Loaded with top Broadway stars, Something Rotten! has got it all including actors who can sing, tap, rap and rock out up to the rafters. Welcome to the Renaissance from the team of composers/lyricists Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw with book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell. It’s utterly delicious.
Down-on-their-luck brothers Nick (Rob McClure) and Nigel (Josh Grisetti) Bottom are eager to one-up Shakespeare (rock star actor Adam Pascal) with a show-stopper of their own creation. Nigel’s the writer and sensitive one falling for poetry-loving Portia (Autumn Hurlbert). Nick and his feminist wife Bea (Maggie Lakis) support Nigel’s aspirations. Pilfering from his wife’s savings, Nick seeks out Nostradamus (the marvelous Blake Hammond) to divine a fresh idea for a play. The seer predicts it will be musicals. “Song and dance and sweet romance. No talking. All of the dialogue is sung,” he assures. Convinced the idea will trump anything the Sultan of Sonnet could pen, Nick imagines a troupe of Rockettes-in-codpieces-with-giant-ostrich feathers song and dance. The show’s backer, Shylock, wonders if “Ham Omelette: The Musical” will sell to the masses. Notwithstanding Shylock’s doubts, critics agreed when this hilarious musical comedy opened on Broadway nominating it no less than 34 times to garner two wins.
Groan-worthy wordplay, over-the-top pastiches, and silly costumes abound. Eggs make an appearance. Naturally. It’s a mash-up of Shakespeare’s greatest quips meet the best of Broadway musical numbers in a crazy ass plot that fills the stage with ye olde rock and roll and vaudeville razzmatazz. Broadway babies will recognize snippets from Cats, The Sound of Music, Music Man, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof and more (even Mary Poppins makes the cut) all sung and danced by a terrific cast.
It’s a curious thing that American Playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker is more famous in Great Britain where she is the Resident Writer at the Royal Court Theatre and has lately been awarded a commission to write a new play for the Royal Shakespeare Company. That’s heady stuff.
Christopher Dinolfo as Christan and Felica Curry as Susannah. Photo by Carol Rosegg
In Jefferson’s Garden, part of the exciting Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Wertenbaker’s focus is on the American Revolution and how we got there, revealing the contradictions between our founding father’s ideals and both the realities and precarious nature of freedom. It reminds us the it was considered either a revolution or an insurgency depending on who was doing the talking.
Director Nataki Garrett opens the drama on a boat sailing from England to America, where Carl (Michael Halling), a bourgeois German aristocrat, meets a Quaker family who promise to take him to their farm if he learns practical skills. He does. Though the family are pacifists, their young son Christian (Christopher Dinolfo) defies his family to go to war, ultimately breaking a promise to his sister Louisa (Maggie Wilder) that he will never fight.
The Company of Timberlake Wertenbaker. Photo by Carol Rosegg
Nine actors, in different roles through dizzying wardrobe changes, introduce us to many of the founding fathers – Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, Ben Franklin, George Washington – as well as the soldiers affected by the cost of war on their lives and loved ones. The character of the freed slave Susannah (Felicia Curry) and her love story with a white man lend insight into the struggles both sides faced.
It is not until Act Two, that we come to Jefferson’s noted Monticello garden where the men have come to hash out the Bill of Rights and express their considered opinions. There under a gazebo, we meet bossy Southern belle, Nelly Rose, played hilariously to the hilt by Kimberly Gilbert.
It is a high gear everything-but-the-kitchen-sink telling of the American Revolution – at times funny, at others emotional or flat-out educational. Who knew there were four million Americans and only 160,000 Brits at the time of the revolution? And who knew the King offered freedom to slaves who fought for England? Okay, you did. Seems I’d better brush up on my American history!Thoroughly enjoyable.
Additional cast members – Christopher Bloch, Thomas Keegan, Michael Kevin Darnall and Kathryn Tkel.
Through February 8th at Ford’s Theatre, 511 Tenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004. For tickets and information call 888 616-0270 or visit online.
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.
