Jordan Wright
June 24, 2019
Studio Theater’s new Milton Theatre is looking to attract a summer crowd and last night it did. Called SHOWROOM it is a casual space offering specialty cocktails and snacks at the bar. Olney Theatre Center’s production of Every Brilliant Thing, by playwrights Duncan MacMillan and Jonny Donahoe, is a one-man, one-act play about suicide and was the first of the off-beat performances of the season. Pleasantly ensconced at café tables lit with candles, the youngish crowd had bought their drinks and looked ready for a Friday date night that promised audience participation. Touted as a comedy, it seemed as though fun was just around the corner.
 Alexander Strain and an audience member in Every Brilliant Thing. Photo: Teddy Wolff. So, maybe I should have had what they were drinking, or snagged one of the cards that was handed out in advance to a smattering of guests so they could call out some of the “brilliant things” Alexander was grateful for while his mother lay in hospital after another suicide attempt. But for me, no amount of jokes or self-deprecating comedic schtick could subtract from the fact that a family was being torn asunder by a mother’s crushing depression and nothing could stop that fateful train from jumping the tracks.
 Alexander Strain and an audience member in Every Brilliant Thing. Photo: Teddy Wolff. Thinking about my feelings for the play, I drifted off to sleep that night and had a dream about it – a dream as quirky as the play itself. I dreamed that Amy Schumer was in a play she had written and was eager to get a group of us into the theater to see it. She described it as a story about her mother’s suicide. We didn’t want to see her act out her personal tragedy, but she begged us to participate. We entered the theater (in Greece, no less) and the more we listened, the more we wanted her to stop. Because though it seemed to be alleviating her sorrow, we couldn’t bear to hear the whole dismal story.
 The audience and Alexander Strain in Every Brilliant Thing. Photo: Teddy Wolff. That’s what this play is about more or less, except that the audience is conscripted to shout out these brilliant things like “ice cream”, “staying up past bedtime”, “things with stripes”, etc. Much of the time these non-actors couldn’t be heard across the room. My seatmate turned to me on several occasions with a quizzical look, as if hoping I would tell him. That left us wondering what the brilliant thing was that Alexander as the child, who later presents as a teenager, and ultimately a college student with his own crushing depression, might have said.
I’ll grant you it might seem like a healthy psychological exercise to look for the sunny side of life while everything around you is crumbling, but nonetheless, it doesn’t work out in the end for Alexander, even though a woman from the audience has been asked to play his dying dog’s vet, another has been asked to play his guidance counselor, and a man is challenged to play Alexander’s father, a man so removed from his child’s life, he closets himself away when the going gets tough.
 Audience members and Alexander Strain in Every Brilliant Thing. Photo: Teddy Wolff. Once in college Alexander learns of Goethe’s notions about suicide and subs an audience member to play the part of his college professor. He references ‘social contagions’ and agrees with the notion that we are unconsciously affected by the behavior of our peers – as in copycat suicides. It’s called the ‘Werther Effect’ after Goethe’s notable character. As Alexander tells us, “Children of depressed mothers have a heightened sense of stress.” It would be good to keep this warning in mind when writing a play about suicide.
The evening’s oddest moment came when a pretty girl who was asked to pretend she was Alexander’s girlfriend didn’t understand how the game was played. Everyone else in the audience had understood they were to parrot the words he voiced aloud to them but even after he repeatedly fed her the lines, she opted to concoct her own responses until she finally had that aha moment and played along. LOL… or not.
 Alexander Strain and an audience member in Every Brilliant Thing. Photo: Teddy Wolff. So, see it if you’ve never known anyone who has committed suicide. That’s my warning. Just be sure to order a cocktail first. Who knows? You might find it amusing.
Directed by Jason Loewith and starring Alexander Strain.
Through July 7th at Studio Theatre – 1501 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005. For tickets and information about the remaining shows in the run, visit www.StudioTheatre.org or call 202 232.7267
Jordan Wright
June 18, 2019
Written at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Falsettos has been an anthem to the love and emotional support gays and their families experienced as they watched their love ones die off in droves. It had its Broadway debut in 1992, but before that the musical had appeared Off-Broadway as March of the Falsettos in 1981 and Falsettoland in 1990. Thanks to Composer and Lyricist James Lapine’s efforts, you’d be hard pressed to find a musical with a more difficult score to sing.
