In The Heart Sellers, playwright Lloyd Suh blends nutty sweetness and aching loneliness into a balletic whole. Studio Theatre’s production of this 2023 play, perfectly paced by director Danilo Gambini, features two splendid actresses who pirouette flawlessly throughout this one-act drama, fleshing out their characters with heartwarming hilarity and depth.

It’s the 1970s. Luna (Francesca Fernandez) and Jane (Jeena Yi) are the immigrant wives of young doctors from the Philippines and South Korea, respectively. Newly arrived in an unnamed “mid-size” American city, the women navigate their first Thanksgiving in the U.S. while their husbands work on this quintessentially American holiday.

The two women meet in the supermarket, where the extroverted Luna impulsively invites a more reclusive, timid Jane to her studio flat for dinner. Once home, Luna pulls out a plump turkey still frozen to its core.

While the bird slowly cooks, the women uncork a bottle of wine and gradually slough off the delicate skins that have protected them from a new and alien world. At turns silly and serious, they reveal the struggles and absurdities of their new lives. Luna’s husband told her that they could go anywhere she wanted for their honeymoon. When she chose Disneyland, they simply gawked from the parking lot, unable to pay admission to the Magic Kingdom.

Jane spends her days watching TV, from Julia Child and All in the Family to Walter Cronkite. Both dance around Luna’s flat to “Soul Train,” adore Jane Fonda, and cast a critical eye on Richard Nixon. They are learning, through a steady diet of media intoxication, what it means to be an American in the 1970s.

Luna and Jane are also aware of what’s been lost along the way. Their immigration to the U.S. has been enabled by the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, which allowed for increased numbers of Asians and other non-Western European persons to enter America. In a mesmerizing monologue pulled from the depths of her soul, Luna turns Congress’s act of beneficence into a cruel irony. To assimilate, immigrants must give up emotional and physical ties to their countries of origin and adapt to the new. Everything they used to be “crumbles and tumbles” in this new world. You must become a “heart seller” to live in America.

Lloyd Suh’s dialogue is intensely real and natural. His silences pack powerful messages as well. When one and then the other woman excuses herself to use the bathroom, the character left on stage uses the time to further explore and ruminate. Jane’s curiosity (and ours) is hilariously rewarded as she fumbles with a bawdy pop-up toy that tells us something about both women. Her utter astonishment at discovering supermarket cheese that can be sprayed from a can is among the evening’s most entertaining bits of humor.

The entire play takes place in Luna’s modest apartment. Scenic designer Marcelo Martínez García provides a spot-on evocation of the 1970s with its mismatched avocado, orange, and turquoise décor. Two wonderfully homely, crocheted blankets function almost as supporting characters. They shield Luna and Jane, protecting them from a cold and alien world. When they finally share one blanket, we understand just how much their mutual trust has blossomed in a single evening. Costume designer Helen Q. Huang’s carefully curated plaids, pinks, denim, stripes, puffy coats, and polyester at-home ensembles add to the delightfully mismatched look and feel of the production.

Immigration policies have been among America’s thorniest issues for nearly our entire history, now more so than ever. In the debate that rages across our headlines nightly, it is easy to lose focus on the individual stories of immigration. Lloyd Suh’s incisive drama, brought to life by two superb actors under Gambini’s sensitive direction, reminds us of what it means to start all over again, and how important love and friendship are to the painful process of change.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

EXTENDED: The Heart Sellers plays through November 2, 2025, in the Milton Theatre at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th Street NW, Washington, DC. For tickets ($55–$95, with low-cost options available), go online, call the box office at 202-332-3300, email boxoffice@studiotheatre.org, or visit TodayTix. Studio Theater offers discounts for first responders, military servicepeople, students, young people, educators, senior citizens, and others, as well as rush tickets. For discounts, contact the box office or visit here for more information.

The program for The Heart Sellers is online here.

COVID Safety: All performances are mask-recommended. Studio Theatre’s complete Health and Safety protocols are here.

The Heart Sellers
By Lloyd Suh
Directed by Danilo Gambini

The post A heartwarming look at immigration in the 1970s, in ‘The Heart Sellers’ at Studio appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

A slender yet precious thread connected playwright Andrea Stolowitz to her family’s clouded past. The exquisite diary kept by her great-grandfather Dr. Max Cohnreich detailed his pre–World War II life in Berlin, before Max and other family members escaped the Nazi threat. Using the diary as her guide, Stolowitz jumped headlong into an all-absorbing journey to recover her German Jewish family’s fuller history. Her autobiographical play, The Berlin Diaries, chronicles Stolowitz’s voyage into the Cohnreichs’ complicated story.

We travel with Andrea from archives in the U.S. to Berlin, trailing the playwright down rabbit holes in search of missing information. We feel her frustration when she seems to reach dead ends. We share her awe when the dots are connected, revealing seismic discoveries.

The regional premiere of this absorbing play, directed by Elizabeth Dinkova at Theatre J, takes place in set designer Sarah Beth Hall’s wonderfully dusty old archives, replete with faded volumes and plump packets of documents. We understand that these nondescript records contain information that no one has bothered to look at for decades. We learn that a single misfiled folder or a mistakenly recorded address can throw a passionate researcher right off the trail.

Stolowitz tells her story in a unique and challenging way. Two actors (Lawrence Redmond and Dina Thomas) perform all the roles, from Andrea herself and her great-grandfather to her mother, cousins, and the unctuous archivists she encounters along the way. Both Redmond and Thomas occasionally portray Andrea, with their fast-paced repartee representing conversations she is having with herself. The pair use the barest of props, effective accents, and nuanced body language to switch in a nanosecond from one character to the next during a fast-paced 90 minutes on stage.

The acting is truly heroic. Redmond and Thomas raise long-gone ancestors from the dead, breathing life, humor, irony, and pathos into Andrea’s forebears. But the duo can’t alleviate the confusion created by introducing so many characters so quickly during the first half of the play. We feel a bit unmoored, distracted by not quite being able to pinpoint the identity of each character, whether they exist in the past or present, and their relationships to Andrea. Too much and too little information overwhelms us too soon, threatening our attention.

Not until the midpoint do we start to grasp the whole — what is known, and, as importantly, what has remained unknown about the family.

Family lore maintains that the entire Cohnreich clan escaped the Holocaust and fanned out to Jewish enclaves in the U.S., Israel, Asia, and South America. Andrea digs way deeper, discovering missing members no one ever talked about. Their names scroll across electronic screens (by Projections Designer Deja Collins), superimposed over the archives. The number of the verschollen, the lost, is breathtaking.

