Kyla García (Sarah Polson) in Sovereignty. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.
Artistic Director Molly Smith has always taken risks. With the staging of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s play on the fraught history of the Cherokee Nation, she has gone where no other major theater has gone before. Smith’s direction of Sovereignty adds to her series of innovative “Power Plays” and is part of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival.
Nagle, an activist lawyer and direct descendant of John Ridge and Major Ridge, plunges headlong into the genesis of Indian country’s deepest divide exploring both her ancestors, the Ridge family, as well as Chief John Ross who were instrumental in forming the early agreements that determined the future of the Cherokee nation. But which bore the responsibility for allowing President Andrew Jackson to set in motion the Trail of Tears? Who had the blood on their hands of the thousands who perished on that forced march to Oklahoma in the dead of winter? Who capitulated to Jackson’s demands and why? Nagle addresses these and other questions with eyes wide open and starts in a casino in modern-day Indian country.
(L to R) Andrew Roa (Major Ridge/Roger Ridge) and Jake Waid (John Ross/Jim Ross) in Sovereignty. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.
Sarah Polson (Kyla García) is a young Yale graduated attorney determined to reverse a 1978 Supreme Court decision that strips native communities of their right to prosecute non-Indians on their reservations, a decision that violates tribal sovereignty. She is feisty and whip smart and along with another lawyer, Jim Ross, takes on the case. Sarah is a Ridge descendant, but keeps her ancestral past well hidden from Jim. Though their ancestors were well-intentioned tribal leaders, both the Ridges and the Rosses have been accused of poor decisions, greed in the case of the Rosses, and worse, capitulation. To this day each family still blames the other for mistakes made. It is up to Sarah and Jim to right the wrongs of the past.
(L to R) Jake Hart (Elias Boudinot/Watie), Michael Glenn (Samuel Worcester/Mitch) and Joseph Carlson (Andrew Jackson/Ben) in Sovereignty. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.
At the casino in Oklahoma Sarah meets Ben, a non-Indian SVU cop and friend of Mitch (Michael Glenn who also plays Samuel Wooster), Sarah’s brother. Ben intervenes in a bar fight when Watie, Sarah’s current boyfriend gets rough with Sarah and the two hit it off.
The action swings back and forth between the 1830s to modern day as it grapples with the past through the years of U. S. Government policies of expansionism, Cherokee removal, broken treaties, intermarriage, and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA Section 904) to allow for the prosecution of whites committing crimes against women on Indian lands. After being abused by her lover Ben, Sarah’s goal is to change that.
(L to R) Joseph Carlson (Andrew Jackson/Ben), Kalani Queypo (John Ridge) and Andrew Roa (Major Ridge/Roger Ridge) in Sovereignty. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.
How Nagle manages to include as many instrumental players in this historical drama is more than clever. Because the play toggles between 19th and 21st centuries, this fine cast plays multiple roles with ease and authenticity. There is Flora, a Ridge cousin (Dorea Smith), Andrew Jackson and Ben (Joseph Carson in dual roles), John Ross and his son Jim both played by Jake Waid, Major Ridge and Roger Ridge Poison (both played by Andrew Roa), and Elias Boudinot (Jake Hart who also plays Watie).
(L to R) Andrew Roa (Major Ridge/Roger Ridge) and Kyla García (Sarah Polson) in Sovereignty. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.
To enhance the authenticity and period details, both Ken Macdonald’s set and Linda Cho’s costumes incorporate design elements of Cherokee culture.
If you aren’t up on the history of the Cherokee people, I’d suggest Steve Inskeep’s brilliant book, Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson Cherokee Chief John Ross and a Great American Land Grab.
Powerful, informative and important.
Through February 18th at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St., SE, Washington, DC 20024. For tickets and information call 202 488-3300 or visit online.
Ahmad Kamal (Malik) in the world premiere production of 4,380 NIGHTS. Photo by C Stanley Photography.
When the Women’s Voices Theater Festival opened in early January, I found myself explaining its purpose. Some thought the productions focused solely on women’s issues. They don’t. It’s merely an opportunity to focus on plays written by women. And of the ones I’ve seen and reviewed, they approach a diversity of subjects. So, jump right in. The festival continues through March 14th in DC Metro area theaters.
Annalisa Dias ~ Photo Credit: Christopher Mueller
In Annalisa Dias’ powerful play 4,380 Nights, Malik Djamal Ahmad Essaid (Ahmad Kamal in a riveting performance as both Malik and El Hadj El Kaim) is being held in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center accused of being an Al Qaeda recruiter and radical Islamist.
His rights stripped from him without charge, he lives in chains and solitary confinement with visits from Bud Abramson (Michael John Casey who later appears as The Man), a defense attorney appointed by the U. S. government. Malik languishes in prison for twelve years without trial while his family awaits him in France.