 Trina, Jason and Marv in Eden Espinosa, Thatcher Jacobs and Max von Essen. Photo by Joan Marcus. It is a story of Marvin, his wife, Trina, and their boy, Jason. When Marvin leaves his family for Whizzer, a cocky, handsome gay man, the couple turns to Mendel, the psychiatrist to sort it all out. Mendel falls for Trina and, oh well, it’s complicated.
 Mendel and Marvin – Nick Blaemire and Max von Essen. Photo by Joan Marcus. If you look at it as a story only about gays and AIDS, it seems incontrovertibly dated. A broader perspective might be to think of it in terms of devotion or, perhaps, altruism – the devotion of caregivers and the empathy required to sacrifice one’s own needs for another’s touches everyone. At least that’s how I came to view it, because, in that deeper way, it can be far more relatable.
But it’s not for everyone. It’s overly long, nearly three hours, and demands our sympathies in uncomfortable ways. Do we like how Marvin destroys his marriage to Trina and cavalierly ignores his own son? Certainly not. Is he not vain, egotistical, obsessive, hurtful and destructive? All of the above. Do we notice that their shrink Mendel cuckolds Marvin, his original patient? Indeed, we do. What about the tempestuous and superficial relationship between Whizzer and Marvin? “We like fighting most,” he admits. Should we care? And, though they are Jewish, their only nod to religion is their insistence that Jason have a Bar Mitzvah, even though the boy is dead set against one. The pessimism, obsessions and neuroses can be soul-killing to witness.
 Marvin and Whizzer ~ Max von Essen and Nick Adams. Photo by Joan Marcus. In “Trina’s Song” she laments that men are so immature yet rule the world. Here, Lapine and Finn offer a brief nod to women’s liberation and her hopes for a more fulfilling life, but then do a 180 making Trina a stay-at-home wife and mother. It is only when Whizzer is dying and Marvin returns to care for him with their lesbian neighbors, Cordelia and Dr. Charlotte, that we witness the human connection.
 Cordelia and Dr. Charlotte ~ Audrey Cardwell and Bryonha Marie Parham. Photo by Joan Marcus. As a sing-through that includes 37 titled numbers and scenes, the musical stretches the vocal talents of any singer and in this production it takes a host of Broadway veterans.
 The Company ~ Photo by Joan Marcus Directed by James Lapine, Set by David Rockwell, Costumes by Jennifer Caprio, Lighting by Jeff Croiter, Choreography by Spencer Liff, and Sound by Dan Moses Schreier.
With Max Von Essen as Marvin, Thatcher Jacobs or Jonah Mussolino as Jason, Nick Adams as Whizzer, Nick Blaemire as Mendel, Eden Espinosa as Trina, Bryonha Marie Parham as Dr. Charlotte, and Audrey Cardwell as Cordelia.
Through June 23rd in the Eisenhower Theater at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F St., NW, Washington, DC. For tickets and information call 202 467-4600 or visit www.Kennedy-Center.org.
Jordan Wright
June 13, 2019
Evan Linder’s play has all the elements of a hackneyed soap opera starring a young, broke, white couple with adultery issues and a bible-thumping mother in bitterly acrimonious conflict with her daughter and son-in-law, Jim. If not for Linder’s uncompromising storytelling, an admirable and passionate cast, and superb directing, it would seem like a story we have heard all too many times with the exception that this one comes with sharp incisors and a propensity for equal doses of poignancy and hilarity.
 (L-R) Caroline Neff, Jack Falahee, and Cecelia Wingate ~ Photo by Jeremy Daniel.jpg Overdue and big as a watermelon, Laurel cuddles up with Jim who is excited about the prospect of a son, “Are you my stupid baby?” he asks sweetly, ear to Lauren’s swollen tummy. Even Laurel’s mother, Celeste, whose late husband was a serial philanderer and doesn’t cotton to her out-of-work son-in-law, can’t wait to be a grandma. “The only thing I care about is this baby.”
 (L-R) Blake Morris and Jack Falahee ~ Photo by Jeremy Daniel.jpg A few years before, Jim had a brief fling. Laurel reluctantly forgave him, and, still very much in love, they recommitted themselves to their marriage. But when the baby is born and is black, Jim loses his mind, blaming his best friend, Karl, who happens to be African American. Celeste’s reaction is mortification about what the townspeople will think of her and her daughter, insisting Laurel “get rid of it”.