As Andrea’s research reveals living cousins she never dreamed she had, she is faced with an entirely new set of questions. Who or what erased knowledge of the relatives killed by the Nazis? Would any of her newly discovered clan care about their shared history, or is this project solely her obsession? Andrea feverishly contacts every family member she can, but wisely ends her drama before we find out who responded. By then, to Stolowitz’s credit, she has engendered enough interest among playgoers to make us want to know.

The Berlin Diaries reflects the emerging 3G (third generation) movement — founded by grandchildren of Holocaust survivors whose relationships to the Nazi atrocities are more distant in time yet still inextricably bound to their outcomes. Last year’s film A Real Pain is one expression of this generation’s need to connect with their past. Andrea Stolowitz’s sensitive new drama demonstrates that even among the newest generation of survivors’ progeny, hidden histories, heroic efforts, and impossible losses remain immeasurably relevant to World War II’s Jewish descendants and to humanity itself.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission

EXTENDED: The Berlin Diaries plays through June 29, 2025, presented by Theater J at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($70–$80, with member, student and military discounts available) online, by calling the ticket office at 202-777-3210, or by email (theaterj@theaterj.org).

The program for The Berlin Diaries is online here.

SEE ALSO:
Theater J to present season finale ‘The Berlin Diaries’ (news story, April 30, 2025)

The post In ‘Berlin Diaries’ at Theater J, an absorbing remembrance of lost family appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

Kimberly Akimbo dazzled Broadway in 2022, winning five Tonys the following year, including Best Musical. Now, the national tour of the quirky hit by David Lindsay-Abaire (book, lyrics, and original play) and Jeanine Tesori (music) has landed at the National Theatre, giving the Washington area’s musical fans a hilarious, heartbreaking confection to enjoy.

The play opens at a New Jersey skating rink in 1999. In a deft first number, “Skater Planet,” we meet a quartet of teens who gleefully admit, “We’re too weird in every way.” On the edge of puberty, they’re blooming with all the comical longings and uncertainties that affect youngsters racing toward adulthood. A fifth teen, however, has a special challenge.

Fifteen-year-old Kimberly Levaco (an endearing Carolee Carmello) sits pensively chewing on a candy necklace. A newcomer in town, she’s oddly different. Kim is afflicted with a rare genetic condition that ages her over four times faster than normal. Few with her condition live past the age of 16.

Kim is largely ignored by the skaters, but the desk attendant, also a high school classmate, takes a special interest in her. Seth Weetis, played with delightful goofiness by Miguel Gil, is a neglected kid with a big, unconventional brain. In “Anagram,” he shows his talent in recombining the letters of one word to form another. Kim instantly connects to him, singing, “I like the way you see the world … a little odd, a little off, a bit unorthodox.”

Seth becomes a welcome respite from Kim’s dysfunctional home life. Her dad, Buddy (Jim Hogan), is a stumbling alcoholic saddled with unrealized dreams. Laura Woyasz as Kim’s hypochondriac mom, Pattie, pays intermittent attention to her daughter. Yet she lives with a mother’s worst fears. Pregnant with what’s clearly meant as a replacement of the rapidly aging Kim, she envisions a premature death for herself as well as her elder daughter. Pattie’s funny and touching “Hello, Darling,” sung into a video camera, is an effort to provide a legacy for her unborn child.

Into the mix bounds Mom’s sister, Aunt Debra (Emily Koch), a scene-stealing grifter and ex-con whom the Levacos hoped they’d ditched. The unrepentant Debra has hatched a new scheme to reap riches. Steal a mailbox, extract checks, wash, and repeat. This time, she enlists Kim and her friends to do the dirty work. “How to Wash a Check,” sung uproariously by Debra and her new allies, spells it out.

Small in scale, Kimberly Akimbo (directed by Jessica Stone) tackles some of life’s biggest questions. Each of the characters yearns for a better life, but how and at what cost?  Seth’s plaintive “Good Kid” challenges the notion that morality pays off. The quartet of teens, eager to finance new costumes for an upcoming school show, is poised to follow Debra’s risky scam. The Levacos awkwardly strive to accept Kim’s fate and begin again with a “normal” baby, whose genetic makeup, as it turns out, is also involved in a crime.

Kim simply longs for a normal family life. When the Levacos’ comical attempt to stage a single civil meal spins wildly out of control, Kim and Seth, wise beyond their years, find their own way in the short time she has left. Their duet, “Great Adventure,” speaks to the need to live in the present because “no one gets a second chance.”

A uniformly excellent cast whips Scenic Designer David Zinn’s clever sets from scene to scene, adding to the frothy pace of the production. Sarah Laux’s spot-on costumes aptly recall the 1990s, and Lucy Mackinnon’s video design transports us along Seth and Kim’s exhilarating escape route.

While you might not exit the theater humming an unforgettable tune, Tesori’s music and Lindsay-Abaire’s lyrics etch the eccentric characters beautifully and propel the unconventional plot forward at a zesty pace. Kim’s imminent mortality is turned on its head, revealing life-affirming possibilities. Big issues are treated with a lyrical touch.

When Seth adroitly transforms “Kimberly Levaco” into “Cleverly Akimbo,” he speaks not only for Kim but for the entire production. Clever it is, but the musical’s oddball quality personifies the meaning of akimbo: skewed, off-center, at angles, and in this case, lovably unique.

Running time: Two hours and 15 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission.

The national tour of Kimberly Akimbo plays through June 1, 2025, at the National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington. Tickets (starting at $55) are available online, at the box office, or by calling (202) 628-6161.

The cast and creative credits for the touring production are here.

Enter the Digital Lottery for a chance to purchase $29 tickets to Broadway at The National shows. Learn more here.

COVID Safety: Masks are strongly recommended but not required for all ticket holders. For full COVID protocol, go here.

The post Quirky hit ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ at the National is hilarious and heartbreaking appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

Kate Eastwood Norris and Holly Twyford, two of the DC area’s most accomplished actresses, square off against each other in Sharyn Rothstein’s comedic drama Bad Books at Round House Theatre. It is the latest of many projects these two seasoned performers have shared, and Rothstein gives them a stunning and thoughtful piece to devour.

The earnest, dowdy Mother (Twyford) walks into her local library to confront The Librarian (Norris) over Boob Juice, a book that she recommended to The Mother’s impressionable 15-year-old son. Looking more like a middle-aged punk rocker than a typical bibliophile, the snarky Librarian’s back arches up. She brays about freedom of choice as The Mother asserts her parental rights. Although The Mother admits she read only portions of the book, she’s convinced that this one is inappropriate for her curious teen.

