For a self-professed ghost story, The Woman in Black starts with something unexpected: jokes. For nearly the first 10 minutes, the play is legitimately funny and lighthearted, with little to suggest that it will ever become spooky or suspenseful, let alone haunting.

But rest assured, The Woman in Black — written by Stephen Mallatratt based on the 1983 book by Susan Hill — does eventually become ghostly, and the Keegan Theatre’s “back by popular demand” production, now playing through November 17, is thoroughly haunting in its best moments, even if it struggles to ascend beyond its main trick of spine-tingling suspense.

Those first 10 minutes of The Woman in Black, directed here by Josh Sticklin, establish the play’s central conceit: Arthur Kipps, an older gentleman played by Robert Leembruggen, has enlisted the help of a young theatermaker to bring to life a harrowing encounter with a ghost he experienced when he was a young solicitor. The unnamed performer, played by Noah Mutterperl, eventually decides to play the young Kipps himself, while the elder Kipps takes on all the various other roles in the show.

The play, then, is structured around this metanarrative, jumping back and forth between the present, in which the actor and the elder Kipps talk about the play they will create, and the past, in which the play is actually created, and we see the young Kipps make his way to the extremely isolated Eel Marsh House to settle the estate of a reclusive woman whose very name appears to turn people away.

This is, of course, a ghost story, so Kipps’ trip naturally leads to a series of hauntings — told through a series of set pieces — that leave him increasingly worse for wear. Each of these set pieces feels genuinely spooky as the mood shifts and tension fills the air, with increasing effect. There are few jump scares, but there are long periods when you wait with bated breath for one that may or may not come.

The production design carries much of the weight in these set pieces, not from any fault of Leembruggen or Mutterperl — both handle what can be verbose dialogue and depict fear well — but because the “story” part of this ghost story is mostly just exposition, while the “ghost” sections are where the play really shines. And it is the design that is so effective at creating a hair-raising atmosphere in this intimate theater.

Brandon Cook’s soundscapes are deep and layered, complete with an undercurrent of low tones that makes everything feel a little off balance. Sage Green’s lighting design is equally eerie, with dramatic light beams and incredibly dark shadows that anything could pop out of. And Sticklin’s scenic design, together with Paris Francesca’s costuming, blends a few turn-of-the-century eras to create The Woman in Black’s olden aesthetic.

Still, while the spectral set pieces are effectively spooky, they are also so self-contained that the context of the rest of the story becomes insignificant. That is particularly true of the titular Woman. Kipps spends much of his time at Eel Marsh investigating who she is and why she is now haunting the house, and yet her origin is a trivial matter — she could be anybody haunting the house for any reason and it would not make this play any more or less spine-tingling.

Devoid of context, the distinct hauntings run the risk of blending together, a problem that Sticklin attempts to overcome by giving each a unique trick (no spoilers, but many are quite clever). It works to an extent, but at the same time it reinforces the notion that The Woman in Black is more spectacle than story.

To be sure, the metanarrative of elder Kipps is still important to this play’s function. For one, each time the two speak of the play they are making, it pulls both them and the audience out of the story for a moment, creating much-needed breaks in the tension as the lights literally come up and you no longer need to worry, at least briefly, about what is in the shadows.

Perhaps more important, though, this metanarrative is also a not-so-subtle acknowledgment that everything seen in this theater is just that: theater. The entire play falls apart if the logical part of our brains remembers that this is all fake, that the tense actors are acting tense, the eerie lighting is pre-designed, and the chilling soundscapes are recorded and edited. The breaks in the story get ahead of logic by acknowledging it up front and then pulling you back in.

After all, ghost stories work because they play to the part of the brain that doesn’t deal in reason. Instead, they pick at fear and imagination. The Woman in Black at Keegan Theatre does that remarkably well.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

The Woman in Black plays through November 17, 2024, at the Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($54; $44 for students and seniors) online, by email (boxoffice@keegantheatre.com), by calling the box office at (202) 265-3767, or in person at the Keegan Theatre Box Office, which opens on the day of the show one hour before the performance.