 (L-R) Blake Morris and Aime Donna Kelly ~ Photo by Jeremy Daniel.jpg There are so many spoilers that I won’t reveal any more of the plot as the story takes twists and turns so serpentine that it proves totally unpredictable as to where the characters’ paths take them. Do we like them? Not always, but we are kept in jocular hysterics by both their Southern-ness and their messy lives. Celeste’s drawl and quirky backwoods metaphors alone are priceless. To put a frame around it, Linder, who is white, references the ghost of civil rights activist, Skip Robinson, leader of a 1974 boycott of businesses in Byhalia after the shooting death by a local policeman of a young, unarmed black man named Butler Young, Jr. Young’s memory was ignored by Byhalia, and still is. Linder is determined to correct the town’s selective memory and provoke a conversation about race relations. You will see that there is racism on both sides here, and emotional disconnects that are a mile wide.
 (L-R) Jack Falahee, Blake Morris, and Aime Donna Kelly ~ Photo by Jeremy Daniel.jpg Byhalia, Mississippi is a story about truth, forgiveness, commitment and racism – real or imagined. It is also a sweet, crazy tale of hope and redemption set in a blip of a provincial town caught up in a changing world. As Laurel, who commits to raising her baby, tells her mother, “Nothing ever changes unless people like you watch it happen.”
Highly recommended. A perfect cast beautifully directed by Kimberly Senior. You will be glued to your seat, if you don’t keel over from laughter.
With Caroline Neff as Laurel, Cecelia Wingate as Celeste, Jim Falahee as Jim, Blake Morris as Karl, and Aimé Donna Kelly as the surprise character, Ayesha.
 (L-R) Jack Falahee and Caroline Neff 2 ~ Photo by Jeremy Daniel.jpg Scenic Design by Cameron Anderson, Costume Design by Jen Caprio, Lighting Design by Jennifer Reiser, and Sound Design by Mikhail Fiksel.
Through July 7th in the Terrace Theater at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F St., NW, Washington, DC. For tickets and information call 202 467-4600 or visit www.Kennedy-Center.org.
Jordan Wright
June 9, 2019
“Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them,” announces Pamela, a sophisticated member and perennial sexpot of the Quail Valley Country Club.
 : (L -R) Patricia Nicklin as Pamela Peabody, Ken Kemp as Henry Bingham and Cameron McBride as Justin Hicks ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak When we meet Richard Bingham, the urbane manager of Quail Valley, it’s tournament weekend and the mood is dire. Quail Valley has never won the annual golf tournament against their rival Crouching Squirrel. And to make matters worse, their ace player has defected. But the debonair club director, Bingham, has plans for a reversal of fortune with the entry of its newest member with a pro’s handicap. Unfortunately, Bingham’s counterpart and nemesis from Crouching Squirrel, Dickie, has a surprise of his own and the old archenemies bet a king’s ransom, including Bingham’s wife Muriel’s antique shop, on the outcome.
 (L-R) Cameron McBride as Justin Hicks and Raeanna Larson as Louise Heindbedder ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak Dickie is a veritable Mr. Malaprop sporting garish golf attire and mixing his metaphors with clueless aplomb. The champagne-swilling Pamela of the multiple spouses, claims, “I would drink water but there’s so much fish in it.” She is sharp, witty and fiercely snide. In a swipe at her ex-husband, Dickie, she snarks, “Never use box tops to buy wearing apparel.”
 (L-R) Raeanna Larson as Louise Heindbedder and Cameron McBride as Justin Hicks ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak Our young romantics are the club’s emotionally fragile waitress Louise and her hapless beau Justin, the club’s latest hire and Bingham’s ringer. Their on-again off-again engagement keeps them in a dither as their breakups mount and the club’s chances for the cup dwindle.
 (L-R) Cameron McBride as Justin Hicks and Ken Kemp as Henry Bingham ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak Enter Bingham’s wife Muriel, full of frustration at her husband’s extra-marital flirtations with Pamela, plus the potential loss of her shop. Written by internationally-acclaimed playwright Ken Ludwig, this production is in line with his long-running Broadway play, “Lend Me a Tenor”, as a sophisticated farce full of high anxiety.