At first, the conversation is laced with mordant wit. The Mother worries that her son spends too much time reading, not a comment that elicits much empathy from a librarian. They trade taunts and boast about their personal challenges, divorce and cancer among them. When it comes to the issues of censorship, however, their thin skins peel back a little more with each riposte, revealing antagonistic red-hot core beliefs.

Finally, The Mother digs frantically in an oversized tote bag for her phone. She films the escalating war of words and posts it online. The consequences of this exposure spiral out uncontrollably, engulfing both characters’ personal and professional lives (and those of unseen others) in myriad unexpected ways. As it turns out, The Mother once wrote a controversial book of her own, one that she subsequently took great pains to suppress. But at least one copy still exists.

We’re witnessing a tiny shard of the culture wars that are playing out everywhere in this fractious country. Where ought parental controls begin and end? What risks do outsiders — even librarians — incur as they open young minds to the outside world? To her credit, Rothstein brings balance to the conflict.

Over 90 minutes, Norris morphs from The Librarian to The Manager (where The Mother is employed) and then into The Editor (who wants to reissue The Mother’s disavowed book), each time etching her character with crystalline precision and brilliantly shifting body language. Twyford remains The Mother, yet her emotions and postures change with great sensitivity as she encounters Norris’ succession of personas, each denoting a difficult passage in The Mother’s own life.

Ivania Stack’s spot-on costumes mark the passage of time and changing circumstances. Twyford’s dull colors, cardigans, and baggy suits speak to her increasing sense of bewilderment. Norris’ tight-fitting jackets and sexy boots enhance her edginess and belie our notions of a genteel librarian. As The Manager, she struts uncomfortably in a starchy suit. As The Editor and self-proclaimed hugger, she is swathed in a generously cut, soft-looking coat.

Directed by Round House’s Artistic Director Ryan Rilette, Bad Books is performed in the round. Scenic Designer Meghan Raham’s several set pieces are arranged on a turntable that revolves slowly throughout the production. A bit distracting at first, the movement actually levels the playing field, enabling audiences to experience all sides of the debate. The circular quality is reinforced by Rothstein’s last vignette: what goes around comes around.

The final scene between the two may strike some as a little too optimistic, especially given today’s cavernous cultural divides. But on an individual level, Bad Books shows us that awkward reconciliations are possible if antagonists stop and listen to one another. While Rothstein clearly advocates for freedom of choice, she never loses sight of the agonizing uncertainties of good parenting, and how hard it is to achieve a balance between protection and liberty.

Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.

EXTENDED: Bad Books plays through May 4, 2025, at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD (one block from Bethesda Metro station). Tickets ($50–$108) can be purchased by calling 240-644-1100, visiting the box office, or online. (Learn more about special discounts here, accessibility here, and the Free Play program for students here.)

The digital program for Bad Books is here.

COVID Safety: Round House Theatre no longer requires that audience members wear masks for most performances. However, masks are required for the performances April 22 and 26 (matinee). Round House’s complete Health and Safety policy is here.

Bad Books
By Sharyn Rothstein
Directed by Ryan Rilette
Featuring Kate Eastwood Norris and Holly Twyford
A National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere

SEE ALSO:
Sharyn Rothstein looks at censorship ‘through the eyes of a badass librarian’ (interview by Ravelle Brickman, March 29, 2025)
Round House Theatre announces lineup for fourth annual festival of new work (news story, March 5, 2025)

The post Stunning ‘Bad Books’ excerpts red-hot culture wars at Round House Theatre appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

American audiences simply can’t get enough of Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Age of Innocence. Since 1924, this evergreen tale of forbidden love against the backdrop of stifling societal norms has been adapted for screen, radio, and stage, with the title roles played by legendary actresses from Irene Dunn to Michelle Pfeiffer. Wharton’s beloved story has been reimagined yet again by Karen Zacarías in an ambitious new staging directed by Hana S. Sharif at Arena Stage.

Zacarías resurrects Wharton’s depiction of New York’s upper class in the 1870s, followers of a playbook of social behavior that was as exacting as it was cruel. Some of the players delighted in its intricacies while others lived their lives in blissful conformity, unaware of the glass bubble in which they dwelled. A very few yearned to break out and live more authentic lives. Fewer still succeeded in doing so.

The story focuses on Newland Archer (A.J. Shively), an up-and-coming young lawyer who is set to wed the charming and attractive May Welland (Delphi Borich). May is truly a creation of her class — obedient and seemingly vacuous. All is well until Newland becomes mesmerized by his bride-to-be’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska (Shereen Ahmed), a beautiful and sensuous woman who has made a disastrous marriage to a brutish European nobleman. Returning to New York to escape him, Ellen is greeted with a fluctuating mix of sympathy and misogyny. The action, played out among the rituals and social mores of New York’s wealthy families, jeopardizes Archer’s society marriage and nearly suffocates him emotionally.

Arena’s four-sided Fichandler theater offers stunning possibilities for a world that is literally closing in on its main characters. Set designer Tim Mackabee summons New York’s society to the old Academy of Music with four gilded boxes that thrust out from each corner of the stage. As the opera progresses (mutely!), the genteel boxholders use their opera glasses only to spy on one another. They are shocked to see the Countess seated with her family. It’s one thing to welcome her back and quite another to parade her out in society. From the very start, we glimpse the invisible barriers that govern the characters’ lives.

An elevator center stage rises and falls, each time ushering us into an elaborate dinner party or a plush drawing room. We travel from New York to the Gilded Age’s watering holes in St. Augustine and Newport in a few deft moves of overstuffed daybeds and cut-glass lamps.

Yet the technological wizardry of this production seems at times to overwhelm character development. The complex relationship between Archer and May is never fully fleshed out, nor does the attraction between Archer and Ellen feel particularly intense. Without these emotional wallops, the ending feels abrupt and hollow rather than the culmination of inexorable social forces. Nonetheless, both women, each in their own way, shatter Newland. Ellen accomplishes this by withdrawal, and May, by attachment.

Despite this weakness, there is much else to commend in the Arena production. Anna Theoni DiGiovanni (playing Janey Archer and others), Paolo Montalban (as Julius Beaufort and others), Anthony Newfield (as Sillerton Jackson and others), and the rest of the cast add well-sketched portrayals to the production. With little to distract them from dressing, dining, partying, and gossiping about one another, they provide vivid portraits of the Gilded Age. Felicia Curry’s star turn as the Narrator weaves the story together with wry observations. A worthy vehicle for Wharton’s gorgeous prose, Curry also folds herself neatly in and out of the action as Ellen and May’s Granny Mingott, the ironic and all-knowing social priestess with a heart of gold. Curry has the most fun of anyone with these meaty, pivotal roles.