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

The Woman in Black
By Stephen Mallatratt
Based on the novel by Susan Hill
Directed by Josh Sticklin

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There’s something strangely comforting about Babbitt. Perhaps it is the library set, a cozy environment for this story to come to life. Perhaps it is the nostalgic aesthetics. Perhaps it is Matthew Broderick, always a soothing presence, in the titular role.

All of these facets and more come together to make Babbitt, directed by Christopher Ashley and now performing at Shakespeare Theatre Company, a delight to watch. But that may also be the greatest weakness of Joe DiPietro’s Babbitt, which is adapted from Sinclair Lewis’ 1922 satirical novel of the same name. More than a century later, the story’s themes are certainly still relevant, but DiPietro’s adaptation, while funny and insightful, doesn’t quite pack the punch that it aims to strike.

The story, essentially, is one of rebellion. George F. Babbitt is introduced by an omnipresent cast as a sort of American everyman. For all intents and purposes, he could be any middle-aged man with a middle-class job in any midsize city in the Midwest. He has achieved the American Dream — wife, two kids, new electric toaster — and should be, theoretically, happy.

But facing disillusionment with the empty monotony of his life, George decides to make something of himself, and gives a speech at a real estate gala that turns, somewhat unexpectedly, political. More expectedly, at least by today’s standards, the political speech — filled with what would today be considered far-right talking points — is effective, launching George to overnight local stardom, setting him on a path out of his monotony.

The expressly political sections of Babbitt are, to be frank, some of the weaker portions of the show. George’s speeches are very obviously analogues to those of Donald Trump and other contemporary far-right politicians, but what he says is either too realistic to be satire or too well-trodden to offer any fresh insight.

Thankfully, George’s political rise — notably far less present in Lewis’ novel — is largely a means to an end. It sends his rebellion against the repetition of his life into a downward spiral, while the people around him — his wife, best friend, son, etc. — start to rebel themselves, setting off a hilarious series of scenes satirizing middle-class American society and culture.

These scenes are the meat of the play, and are where the themes of Babbitt start to shine. DiPietro’s script has far more interesting things to say about disillusionment with the American Dream, what that feeling can drive people to do, and the social costs of breaking with conformity than it does about politics.

This is also where the cast stands out. The “storytellers” (Mara Davi, Ann Harada, Nehal Joshi, Judy Kaye, Matt McGrath, Chris Myers, and Ali Stroker) who narrate and play multiple parts each, are all ideal for a show that requires versatility and comedic chops, even if some of the more interesting side characters — namely, George’s wife — are underwritten.

And, of course, there’s Matthew Broderick, for whom the role of George in this adaptation was written and developed. It’s understandable why: There is a meekness to Broderick’s voice that works well to satirize the American everyman and a brightness to his delivery that we can see noticeably dim as the story goes on.

But Broderick’s affability, alongside the gentle persona he is known for in popular culture, may actually work against Babbitt at times. Even as he makes poor choices, George is never really unlikeable. At best, his decisions are matter of fact.

But that speaks to a broader issue with this Babbit, which is that as much as it aims for insightful critique, it also consistently reverts to a playful sense of comfortability. Bright and warm hues from the costumes (by Linda Cho) and lighting (by Cha See) counteract the sterilized white space, while whimsical music (written by Mark Bennett and Wayne Barker) evokes a nostalgia that adulterates the script’s satirical reminders of the problems with American society.

Babbitt’s trick, of course, is that it is both of these things: escapism and a slap in the face. The trouble is that, more often than not, the former undercuts the latter rather than working in coordinated dissonance. Put simply, the slap in the face never really stings. The societal criticism is more constructive than cutting.

Babbitt may have some genuinely interesting things to say — if not say, then at least depict — and remains funny throughout, even as it starts to drag in the second act. But for better or for worse, this Babbitt is a comfort watch. Any higher aim isn’t quite realized.

Running Time: Two hours and 10 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.

Babbitt plays through November 3, 2024, presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company, produced in association with La Jolla Playhouse, at Harman Hall, 610 F Street NW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($35–$175) are available at the box office, online, or by calling (202) 547-1122. Shakespeare Theatre Company offers discounts for military servicepeople, first responders, senior citizens, young people, and neighbors, as well as rush tickets. Contact the Box Office or visit Shakespearetheatre.org/tickets-and-events/special-offers/for more information. Audio-described and captioned performances are also available.