 (L-R) Patricia Nicklin as Pamela Peabody and Raeanna Larson as Louise Heindbedder ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak Unfortunately, the pace and the funny bits are thwarted by uneven casting, proving even a terrific comedy can miss the mark when it’s not done right.
Still, kudos to Cameron McBride, a newcomer to acting, whose timing and physical comedy is expert and Ken Kemp, who is a pearl among the pebbles.
Directed by Scott J. Strasbaugh, Set Design by Marian Holmes, Lighting Design by Jeffrey Auerbach and Kimberly Crago, Costume Design by Ceci Albert and Lisa Brownsword.
With Raeanna Nicole Larson as Louise, Patricia Nicklin as Pamela, Brendan Chaney as Dickie and Lorraine Bouchard as Muriel.
Through June 29th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com
Jordan Wright
June 8, 2019
There’s nothing like a rip-roaring, old school, Broadway musical to get the heart pumping and the toes tapping. In Hello, Dolly! the music and lyrics of Jerry Herman, one of the greatest composers of the Great White Way, will do just that. You just have to refrain from singing along… out loud.
 Betty Buckley in Hello, Dolly! National Tour ~ Photographer Julieta Cervantes 2108 Dolly Gallagher Levi (Betty Buckley), a Jill-of-all-trades and matchmaker extraordinaire, was the supreme marketeer and an independent working woman in the 1880’s, well before Women’s Liberation. Handing out different business cards like peppermints, she became whatever the situation called for. You need silhouettes, a dozen eggs, ear piercing, a husband or a wife? Dolly will provide. “I arrange things,” this savvy yenta explains.
 Betty Buckley and Lewis J. Stadlen in Hello, Dolly! National Tour – 2018, Photographer Julieta Cervantes When she sets her cap on Horace Vandergelder (Lewis J. Stadlen), a well-to-do hay and feed shop owner, this clever lady uses all her trump cards. Now you may think that catching a husband using feminine wiles, is sexist, and there is that to consider, but Dolly’s glamour, craftiness and kindness, is what makes her a believable character trying to survive as a down-at-the-heels widow. She’s got gumption, chutzpah and charm all wrapped up in one swell package.
 Analisa Leaming in the Hello Dolly National Tour2018 -Photographer Julieta-Cervantes If there’s any sexism here, it’s from the gents. Mr. V.’s tune, “It Takes a Woman”, sung with the Instant Glee Club, insists only a fragile woman can care for home and husband, rhyming femininity with “work till infinity”. Oh heck. All’s fair in love and war.
Situational comedy is at its best when Dolly foils Vandergelder’s meeting with the lovely Irene Molloy, a milliner who has different ideas of the perfect man. Irene and her assistant Millie fall for Mr. V.’s clerks, Cornelius and Barnaby, who have convinced the ladies they’re tycoons, when in fact they are counting their dimes. In the scene at the tony Harmonia Gardens Restaurant where the couples sup to pheasant and paté in private booths, Buckley shows off her indelible comedic skills in a silent solo dinner while Vandergelder fumes and the handsomest waiters on any stage perform a highly choreographed, frenetic dance to the “The Waiters’ Gallop” replete with flaming dishes, bottles of champagne, silver cloches and dinner plates piled to the rafters, all cleverly conducted by Rudolph the Maître d’.
 Hello, Dolly! National Tour Company – 2018 – Photographer Julieta Cervantes Betty Buckley, one of Broadway’s legendary leading ladies, stars as Dolly to Lewis J. Stadlen’s Vandergelder. Stadlen is another award-winning veteran of stage and screen who does schtick to perfection. You’ll relish the jokes, the colorful Victorian costumes, the catchy tunes (you probably know most of them), and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra backing it all up.
 Hello, Dolly! National Tour Company – 2018 – Photographer Julieta Cervantes With Colin LeMoine as Ambrose Kemper, Morgan Kirner as Ermengarde, Nic Rouleau as Cornelius Hackl, Sean Burns as Barnaby Tucker, Kristen Hahn as Minnie Fay, Analisa Leaming as Irene Molloy, Jessica Sheridan as Ernestina, Beth Kirkpatrick as Mrs. Rose, Wally Dunn as Rudolph, Scott Shedenhelm as Stanley, Timothy Shew as Judge, Daniel Beeman as Court Clerk.
