Anyone can yearn for a life of spontaneous disco raves and cooked partridge for dinner, but it takes a certain class of bon vivant to make it happen. Marguerite Gauthier – the famed courtesan with a big heart and a tragic destiny – practically invented the class by herself.

Draw up a chair at Monk’s Place and have yourself a cold glass of Tennessee Williams. Believe me when I tell you that this is not a bar where you will want everyone to know your name. Small Craft Warnings is a story about lonely losers at a seedy seaside bar; a character study of […]

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, translated by Laurence Senelick Directed by Christopher Henley and Gaurav Gopalan Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson The Cherry Orchard is a fitting final production for the Washington Shakespeare Company to end its stay at the Clark Street Playhouse, and the full capacity crowd on […]

All’s Well that Ends Well By William Shakespeare Directed by Joe Banno Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Reviewed by Steven McKnight All’s Well that Ends Well is famously known as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” the kind that most companies would shy away from tackling unless they have a name like the Washington Shakespeare Company.  […]

Peace By Callie Kimball Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Directed by Alexander Strain Reviewed by Tim Treanor  This, this is why Washington theaters need to produce Washington playwrights – because Washington playwrights understand what Washington audiences want to see from their theaters. We don’t want plays about politics. We work in politics all day, and […]

Red Noses By Peter Barnes Produced by the Washington Shakespeare Company Directed by Jay Hardee and John Geoffrion Reviewed by Tim Treanor Red Noses is a deadly earnest meditation on the redemptive power of laughter, a soggy, self-sabotaging pudding of a play not advanced by the Washington Shakespeare Company’s strident production of it. Imagine the […]

Hedda Gabler By Henrik Ibsen Adapted by Andrew Upton Directed by Christopher Henley Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Reviewed by Tim Treanor “Love is a way to sweeten obligation,” says Hedda Gabler (Heather Haney), the anti-Valentine. In Washington Shakespeare Company’s fiercely ambitious production of Ibsen’s 19th-century classic, love and obligation are at war and the […]

The House of Yes By Wendy MacLeod Directed by Colin Hovde Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Reviewed by Tim Treanor The House of Yes is by a significant margin the scariest show I have seen on stage this year. It is not a dark comedy, as some suggest, or a comedy at all. It is […]

By Alan Bennett Directed by Joe Banno Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Reviewed by Tim Treanor Kafka’s Dick is a play about…you know.  No, wait, that’s not entirely true. Although his…you know…is involved, it’s really a play about Kafka coming back from the dead.  Imagine this: “Kafka was dead: to begin with. There was no […]

Caligula By Albert Camus Directed by Chris Henley Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Reviewed by Tim Treanor Is there anything that Alexander Strain cannot do?  In the title role of Washington Shakespeare’s Caligula, Strain is man and superman, a protean philosopher-tyrant, a Killer without a Cause.  Is he mad?  Is he genius?  Is he a […]

Private Lives By Noel Coward Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company Reviewed by Janice Cane Washington Shakespeare Company is serving up a bite of fun almost as delectable as the fare offered just beyond the stage at 1409 Playbill Café. Almost. A day later, I’m still salivating over the meal I enjoyed before seeing Noël Coward’s Private […]

Let’s get this out of the way.  From the first moments of this play to the final bows, the brave and generous actors in this production are, save for some stage mud and grass stains, completely naked.  For some people, the thought of the human form undisguised by clothing is so shocking, repulsive or frightening […]