The Asides program for Babbitt is online here.

COVID Safety: All performances are mask recommended. Read more about STC’s Health and Safety policies here.

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It makes sense that playwright Elizabeth Cutler has a background in improv. Her new comedy, Next Level, currently playing at DC’s Capital Fringe Festival, is structured much like an improv show.

Next Level centers on Sophie and Will, two single millennials who are just trying to go about their day when they get trapped in an elevator together. Without cell service and unsure how long they’ll be there, the two do as one would expect: They get to know each other, exploring each other’s backgrounds and, more importantly, troubles with dating in the modern era.

Rather than tell their story in one continuous scene, though, Cutler—who also plays the semi-autobiographical Sophie—splits Sophie and Will’s time in the elevator into short vignettes, jumping a little ahead in the conversation every few minutes, illustrating that they spend much longer than the 45-minute runtime stuck together.

This structure has pros and cons. On the one hand, it allows for a lot of contained, sketch-like humor—and indeed, Next Level is quite funny throughout. It also means the play gets to tackle a lot of different topics and themes in a relatively short amount of time. The scenes jump from issue to issue without bothering with filler dialogue that would be needed to transition between ideas.

On the other hand, no filler dialogue also means no skeletal dialogue, which can make Next Level’s scenes sometimes feel disjointed. It’s also clear from early on that the setup exists mainly to get Sophie to open up about her romantic struggles, which are heartfelt and complex but also stand in stark contrast to the surface-level character of Will (Jack Barnes).

Still, Next Level is a charming and funny watch with a lot of potential. I’d like to see it taken to the…well, you know.

Running Time: 55 minutes
Genre: Comedy
Dates and Times:

• July 20 at 1:00 PM
• July 21 at 2:45 PM

Venue: Goldman Theater – Theater J, 1529 16th St NW
Tickets: $15
More Info and Tickets: Next Level

The complete 2024 Capital Fringe Festival schedule is online here.

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It would be misleading to characterize, as the official description does, the play Existential People as “loosely adapted” from Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit. Now playing at DC’s Capital Fringe Festival, there is nothing loose about Forrest Callaway’s adaptation of Sartre’s famous 1944 existentialist work.

Existential People follows the same plot: Three people arrive in the afterlife to find that hell is simply being locked in a room together. It includes the same key moments, and the characters’ backstories are all kept as intact as possible. Perhaps most importantly, it speaks to many of the same themes as No Exit.

The key difference in Callaway’s adaptation, which he also directs, is that the three main characters are now all gay men. Presumably, this change is meant to complement the themes in No Exit, building on them to speak to the specific experiences of men in the gay community.

That would explain why all three characters spend the vast majority of the play fully nude. The decision emphasizes the way in which they all objectify each other, and objectify themselves in relation to one another, something that gay men are often acutely aware of. The new thematic context is only partially developed, however, which makes it stand in stark contrast to the themes from No Exit, which carry over to Existential People essentially intact.

To be sure, in a well-executed adaptation, a lack of thematic novelty can often be forgiven. Unfortunately, Existential People is not particularly well-executed. The actors clearly struggle with the stubby dialogue, made up of an odd mixture of philosophical declarations and recycled punchlines that more often fall flat rather than lighten the show’s dark tone. At best, the mixture makes for an inconsistent performance. At worst, and more often, Existential People is simply unstimulating.

Running Time: 65 minutes
Genre: Drama
Dates and Times:

• July 19 at 8:20 PM
• July 20 at 3:05 PM
• July 21 at 6:00 PM

Venue: Delirium, 1120 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 103
Tickets: $15
More Info and Tickets: Existential People

The complete 2024 Capital Fringe Festival schedule is online here.

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Chani Wereley doesn’t need to end up front and center on stage in order to claim her big solo number as her own. By halfway through “Somewhere That’s Green,” she already has. And yet, she still takes it up another notch, delivering a strong vocal performance while digging deeper into the song’s emotion.

Alone at centerstage, Wereley’s Audrey has pulled off an impressive feat, grounding a song that is essentially a satire of the American Dream firmly in reality. It’s a strong creative choice to do so, and makes for a stirring moment.

