclaimed playwright August Wilson charged the American theatre industry to take seriously the funding and producing of Black theatre. This includes not casting Black actors in roles originally written for white actors (condemning “colorblind” casting), but rather to program plays by Black playwrights, hire Black […]
Review: A very merry Christmas Carol from American Shakespeare Center
Scrooge was right, you know; it is humbug to fall like jackals upon each other for eleven months of the year, but on the twelfth to feign good will and generosity of spirit. He was a skinflint and a tightwad, but he was no hypocrite. When he asked the do-gooders, seeking donations for the poor, […]
Review: Jefferson Mays’ extraordinary solo performance in filmed Christmas Carol
The credits at the end of this A Christmas Carol list a cast of 51 characters – 50 of them portrayed by Jefferson Mays. He’s the narrator, as well as Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge’s clerk Bob Cratchit, Mrs. Cratchit and all the Cratchit children, the ghost of Scrooge’s former business partner Jacob Marley…even Marley’s Door Knocker, […]
Review: Loveday Brooke in ‘The Mystery of the Drawn Daggers’
Any creative way that local companies find to bring us original theater feels like a lifeline these days, and We Happy Few’s genteel caper, Loveday Brooke in ‘The Mystery of the Drawn Daggers’, is no exception. Performed in the style of an old-fashioned radio play, the 45-minute mystery puts us in the hands of Loveday […]
Review: Independent Claus from Best Medicine. Not one of its best
You’re never quite sure which Claus is independent in Jackob G. Hofmann’s meandering, pointless 70-minute video comedy until the very end, and by that point it doesn’t matter. In Best Medicine Rep’s An Independent Claus, Kris Kringle (Terence Heffernan) is a Bad Santa – a crude, womanizing misogynist whose constant traveling companion is a half-consummated […]
Review: Howard University featured in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me on HBO
About 15 minutes into the HBO film adaptation of “Between The World and Me,” Ta-Nehisi Coates best-selling 2015 book framed as a letter to his son about what it means to be Black in America, Susan Kelechi Watson, who portrays Beth Pearson in “This Is Us,” walks across the campus of Howard University, describing […]
Review: Bill Irwin On Beckett In Screen, a performance Beckett would have applauded
“Existentialism; that word puts us to sleep,” master clown Bill Irwin was saying on my computer screen, “even though true questions of existence…keep us awake at night.” The word “Existentialism” did not put me to sleep; I was riveted whenever, in this 75-minute solo piece, Irwin offered his own words – his insights, his explanations […]
Review: The Marriage Proposal, a Chekhovian comic soufflé
Brothers and sisters, think back to the day you asked your Heart of Hearts to join you in eternal matrimony, if there was such a day. Did you do it in the traditional way, at a restaurant, kneeling aside the starched linens, with musicians playing sweetly in the background? Perhaps, in a comfortable relationship of […]
Review: Trans rock star Lisa Stephen Friday debuts her personal story in Trans Am
At its heart, Trans Am is an autobiographical ode in the style of a rock opera, that draws inspiration from the folk-rock like stereotype of the singer-storyteller. Lisa Stephen Friday, in her one-woman autobiographical show receiving its world premiere at Keegan Theatre, brings us on a hybrid journey of traditional coming out stories and traditional […]
Review: A fresh version of From Gumbo to Mumbo playing now
The tangy DC streets or a soulful bowl of NOLA. From Gumbo to Mumbo celebrates each from its first notes—for what writers and performers Drew Anderson and Dwayne Lawson-Brown do is something just shy of sing. This show is about their roots and life routes. Which, predictably, also include a lot of pain. From being […]
Review: El Perro del Hortelano (The Dog in the Manger) from GALA Hispanic Theatre
February 8, 2020 I sat in GALA’s historic entertainment “palace” to review Nilo Cruz’ Exquisita Agonia. It was the last time (pre-Covid) I enjoyed live theater. Nine months later, Managing Director Rebecca Read Medrano has done what no other theater in Washington has been able to do – mount a season and reopen an indoor […]
Review: The interrogation of Alberto Gonzales hits its musical mark in Gonzales Cantata
Election night 2020 IN Series opened a cantata-as-opera based on the Senate Judiciary hearings of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It was bold enough that Artistic Director Timothy Nelson had announced earlier this year that his company IN Series would be “the first completely virtual opera house” and produce a full season of works. Then came […]