Ahmad Kamal (Malik) and MJ Casey (Bud Abramson). Photo by C Stanley Photography.
Directed by Kathleen Ackerley, the story is told to The Man by a sylph-like narrator, The Woman, played by Lynette Rathnam in a sinuously exotic performance. She speaks in lyrical prose echoing the history of the Carthaginians, the French, and much later the Americans who wage war against the Arabs and Berbers.
Lynette Rathnam (Woman) in the world premiere production of 4,380 NIGHTS. Photo by C Stanley Photography
The Man beseeches The Woman to tell him how the story ends, but she puts him off to relate the story that began with Cato’s words from ancient times. No matter which side of the argument you are on, you’ll be left wondering the same thing. Does it ever end, this centuries-old conflict of “the water, the earth, the sand”? Whether for reasons of trade or expansionism, the battles have long been dominated by racism, ignorance and fear. “It’s not the first time you’ve kidnapped Africans and enslaved them,” Malik reminds his American captors.
As the story toggles from ancient times to the present, we meet Malik’s grandfather, El Kaim, a former guide and translator for the French Colonel Aimable Pelisssier. El Kaim fought on the French side, betraying his own people in the Algerian Wars, and Malik feels certain, if he is ever released to his homeland, he will be imprisoned by his own government. Ah, the sins of the fathers.
Ahmad Kamal (Malik) and Rex Daugherty (Luke). Photo by C Stanley Photography.
Luke Harrison (Rex Daugherty who doubles as the Colonel), is a young American soldier who guards Malik. Luke is emotionally imprisoned which causes him to descend into a kind of sadistic madness. Think Abu Ghraib and you have some idea of the barbaric abuse he metes out to his prisoner. Abramson is sympathetic but tells Malik his detainment is awash in “papers, petitions, orders, reviews and broken international laws.”
Dias’ play is filled with expertly crafted dialogue that speaks to the deeply rooted, tangled web of Anglo Arab relations and their effect on long-term global stability. Her indelible characters, molded in the shifting sands of time, afford clarity and perspective to the issues facing our nations today.
Highly recommended.
Through February 18th at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit online.
Avery Glymph as Marcellus, Michael Urie as Hamlet and Federico Rodriguez as Horatio in Hamlet ~ Photo by Scott Suchman.
Michael Kahn’s swan song in his final season as Artistic Director at the Shakespeare Theatre Company will prove to be a lasting memory of his herculean efforts to bring Shakespeare to modern audiences. In a breath-of-fresh-air he has cast Michael Urie, a former student of his, to portray Hamlet. Urie gives a pin-drop performance that enraptured the opening night audience. His is a matter-of-fact Hamlet who is hip to the machinations of his enemies and tormented by his limited options – suicide or murder. Perhaps both. His delivery of the classic lines, is conversational, visceral and physical. Even in this longest of Shakespeare’s plays, the three-hour production zipped by thanks to Urie’s electrifying performance and sense of comic timing.
Kahn switches up the sequence of Hamlet’s melancholy soliloquy from Act One Scene Two, “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt.” to serve as Hamlet’s prologue and introduce us to his wretched state of mind. This unique artistic decision explains Hamlet’s suicidal state of mind and sets the scene for his descent into madness. Remember, Shakespeare wrote three versions of this play and thus none are etched in stone.
Ryan Spahn as Rosencrantz and Kelsey Rainwater as Guildenstern in Hamlet ~ Photo by Scott Suchman.
Kahn imagines the Kingdom of Denmark as the headquarters of a major corporation and the domain of King Claudius (Alan Cox from Translations on Broadway) who is CEO of all Machiavellian PSYOPs. Right from the start Scenic Designer John Coyne puts us at the metal desks of modern day uniformed security guards. On a large bank of CCTV screens broadcasting ordinary images of the building’s access, Horatio (Federico Rodriguez), Bernardo (Chris Genebach) and Francisco (Brayden Simpson) are stunned to see an apparition.
Keith Baxter as Player King in Hamlet ~ Photo by Scott Suchman.
It is the ghost of Hamlet’s father (Keith Baxter) revealed to them as a fuzzy image. In Kahn’s version, suits, security guards and cell phones place us firmly in the world of high tech. Even Hamlet and Ophelia (Oyin Oladejo from Star Trek: Discovery) profess their love and seal their break up through texts. And Coyne reflects this cold, grey, desolate sense of place with steel beams, contemporary furnishings and spiral stairways leading to a vast catwalk.
Alan Cox as Claudius, Oyin Oladejo as Ophelia and Madeleine Potter as Gertrude in Hamlet ~ Photo by Scott Suchman.