Directed by Jerry Zaks, Choreographed by Warren Carlyle, Conducted by Robert Billig, Book by Michael Stewart, Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman, Scenic and Costume Design by Santo Loquasto, Sound Design by Scott Lehrer, Lighting by Natasha Katz, and Orchestrations by Larry Hochman.
Highly recommended. This is classic, old school Broadway razzamatazz.
Jordan Wright
June 6, 2019
Warning: Extremely high doses of wacky irreverence could result in uncontrollable hilarity.
Playwright Matt Minnicino’s adaptation, he calls it a new “distillation”, of Molière’s classic The Misanthrope tore the house down at its world premiere last night. A re-interpretation of the 17th century farce skewering French aristocracy, Minnicino delivers in spades with a band of frivolous, self-centered snobs, oblivious to the hoi polloi (Tag yourselves, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Kardashian, James Franco, Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise, et alia). This booze-swilling brat pack speaks in rhyming couplets, mixing formal dialogue and philosophical musings with modern American slang. Set in the posh environs of the South of France, it is fall-down-dead hilarious and monumentally clever.
 (l-r) Hannah Sweet (Basque), Elliott Kashner (Alceste), Thais Menendez (Celimene). CREDIT: DJ Corey Photography Alceste is a cynical, smitten preppie whose target is the alluring, and self-adoring Celimene. He hates deceit yet craves the company of the most deceitful of them all. Swanning luxuriantly around the pool deck in luxuriantly revealing garb, she teases and taunts the men while insulting her female competition, especially the prudish Arsinoe, a woman of a certain age who’s got the hots for Alceste. “I’ve been programmed to pussyfoot around,” she admits.
 (l-r)Patrick Joy (Clitandre), Thais Menendez (Celimene), Jenna Berk (Philinte), Chloe Mikala (Eliante) ~ Photo credit JD Corey Unfortunately, Miss C. prefers her trendy pals and glam lifestyle far more than an angst-ridden, lovesick dweeb and pits him against Oronte, a sophomoronic wannabe poet who’s got plenty of dough to satisfy Miss C. and is suing Alceste for slander. For those wondering if Alceste will get his comeuppance (although we secretly cheer his irreverence) there is Philinte, Alceste’s gal pal and reality check, who challenges his insincerity at every turn. “We are living in a society of vacuity, fatuousness and folly,” she admonishes.
 Sara Barker (Arsinoe), Elliott Kashner (Alceste). Photo credit DJ Corey Minnicino’s earlier forays into classical adaptations have included Chekhov, Strindberg, Shakespeare, Homer, and Sophocles (no mean feat). But you needn’t have read any one of these literary titans to enjoy this snarky funfest.
 (l-r) Matthew Sparacino (Oronte), Thais Menendez (Celimene), Patrick Joy (Clitandre), Tendo Nsubuga (Acaste), Elliott Kashner (Alceste). Photo credit DJ Corey Director Megan Behm expertly wrangles this fierce cast led by Elliott Kashner as Alceste, Thais Menendez as Celimene, Jenna Berk as Philinte, Matthew Sparacino as Oronte, Sara Barker as Arsinoe and Patrick Joy as Clitandre. with Tendo Nsubuga as Acaste, Chloe Mikala as Eliante and Hannah Sweet as Basque/DuBois.
Costumes by Alison Samantha Johnson, Set Design by Megan Holden, Lighting Design by Elizabeth Roth, Properties Design by Liz Long.
A veritable verbal slugfest with a mountain of the funniest zingers since the Marx Brothers took on high society in “A Night at the Opera”.
Highly recommended.
Through June 30th at Gunston Arts Center, 2700 South Lang Street, Arlington, VA 22206.
Avant Bard tickets are $40.00, and available online at avantbard.org/ticketsor by calling 703-418-4808. For every Avant Bard performance, a limited number of tickets are Pay What You Will, which means you can name your price. You can reserve PWYW tickets online the Monday before each performance for a small service minimum, or at the door with no minimum. All Avant Bard tickets including PWYW are General Admission; seating is first-come first-served.
Saturday matinees are followed by Unscripted Afterchats with members of the creative team.
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