Fabio Toblini’s period costumes are richly layered and exquisitely tailored. Most are crafted from neutral fabrics: rich browns, creamy whites, beiges, and subdued shades of mauve. Against these limited shades of propriety, the unconventional Ellen stands out in her gorgeous jewel tones — ruby red and emerald green.

Edith Wharton once said, “Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.” The Age of Innocence deftly explores the tightropes each of its characters must tread. They are all just a scandal away from falling off into a social abyss from which they can’t recover. Perhaps it’s that eternal tension, the emotional jigging going on just under mannered façades, that makes The Age of Innocence resonate with viewers more than a century after it was written.

Running Time: Three hours with one 15-minute intermission.

The Age of Innocence plays through March 30, 2025, in the Fichandler Stage at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St SW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($59–$99) are available at the box office two hours before a performance, by phone at 202-488-3300, or online. Arena Stage’s many savings programs include “pay your age” tickets for those aged 35 and under; military, first responder, and educator discounts; student discounts; and “Southwest Nights” for those living and working in the District’s Southwest neighborhood. To learn more, visit arenastage.org/savings-programs.

The program for The Age of Innocence is downloadable here.

COVID Safety: Arena Stage recommends but does not require that patrons wear facial masks in theaters except in designated mask-required performance (Tuesday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m). For up-to-date information, visit arenastage.org/safety.

SEE ALSO:
Arena Stage announces cast and creative team for ‘The Age of Innocence’ (news story, February 3, 2025)

The post A vivid portrait of stifling high society in ‘The Age of Innocence’ at Arena Stage appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

A new city, a new school, and divorcing parents would be enough to drive any ten-year-old into a tailspin. But when Mom is in bed coping with depression, Dad is out schtupping every woman in town, Nana’s sloshing down Manhattans, and your big sister refuses to acknowledge you in public, the odds are even higher that you’ll crash. Add to that chronic bedwetting, and this kid is bound for trouble.

Sarah Silverman endured all of it. Fortunately, she had the artistic brilliance to spin her childhood crises into comic gold. Arena Stage’s new production of The Bedwetter, based on Silverman’s hilarious memoir The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, is a wonderfully funny, touching beam of sunshine in a capital city that urgently needs some levity right now.

Originally produced by New York’s Atlantic Theater in 2022, the Arena version, again directed by Anne Kauffman, zings along with high-end energy propelled by an exceptional cast, excellent staging, and songs that drive the plot forward with humor, nuance, and tenderness.

The imp-like, irresistible Aria Kane as Sarah introduces herself at her new school (“Hi, My Name Is Sarah”) with a riptide of verboten language that passed for ordinary discourse at home. (On opening night, one could only wish she had been better miked so we could make out every risqué word.) Shamed by her teacher Mrs. Dembo (Alysha Umphress) and instantly reviled by her cliquish fifth-grade classmates, Sarah stands apart — carelessly dressed, potty-mouthed and undeniably “Jew-y.” Finally, she gains probational status among the “in-girls” — Abby (Emerson Holt Lacayo), Amy (Elin Joy Seiler), and Ally (Alina Santos) — only to be cast out again when they discover her shameful secret.

Several addled adults flutter around Sarah, trying to help but limited by their own problems. Her dad, Donald (a terrific Darren Goldstein), traffics in cheap, off-brand ladies’ clothing that he peddles with the practiced sleaze of a used-car salesman. His “In My Line of Work” gives a wink and a nod to the range of services he provides to his female clients. Donald is also a sweet, oafish father who sends Sarah first to a clueless hypnotist and then to a deranged doctor (both played by Rick Crom) who prescribes massive doses of Xanax. Terrific projections and a bevy of gigantic, dancing pills illustrate Sarah’s plummet into a medical abyss.

Shoshana Bean, as Sarah’s mom, Beth Ann, nearly steals the show from the confines of her bed. Hopelessly imprisoned by depression, she gathers Sarah and her sister Laura (Avery Harris) into an embrace, proclaiming that she will be “There for You” even if she might never rouse herself to attend a school event. Bean’s voice, bright as a laser and smooth as butter, evinces both love and sadness that’s truly heartbreaking.

Elegant whiskey-soaked Nana (Liz Larsen) embraces Sarah yet acknowledges that this unusual child is a granddaughter that only a grandma could love (“To Me”). Underneath Nana’s wry persona, however, is a family tragedy she has clearly tried to drown.

It’s the near-mythic Miss New Hampshire (Ashley Blanchet) — a Miss America wannabe — who provides the crucial breakthrough for Sarah by admitting on national TV that she, too, once had a nighttime problem.

Set designer David Korins starts this show with a stark backdrop of what looks like corrugated cardboard panels. What could emerge from that, we wonder. As it turns out, a lot. Waiting rooms, classrooms, school lockers, Beth Ann’s ruffled bedroom, and more rush out on wheels, transforming Sarah’s childhood settings during fast-paced vignettes. Lighting designer Japhy Weideman complements Sarah’s world with colors ranging from warm Crayola hues to the ghoulish tones that dance through Sarah’s frightful skirmishes with modern medicine. Kay Voyce’s spot-on costumes usher us back to the ’80s, and video designer Lucy Mackinnon resurrects cartoons and late-night TV staples of Sarah’s youth to great effect.

The Bedwetter treats a ten-year-old’s emotional life with care and complexity. Not quite pre-teen but clearly not a little girl anymore, Sarah yearns for her more carefree days — like last year, maybe. “When I Was Nine,” sung beautifully by father and daughter, looks back to less complicated times. At its best, growing up is fraught with pitfalls. Sarah’s circumstances make it insanely challenging. Yet, with signature wit, she climbs out of a dark place, taking everyone around her on a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.

As Washington reels from political and cultural havoc, Silverman’s hilarious and poignant recollection of her own childhood reminds us that exclusion sucks and accessibility counts. The Bedwetter could not have landed in Washington at a more opportune time.

Running Time: One hour 40 minutes with no intermission.

Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter – A New Musical plays through March 16, 2025, in the Kreeger Theater at Arena Stage, 1101 6th Street SW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($69–$149) may be obtained online, by phone at 202-488-3300, or in person at the Sales Office (Tuesday-Sunday, 12-8 p.m.). Arena Stage offers savings programs including “pay your age” tickets for those aged 35 and under, student discounts, and “Southwest Nights” for those living and working in the District’s Southwest neighborhood. To learn more, visit arenastage.org/savings-programs.

The program for The Bedwetter is downloadable here.

COVID Safety: Arena Stage recommends but does not require that patrons wear facial masks in theaters except in designated mask-required performance (Tuesday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m). For up-to-date information, visit arenastage.org/safety.

Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter – A New Musical
Book by Joshua Harmon & Sarah Silverman
Music by Adam Schlesinger
Lyrics by Sarah Silverman & Adam Schlesinger
Additional Music & Lyrics by David Yazbek
Based upon The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee
Choreographed by Danny Mefford
Directed by Anne Kauffman
By Special Arrangement with Tom Kirdahy and Barry and Fran Weissler

SEE ALSO:
Arena Stage casts Shoshana Bean to lead Sarah Silverman’s ‘The Bedwetter’ (news story, December 16, 2025)

The post Sarah Silverman’s hilarious and poignant ‘The Bedwetter’ opens at Arena Stage appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

Playwright Bruce Norris doesn’t shrink from the hard stuff. In Downstate, his 2018 drama now playing at Studio Theatre, he tackles one of society’s most egregious crimes. Rather than focusing his high beam solely on those we typically identify as victims, however, he invites us into the lives of perpetrators. The result is a theater piece that is as brilliant as it is disturbing, as itchy and edgy as it is achingly humane.

At a halfway house in downstate Illinois, four convicted sex offenders dwell in near-obscurity. They’ve all done prison time, but some remain locked in ankle monitors, and all are constrained by unseen barriers. On her weekly visit, their overworked probation officer, Ivy (Kelli Blackwell), informs them that the city has expanded the distance they must keep from a local school, leaving the men cut off from a local bus line and a nearby grocery store. The world they’re permitted to navigate has notched down once again.

Banned from the internet, smartphones, cars, and cable TV, their lives are pale shadows of the sensory-rich world that most of us take for granted. Yet each is a full human being with a unique history and passions.

They also vary in their self-evaluations of their crimes. The elderly Fred (Dan Daily), a benign former piano teacher who genuinely regrets having abused his students, was crippled by a prison mate sporting steel-toed boots. The glad-handing Gio (Jaysen Wright) discounts his trespasses as strictly statutory and projects a cockeyed optimism about his imagined future in business. Dee (Stephen Conrad Moore), a one-time performer in traveling Broadway musicals, brags that his underage male partner sent him love letters for six years into his incarceration. He busies himself taking care of Fred and managing the meager household. Felix (Richard Ruiz Henry), who is outed by Ivy for having tried to contact the daughter he raped, suffers profoundly, and mostly in tortured silence.

The action turns on a visit from Andy (Tim Getman), one of Fred’s former piano students, and Andy’s wife, Em (Emily Kester). Now a financial services executive in Chicago, the well-off Andy has been encouraged by his survivors’ group to confront Fred directly. Bumbling his way through a prepared statement, Andy hardly evokes much sympathy. When Andy returns in the second act to retrieve his “forgotten” phone, the confrontation turns more vitriolic, and consequential.

Norris’ precise, clever dialogue builds nuanced characters right before our eyes. If we don’t exactly empathize with the offenders’ sense of victimhood, we at least glimpse their own tragedies, real and imagined. Only the hapless Andy lacks the dimensionality that Norris invests in the others, until even he erupts. One could look at his character as an over-indulged millennial hell-bent on revenge or as a man whose life has truly been impeded by the abuse he endured. In any case, he ends up as the least attractive character in the play and the one who, by contrast, forces us to see the offenders in a more sympathetic light.

Norris punctuates the play with punchy interactions and one-liners, exactly what any of us might do to prick ballooning household tensions. The playwright is also unafraid of silence. Evocative small moments of pause, beautifully complemented by Stacey Derosier’s lighting, allow engrossed audience members the time to grasp their own evolving reactions.

Set designer Alexander Woodward provides a homely but tidy living room decorated with well-worn second-hand furniture, likely donated by community members. It’s a communal space but it also sports personal touches such as Fred’s electronic piano and Gio’s gym apparatus. We see the roof line above, giving us the impression of peering into the exposed side of a doll house. As Ivy says, the men are lucky to have a roof over their heads. But community support only goes so far. Cardboard covers a shot-out front window that no one is inclined to repair. A baseball bat sits inside the front door — the men’s only defense from possible intruders.

Director David Muse inspires superb performances from the ensemble. Of the four reprobates, the sardonic Dee has the most trenchant lines, but all are terrific in their roles, as are the women, including Irene Hamilton as Gio’s ditsy friend Effie. They draw us powerfully into their orbit with a rare kind of immediacy and even charm.

When should punishment end and a period of grace begin? Norris leaves us with no easy answers. At minimum, even as we decry their crimes, we can no longer paint the abusers with a broad, dismissive brush. These are individuals who’ve paid their dues and live in plain sight yet continue to dwell in purgatory.

Running Time: Two hours and 30 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.

Downstate plays through February 16, 2025, in the Victor Shargai Theatre at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($50–$102, with low-cost options and discounts available) online or by calling the box office at (202) 332-3300.

The program for Downstate is online here.

COVID Safety: Masks are recommended but not required. Studio Theatre’s complete Health and Safety protocols are here.

The post At home with sex offenders in brilliant and disturbing ‘Downstate’ at Studio appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

Some plays just get better with age. An Irish Carol, now in its 14th year at DC’s Keegan Theatre, is one of those gems. When I first saw Matthew J. Keenan’s holiday play back in 2017, I was impressed by the clever updating of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with modern stand-ins for Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, and other broadly sketched characters. This time, it was the profound humanity that stood out.

It’s Christmas Eve 2008 at Dennehy’s Pub in Dublin City. The owner, David, wonderfully played by Kevin Adams, lumbers through the well-worn premises, shouldering decades of accumulated pain and anger. His basset-hound expression speaks to a life of disappointment.

Only a couple of “regulars,” the good-natured Jim (Michael Replogle) and the rapscallion Frank (Timothy H. Lynch), come by for a drink. Most others have been driven off by David’s foul disposition and the real-life recession caused in part by the UK’s wobbly banking loans that year. With a combination of lively banter and salty humor, the lads try to coax David out of his ever-deepening funk, to little avail.

No one in David’s diminished world is unscathed by his churlishness. He barks at patrons but saves his most mean-spirited bile for his bartender Bartek, played with exquisite sensitivity and open-hearted pluck by Taylor Witt. A Polish immigrant grateful for his job, Bartek endures David’s harsh treatment with a good-natured belief that his boss cloaks his essential decency with outward disregard. Nonetheless, Bartek is momentarily stunned when David orders him to report for work at “half-nine” on Christmas Day to prepare lunch for expected guests. Never mind that Bartek has a wife and daughter, and the child’s seventh birthday happens to fall on December 25. After half a beat, the bartender submits to his boss’ demand.