Corporate spies abound – Rosenkrantz (Ryan Spahn) and Guildenstern (Kelsey Rainwater) report to Queen Gertrude (Madeleine Potter from An Ideal Husband on Broadway) on Hamlet’s mental state, as does Polonius (the enjoyably duplicitous Robert Joy) who, as you know, has his own agenda, and his son Laertes (Paul Cooper) too – and Hamlet doesn’t get banished to England until the end of Act One. Yet all the pieces fall into place seamlessly.
I can’t say enough about the relevance and riveting modern dynamic of this production – the power and destruction of authoritarianism, its secrets, lies and power struggles – and why, given the current state of our government, we would be wise to listen and take heed.
Highly recommended.
At the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall through March 4th at 610 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004. For tickets and information call 202 547-1122 or visit online.
If Director Paata Tsikurishvili hadn’t come out on stage to announce the serious intent of his production of The Trial, I might wonder why he had taken such a divergent approach to Kafka’s dystopian story of one citizen fighting against a totalitarian government. In his introduction of what we are about to witness, Tsikurishvili spells out Franz Kafka’s nonsensical world as, “bizarre and illogical, chaos vs. order, and parallel facts.” This sounds quite relatable under our current administration’s habit of delivering daily tweets filled with “alternative facts”.
Josef K (Shu-nan Chu) is an associate VP at a bank. He has been accused of an unspecified crime by a specious government agency and must defend himself to the Committee of Affairs. “The reason for your arrest is kept secret until after the trial,” the Magistrate tells Josef.
Photo Credit: Johnny Shryock
Enter the insects. All the characters, save Josef, are bugs – creepy, crawly, undulating, predatory bugs. From Josef’s friend Anna (Tori Bertocci), a sympathetic and sensuous moth and Mrs. Grubach the landlady (Kathy Gordon triples as Clerk and Leni the seductress bug), to Willem (Chris Willumsen), Josef’s Uncle Karl (Lee Liebeskind), Franz (Thomas Beheler) and Huld the lawyer (Ryan Tumulty who also plays Inspector/Judge/Priest). These bugs range from cockroaches to the unidentifiable, though I think I noted a shield bug and a caterpillar. In this convoluted interpretation of Kafka’s nightmare, the government has gone buggy.
Sorting out the imaginary legitimacy of the kangaroo court is fun – for a while. But eventually, the action devolves into a dark children’s play, an ersatz version of Alice in Wonderland, as opposed to, well, a serious political drama. Huld, in a motorized chair outfitted with blood-filled IVs, proves more comical than ominous and even the disembodied voices and accompanying electronika don’t provoke a wince.
Photo Credit: Johnny Shryock
This is not the caliber of production usually seen from Synetic, a contemporary physical theater company whose work is most notable for their brilliant “Silent Shakespeare” series and other highly creative complex productions.
Costumes by Erik Teague do help set the scene. They include cleverly inventive interpretations of thoraxes, antennae, leather wings, massive metal pincers and glow-in-the-dark compound eyes designed for maximum spooky impact. Ultimately, the only real terror is in the prophetic tale. As the gatekeeper tells Josef, desperate to understand how this inequity has befallen him, “The law is not accessible to all.” How well we know.
Through February 18th at Synetic Theater, 1800 South Bell Street, Arlington in Crystal City. For tickets and information call 1 800 494-8497 or visit www.synetictheater.org.
Rene (Kristine Nielsen) is charmed by Lyle (Daniel Morgan Shelley) at an art exhibit in the Hamptons. (Also pictured: Erica Dorfler and Brandon Espinoza.) . Photo by Teresa Wood
Playwright and Director Theresa Rebeck’s campy, modern adaptation of The Way of the World is one of the early offerings in the 2018 Women’s Voices Theater Festival – on now in theaters around the Washington metropolitan area. Rebeck is best known as creator/writer of TV’s “Smash” and “NYPD Blue” and movie “Harriet the Spy”. In this funny, frothy, scandalous satire, whose original author was 18th C playwright William Congreve, Rebeck switches the setting to the Hamptons – the Gatsbyesque playground of the rich and infamous. That small change of venue proves a deliciously, decadent environs for the classic tangle between the upper crust and the hoi polloi.
Henry (Luigi Sottile) and friend Charles (Brandon Espinoza, right) enjoy a cocktail and the Hamptons’ sun. Photo by Teresa Wood
Sipping twee blue martinis between gossipy luncheons and romps between the sheets, the self-anointed ones tend to their wardrobes and painted lawns. Apparently, vivid green grass is a must at the posher seaside estates.
Blonde beauty Mae (Eliza Huberth) is heiress to a $600 million fortune. Do the summer studs want her for her money or her leggy good looks? What do you think? Her cougar, dowager aunt René is too busy playing musical beds to care. When we meet Henry (Luigi Sottile), a notable gadabout and serial cad, he has just broken Mae’s heart. “To hell with men!” the ladies concur, seconded by the Waitress (Ashley Austin Morris), an out-of-town summer hire who voices the outsider’s view of all this mayhem and reckless acquisitiveness.
Mae doesn’t really give a fig about all that cash. The Birkenstock-sporting, Prius-driving heiress plans to chuck it all and move to Haiti to tend to the poor. Not so her bibulous Aunt René (Tony Award nominee Kristine Nielsen – think Joanna Lumley as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous). As guardian of Mae’s funds, René prefers the lavish life suggesting she does her bit for the less fortunate. “We employ the 99%! We are the curators of the American legacy!”
Rene (Kristine Nielsen) gets to know the enigmatic Lyle Swofford (Daniel Morgan Shelley) of Nantucket. Photo by Teresa Wood.
As with summer season in the Hamptons, it is all about hookups at night and shopping tony boutiques during the day. That’s where the pretty Katrina (Erica Dorfler) comes in. As salesgirl and part-time model of Charles’ designer fashions, she has her nose in everyone’s business, especially her gays, both Charles (Brandon Espinoza) and Lyle (Daniel Morgan Shelley), a scion from Nantucket in town for the season and eager to please his cousin Reg (Elan Zafir), a Peter Pan preppy looking for love.
Hamptonites Katrina (Erica Dorfler), Lyle (Daniel Morgan Shelley, center), and Charles (Brandon Espinoza) enjoy a cocktail and watch the estate lawn get painted a pristine green. Photo by Teresa Wood
As you might expect, the amours and dalliances crisscross between the characters and hilarity ensues – a great deal of it in this delightfully silly and cleverly crafted comedy – where Set Designer Alexander Dodge renders us speechless with a floor-to-ceiling series of spotlit boxes filled with luxe shoes and assorted bibelots and beds that revolve to reveal illicit rendezvous. As for the decidedly stylish fashions, we have Costume Designer Linda Cho to thank for that.
Very clever and riotously funny. Highly recommended.
Through February 11th at the Folger Theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003. For tickets and information call 202 544-7077.
For more on the Women’s Voices Theater Festival that runs throughout January and February. And to find the theaters featuring the women playwrights’ productions.
Richard Thomas, Therese Plaehn, Pamela Reed, Lauren Klein, Daisy Eagan, and Luis Veda in the national tour of The Humans. Photo by Julieta Cervantes
Stephen Karam’s The Humanstakes a deep dive into the zeitgeist of the modern middle-class American family where there is much to recognize and even more to ponder. The Blake Family are a caring and tolerant lot, more progressive than their Scranton roots might have ou think. They tenderly care for their wheelchair-bound Momo, the family matriarch, who suffers from acute Alzheimer’s, their gay daughter Aimee, their unmarried daughter Brigid (Daisy Egan) and her social worker boyfriend Richard (Luis Vega), and, what may be even more surprising, they are willing to look away from their father Erik’s career-destroying adultery. What they are not accepting of is how their lost jobs and mounting debt are affecting their future happiness.
As the family gathers around the Thanksgiving table at Brigid and Rich’s recently rented rundown duplex, they appear to be anything but dysfunctional as they exchange gifts and speak in pleasantries and platitudes. Soon though, Aimee (Therese Plaehn), a successful attorney, goes into total meltdown. She’s lost both her job and her girlfriend. To temper the drama there is much dark humor as Momo (Lauren Klein) interrupts with repeated outbursts and foul curses, while Brigid and Rich do their best to explain away the bars on the windows and the cockroaches in the bedroom.
As a deeply Irish Catholic family, they embrace one another’s failings with grace. Deirdre (Pamela Reed), a mother whose schadenfreude extends to musings on lesbians, AIDS, and cancer, keeps up a cheerful front to jolly everyone along.
The play’s suspense derives from a curious cacophony emanating from an upstairs Asian neighbor. What can we draw from that? Does it signify the random incremental erosion of the status quo? Or is it related to Erik and Rich’s talk of dreams and monsters? Talk that seems to affirm the unpredictability of their future. Even the traditional celebratory peppermint pigs, cracked at a table to signify thankfulness, cannot keep out the unknown. “We just have a lot of stoic sadness,” Aimee opines
Director Joe Mantello brings together a superbly flawless cast. Richard Thomas shines as the darkly complex father, Erik, in this compelling and empathetic American dramedy that examines the universal human condition.
A multiple Tony-Award winning play, it is highly recommended.
Through January 28th in the Eisenhower Theatre at The Kennedy Center, 2700 F St., NW, Washington, DC. For tickets and information call 202 467-4600 or purchase them online.