Several other characters make brief appearances, each one rebuffed while revealing a bit more about David’s character. His brother Michael (played alternately by Mike Kozemchak and Theo Hadjimichael) comes by to entreat David to close the bar and join his family for a festive Christmas Eve meal. He hasn’t seen his nephews in years, and now a third child is on the way. As usual, David declines, claiming he can’t leave his business, though the bar is almost empty.

The lively young couple Simon (Jared H. Graham) and Anna (played alternately by Sarah Chapin and Brigid Wallace Harper) burst in to announce their engagement. Simon, a former employee and a budding entrepreneur, is brimming with ideas to turn Dennehy’s into another hip watering spot in yuppifying Dublin. When David resists, Anna, a special education teacher, blames Simon for his naked ambition.

The final guest, Richard (Daniel Lyons and Matt J. Bannister) gets to the heart of David’s fierce anger. A former Dennehy’s employee who stole David’s long-time girlfriend from the boss, Richard bears a missive he promised to deliver to David from his now-departed wife. Like the transformation of Scrooge wrought by Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past, we know where this is going. Anger and remorse slowly lift from David’s shoulders, and his bedraggled countenance reignites with warmth as he reads the letter to himself.

Redemption sometimes appears in the unlikeliest of places. The age-old Dennehy’s Pub, masterfully created by Scenic Designer (and playwright) Matthew J. Keenan and Set Dressing Designer Cindy Landrum Jacobs, has seen its share of unruly mockery and drunken fisticuffs over the years. Under the wise direction of Mark A. Rhea and a talented cast of lovable miscreants and young dreamers, it becomes a place of grace. An Irish Carol offers up a lively mix of passion and wit to deliver its message of forgiveness and hope. It ends just as Dickens would wish.

Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

An Irish Carol plays through December 31, 2024, at the Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church Street NW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($69, with discounts available for patrons under 25 and over 62) may be purchased online, by phone at 202-265-3767, or in person at the Keegan Theatre Box Office, which opens on the day of the show one hour prior to the performance.

Cast and production team credits and bios are here (scroll down).

COVID Safety: Masks are optional but encouraged. Keegan’s Health and Safety policies are here.

The post Profound humanity is on tap in ‘An Irish Carol’ at Keegan Theatre appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

What does it mean to feel safe? For the world’s Jewish population, this question has never gone away. Chased throughout Europe and the Middle East over millennia, they’ve endured unspeakable horrors and have made extraordinary contributions to the societies in which they’ve lived.

In his ambitious Prayer for the French Republic, Joshua Harmon explores the notion of safety as he focuses on a Jewish family living in post–World War II Paris and their descendants who still live there in 2016–2017. Harmon’s 2022 play, which premiered Off-Broadway and then moved to Broadway in 2023, is receiving its DC regional premiere at Theater J. The theater’s artistic director, Hayley Finn, directs this soul-stirring work.

The comfortable, urbane life of Marcelle Salomon (Danielle Skraastad) and Charles Benhamou (Ariel Eliaz) is rudely interrupted when son Daniel (Ethan J. Miller), a math teacher at a Jewish school, arrives home one day with a bloodied face and a black eye. Marcelle, who’s Ashkenazi Jewish family has lived a largely assimilated life in France for generations, angrily blames this antisemitic attack on Daniel’s insistence on wearing a kippah in public. For Charles, the attack revives raw memories of a much more recent upheaval. Born in Algeria, Charles was forced to flee with his family when the country gained independence in 1962. Many of Algeria’s French-speaking Sephardic Jews resettled in France. Now, it may be time to flee again. It’s a choice, Charles says, between “the coffin or the suitcase.”

The argument for and against immigration, this time to Israel, sprawls across nearly three hours of tense, ironic, and mordantly funny interactions between the Benhamous, their troubled but whip-smart daughter Elodie (Dani Stoller), Marcelle’s secular, bombastic brother Patrick (Cody Nickell), and a visiting young American cousin, Molly (Jourdan Lewanda). Patrick also serves as a narrator, weaving together the Salomons’ multigenerational saga and placing it in a grisly historical context going back long before the Crusades.

Through flashbacks, we meet Marcelle and Patrick’s family, great-grandparents. Irma (Brigid Cleary) and Adolphe Salomon (Stephen Patrick Martin) stayed in Paris and survived the war but lost many family members, including son Lucien’s wife and daughters. Lucien’s traumatized son Pierre (Jeremy Allen Crawford) and his father return to Paris but will almost never speak of the horrors they witnessed in the camps. They rebuild the family piano business looted by the Nazis, reassemble their pre-war lives, and largely disappear as Jews into a secular society.

The challenge in such a sweeping narrative is to balance character development with the larger underlying themes of nationalism, antisemitism, Zionism, assimilation, and historic persecution. Harmon is largely successful in making us care about his characters. Only occasionally do they lapse into mere mouthpieces for competing ideologies. Theater J’s actors flesh out their roles and encourage us to care deeply for them. Skraastad’s depiction of Marcelle and Miller’s embodiment of Daniel and Lucien are real standouts.

Over three acts, the drama builds toward a volcanic family Seder, where accusations of blame and shame, religiosity, secularism, politics, and polemics fly across the table in all directions. When the time comes for the traditional opening of the front door for the prophet Elijah, Marcelle recoils. The real-life 2017 murder of a Parisian Jewish teacher in her own apartment chills the evening and raises Marcelle’s sense of vulnerability. By the end of that ritual meal, no character is left unchallenged or unchanged.

Misha Kachman’s smart and simple scenic design transports us easily from past to present. He also makes effective use of the apron for Elodie’s show-stopping “conversation” with Molly — a manic deluge of assertions and disdain triggered by the naïve Molly’s bland criticism of Israeli settlements.

Colin K. Bills’ lighting design ably aids the transitions between past and present. Warmer light suffuses the flashbacks while brighter, colder light helps us examine the families’ complicated present-day concerns. Danielle Preston’s costume design, particularly for Marcelle, illuminates her journey from relative comfort to doubt. When we meet Marcelle, she is the epitome of Parisian chic. Her outfits become more modest over time, and her makeup, visibly subdued.

As the Benhamous wrestle with their decision to stay or go, France itself was coming to terms with Marine Le Pen’s first serious bid for office. Patrick scoffs at the possibility that the right-wing daughter of a notorious Holocaust denier would ever win the French presidency. But in the years that have followed Harmon’s important play, Le Pen’s National Front has indeed grown, as have antisemitic incidents throughout the country and elsewhere. We hope against hope that the present decade will not someday be seen by historians as the leading edge of yet another mass displacement.

Running time: Three hours with two 10-minute intermissions

Prayer for the French Republic plays through November 24, 2024, presented by Theater J at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($50–$80, with member, student and military discounts available) online or by calling the ticket office at 202-777-3210, or by email (theaterj@theaterj.org).

The program for Prayer for the French Republic is online here.

The post Safety eludes two generations of Jews in Joshua Harmon’s soul-stirring ‘Prayer for the French Republic’ at Theater J appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

Few productions in American musical theater history can claim as thrilling a debut as Marc Blitzstein’s 1937 The Cradle Will Rock. Mounted by the energetic young team of John Houseman and Orson Welles under the auspices of the New Deal’s Federal Theatre Project, Blitzstein’s searing attack on the evils of unrestrained wealth and power was ready to premiere in New York when the U.S. Government yanked its support and barred the theater doors. A combination of slashed budgets and growing unease with the production’s left-leaning content was to blame.

Welles and company seized on a brilliant alternative. Skirting federal and Actors’ Equity restrictions, they found another theater. In lieu of a full orchestra, Blitzstein sat at a borrowed piano on a bare stage and played the entire score alone. The actors sang from seats in the audience, so that technically they were not violating an Actors’ Equity order against participating in an unauthorized performance, and the show went on.

Wild cheers erupted from the audience and this renegade opera became the stuff of theater legend. In fact, the scaled-down version has become the norm in most subsequent productions.

Washington’s esteemed IN Series has mounted a rousing new production of The Cradle Will Rock as the kickoff to its new season, entitled “Illicit Opera.” Each upcoming production was censored in its own time.

Blitzstein’s work takes place in Steeltown, USA, a company town ruled by the oligarch Mr. Mister. Seeking to suppress a powerful effort to unionize his business, Mister and his wife corrupt nearly everyone in town with menacing threats and handsome payoff. Only the labor organizer Larry Foreman resists Mister’s efforts.

There’s no subtlety in Blitzstein’s townspeople. Every one of them is an exaggerated type, from the prostitute Moll and Foreman the organizer to the irreverent Reverend Salvation, the fawning artist Dauber, and the blustering newspaper editor Daily. The wonderfully outlandish costumes by Yvette Pino and Kelly Rakell Foye enhance the cartoonish character of Steeltown’s compromised citizens.

The score, however, is a marvel of complexity. Insistently modern and constantly shape-shifting, Blitstein’s composition pays homage to masters like Stravinsky along with American genres such as jazz and blues throughout the show. Alternating solo songs and some spoken word with forceful choruses, the score propels us through the Steeltown saga with a palpable tension that never lets up.

Shanara Gabrielle directs the talented nine-member cast (Melanie Ashkar, Teresa Ferrara, Cecelia McKinley, Louisa Waycott, Marvin Wayne, Rob McGinness, Daniel Fleming, Jacob Heacock, Daniel Smith). Almost all of them play multiple parts, navigating their quick-changing singing and acting roles with grace and agility. They are accompanied by Music Director and Pianist Emily Baltzer, whose nonstop performance undergirds the production. During a fascinating post-performance discussion, Baltzer noted that her upright piano had been fitted with low-tech thumbtacks and felt pads to provide the combination of warmth and tinniness that she felt the score warranted. Occasionally, however, the voices could not be clearly heard over the accompaniment, blurring Blitzstein’s razor-sharp lyrics.

Ethan Sinnott’s handsome set recalls Frank Lloyd Wright’s classic designs from the era. Combining soaring upright panels, geometric floor patterns, and sturdy intersecting metal grids, the set echoes the rhythmic structure of the music itself. It allowed characters to variously surmount, enclose, imprison, or embrace one another as the action moves from scene to scene. With Paul Callahan’s lighting, the stage set effectively spotlights characters for standout solos such as the Moll’s “The Nickel Under Your Foot,” and Ella Hammer’s riveting “Joe Worker,” as well as the vaudevillian duet sung by Mister’s spoiled children, “Spoon Croon.”

Marc Blitzstein, a Philadelphian of Russian-Jewish heritage, absorbed a natural sympathy for the working class along with his love of music. He studied with some of the most distinguished musical talents of the era, including Arnold Schoenberg, and was influenced by the successful collaborations of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, to whom The Cradle Will Rock was dedicated.

With its clownish characters, strident lyrics, and unequivocal belief in the powers of good and evil, it’s tempting to see this opera as somewhat dated. Nonetheless, look again. The parallels between the 1930s and today’s reboot of totalitarian impulses are hard to miss. The IN Series’ new production is exquisitely timed.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

The Cradle Will Rock plays October 12 and 13, 2024, presented by IN Series performing at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($40–$77) online or by calling 202-204-7763.

The Cradle Will Rock also plays October 18, 19, and 20, 2024, at the Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 West Preston St., Baltimore, MD. Purchase tickets ($20–$30) online or by calling 410-752-8558

Cast and creative team bios are here.

The Cradle Will Rock
Text and Music by Marc Blitzstein

Director: Shanara Gabrielle
Music Director and Pianist: Emily Baltzer
Set Designer: Ethan Sinnott
Costume Designers: Yvette Pino and Kelly Rakell Foye
Lighting Designer: Paul Callahan
Associate Lighting Designer: Mitchell Robinson
Assistant Director: Theo Yu
Production Managers: Tori Schuchmann and Willow McFatter
Technical Director: Megan Amos
Stage Manager: Regina Vitale

CAST
Melanie Ashkar: Moll
Teresa Ferrara: Harriet Druggist
Cecelia McKinley Mrs. Mister, Ella Hammer
Louisa Waycott: President Prexy, Sadie, Sister Mister, Cop
Marvin Wayne: Larry Foreman, Dick
Rob McGinness: Mr. Mister, Reverend Salvation, Bugs
Daniel Fleming: Editor Daily, Professor Trixie, Steve
Jacob Heacock: Yasha, Junior Mister, Dr. Specialist, Professor Scoot, Gent
Daniel Smith: Dauber, Professor Mamie, Gus

SEE ALSO:
‘Justice and joy’: Shanara Gabrielle on theater with a social conscience (interview by John Stoltenberg, September 27, 2024)
IN Series announces 2024/25 season: ‘Illicit Opera’ (news story, May 27, 2024)

The post A rousing production of renegade ‘The Cradle Will Rock’ from IN Series appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

When 16-year-old Rosie announces that she’s decided to become a nun, a fastball game of hilarity, hubris, and humility spools out among her family members in Jon Klein’s new play, Faithless. Religion is no small issue to the members of this strong-minded clan. Each of them has staked out a territory.

Stepfather Gus Stanton has spent his life as an outspoken atheist. Son Calvin became a Protestant minister, and daughter Claire teaches comparative religion at a local school. They’ve all dug into their beliefs deeply, but as a series of crises punctuate this sharply etched play, Klein’s four characters find their worldviews challenged and realigned.

Gus (Ron Litman) calls a family council of his adult children to dissuade the impressionable Rosie, who was adopted from a Catholic orphanage as a youngster, from her proposed headlong rush into a cloistered life. The twice-divorced Claire (Patricia Hurley) can hardly believe that Rosie (Hannah Taylor) would choose celibacy. Like her stepfather, Claire is a skeptic until, recovering from a head injury, she conjures visions of the beautiful beyond. Calvin (Ben Blackman) neatly skirts questions of sexuality but Catholicism is not his choice. Outwardly smooth and self-satisfied, Calvin, too, totters with tremors of doubt.

Unseen but omnipresent is Gus’ late wife, who died recently of COVID, leaving the family unmoored and a tad accusatory. Mom’s Bible sits on the mantelpiece. When confronted with it, Gus, a career insurance man, counters with an actuarial table — which he insists is the only source of human truth. That Bible is far from done, however. By the play’s quirky end, it has come back to bite nearly everyone in different ways.

Steven Carpenter directs this sparkling new drama at the Washington Stage Guild’s Undercroft Theatre. Klein provides him with first-rate material. The playwright’s sure-fire dialogue combines lofty questions with very funny analogies to popular culture. Watch how he references time-shares, dodgeballs, crowbars, and “Little House on the Prairie” as his all-too-human characters slug it out.

Calvin reminds Gus that Fifty Shades of Grey has vastly outsold the Scriptures. What does that say about human nature? Yet, Klein also infuses the play with references to James Joyce’s canonical 1916 novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Gus claims that his failed attempt to read this book in his own youth paved the way to his atheism. Returning to it as an elder, he dissolves in tears.

Scenic Designer Gisela Estrada provides a handsome and flexible set to accommodate the play’s quick-changing scenes. Costume Designer Cheyenne Taylor Hill cloaks the characters in an assortment of russet tones at the chummy beginning of the play. Later, as the tension brews, their costume changes morph into sharper, more individualized coloring before culminating in shades of black.

Knowing chuckles permeated the theater as patrons perhaps recalled their own familial struggles over religion. Klein’s incisive take on the subject — always witty and generous of spirit — would be well worth watching before your own clan sits down to its next holiday dinner.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

Faithless plays through October 20, 2024, presented by Washington Stage Guild performing at The Undercroft Theatre at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Prices are $50 for Thursday evening performances and Saturday and Sunday matinees, and $60 for Saturday and Sunday evenings. Students are half-price, and seniors over 65 get a $10 discount. Tickets can be purchased online.

Cast and creative credits are here.

COVID Safety: Masks are recommended (not required). Washington Stage Guild’s complete Health and Safety Policy is here.

The post A family feuds over belief in sparkling new ‘Faithless’ at Washington Stage Guild appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

How many times have we heard the phrase “if these walls could talk”? Well, in Lauren Yee’s play The Hatmaker’s Wife, the Wall not only speaks; it rains down pages of text, detailing a story that’s far from pretty. Whether audience members at DC’s Theater J, in a last-of-season production directed by Dan Rothenberg, buy this conceit or not depends on their capacity for whimsy seasoned generously with magic realism.

Yee’s quirky tale concerns a nervous young couple just moving into their first shared home, a wretched suburban rental fully furnished with the owners’ collection of junk. Almost immediately, the living room wall begins to speak, spooking the female tenant and drawing her away from her partner into the lives of the previous owners, Hetchman (Maboud Ebrahimzadeh) and his long-suffering wife (Sue Jin Song). Past and present dwell uneasily together as the young tenant (Ashley D. Nguyen), identified only as Voice, grabs at the cascading pages that chronicle the Hetchmans’ tale. Her frustrated boyfriend Gabe (Tyler Herman) can neither sense nor hear what’s agitating his partner. Yet all around them, the Hetchmans’ gloomy past unspools anew.

Retired from his work as the town’s top hatmaker, Hetchman sits like a lump in a wretched easy chair that occupies center stage. He munches on junk food and yanks anything he needs, from Kleenexes to the TV remote, with the help of mechanical grabbers.

After a lifetime of subservience, Hetchman’s wife silently leaves him, carrying with her his most beloved possession — a beautiful hat that he has made and wears all the time. He barely notices her absence until his neighbor and friend Meckel (Michael Russotto) points out that both the wife and the hat have disappeared at the same time. When the bereaved widower Meckel suggests that Hetchman write to her, the extent of Hetchman’s neglect becomes apparent — he cannot remember her given name. She is simply Hetchman’s wife.

Will the wife return with the beloved fedora? How can a lifetime of wrongdoing be reconciled? The Voice reads on, hungrily devouring the dropped pages as well as the Wall’s (Alex Tatarsky) enigmatic pronouncements.

Pamela Weiner’s funky, creative props animate the story. A swaddled infant drops in and out from above, each up and down movement serving as a barometer of love expressed or withheld by Hetchman as he works on his hats. Clearly he can’t make emotional room for both. Glowing jars, hauled in by an unexpected guest, contain secrets and memories tinged with regret. Scenic designer Misha Kachman’s junk-strewn set echoes Hetchman’s wretched mental state. Despite the clutter, however, the play doesn’t settle into any particular decade.

Costume designer Ivania Stack dresses Hetchman’s wife in long skirts and a light green duster redolent of the 1920s while Meckel’s gaudy garb is straight out of Miami of the 1950s. Meckel’s and the Hetchmans’ Yiddish-accented English mark them as Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Hetchman has mastered a long-gone trade, but he now sits in his easy chair scrounging for Cheetos and aiming his remote. Depending on one’s tolerance for ambiguity, such anachronisms will seem either charmingly vague or somewhat annoying.

At its best, The Hatmaker’s Wife is a tale of love, and lack thereof. It reminds us that emotions, tenaciously bottled up, wither the bonds that give our lives meaning. No hat, however exquisitely made, can protect its wearer from the need for meaningful human connection.

Running Time: 100 minutes with no intermission.

The Hatmaker’s Wife plays through June 25, 2024, presented by Theater J at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($50–$70, with member and military discounts available) online, by calling the ticket office at 202-777-3210, or by email (theaterj@theaterj.org).

The program for The Hatmaker’s Wife is online here

The post Love and magic realism in a haunted rental in Theater J’s ‘The Hatmaker’s Wife’ appeared first on DC Theater Arts.