That is, at least in a vacuum. In the context of this production of Little Shop of Horrors, now performing at Ford’s Theatre through May 18, the groundedness of “Somewhere That’s Green” instead highlights the tonally disjointed and inconsistent aspects of what is overall a strong production.

Little Shop has by now become a staple of American theater. The 1982 musical, with book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken, blends comedy, horror, satire, and allegory to tell the story of Seymour Krelborn, a flower shop worker in an urban skid row in 1960 who one day buys a “strange and interesting” plant similar to a venus fly-trap.

The plant, named Audrey II after Seymour’s co-worker and secret love, appears to bring Seymour everything he’s wanted. Business at the flower shop booms. His local fame grows. He and Audrey grow closer. All the plant asks for — and yes, the plant does eventually literally ask — is for some human blood. A small price to pay for fortune and fame, right?

Directed by Kevin S. McAllister, Ford’s Theatre’s production is a largely faithful rendition of Little Shop, situating itself in the mold of how the show is traditionally produced. That’s true in everything from the staging to the puppetry designs for Audrey II to the aesthetic of skid row.

To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with a faithful rendition of Little Shop, which has some incredibly strong material to work with. Pulling inspiration from Motown and doo-wop, virtually every song in this musical is at least either catchy or memorable, if not both. It helps, too, that the campy dialogue is often hilarious.

On both accounts, the production at Ford’s Theatre is well-executed. McAllister and the show’s cast have made some clever choices to add even more comedy to what is already written in the script. And despite some sound mixing issues — that admittedly may just have been a result of where I was seated — virtually every number in this production is show-stopping.

That includes “Downtown (Skid Row),” which introduces the cast and somehow sounds much fuller than the show’s relatively small cast and band would suggest is possible. Meanwhile, the trio of Crystal, Chiffon, and Ronnette — played by Kanysha Williams, Nia Savoy-Dock, and Kaiyla Gross, respectively — practically steal the show with all of their featured numbers, including the titular opening number, as they serve as the show’s quasi-narrators.

It’s in the production’s acting choices that this production seems more disjointed, not because any one actor is weaker than the others, but because the four lead cast members seem to be on different pages regarding how much to play up Little Shop’s campy dialogue. Derrick D. Truby Jr.’s Seymour and Wereley’s Audrey feel similarly grounded, while Lawrence Redmond plays the flower shop owner Mr. Mushnik as more of a caricature.

That difference may not have been noticeable, but then Joe Mallon arrives as Orin, a dentist and Audrey’s abusive boyfriend. Mallon is funny in an absurd role, but he is also larger-than-life. Coming after the preceding scenes, when so little of the show’s camp had been comparatively played up, Orin feels alien to the production.

The disparate parts don’t click together until near the end of the first act, when Audrey II is introduced as a character in its own right — voiced by an equally monstrous and alluring Tobias A. Young — in the song “Feed Me (Git It).”

There, the production’s relative realism  — as realist as a musical about a talking carnivorous plant can be — turns to a heightened reality. The skid row scenery (designed by Paige Hathaway) is washed in vivid reds, greens, and yellows (lighting design by Max Doolittle). The girl group trio emerge in chic and fanciful 1960s costumes (designed by Alejo Vietti). With a new, surrealistic aesthetic and tone for the remainder of the act, nothing feels out of place anymore.

The second act is equally inconsistent, but it similarly ends in a dreamlike state. As a result, the impression at the end of this production of Little Shop is admittedly not of disjointedness but of the production’s strengths — the heightened emotions, the show-stopping spectacle, the critique of capitalism.

After all, Little Shop of Horrors may be a horror and a comedy and a satire, but it is also a tragedy. Despite some flaws, the production at Ford’s Theatre effectively conveys all of that.

Running Time: Two hours, including one 15-minute intermission.

Little Shop of Horrors plays through May 18, 2024, at Ford’s Theatre, 514 10th Street NW, Washington, DC. Tickets are on sale online and range from $33 to $95. Discounts are available for groups, senior citizens, military personnel, and those younger than 40. For more information, call (202) 347-4833 or (888) 616-0270 (toll-free).

The cast, creative team, and band credits are here, and a digital program is downloadable here.

Recommended for ages 8 and older.

Ford’s accessibility offerings (audio-described, ASL-interpreted, sensory-friendly) include closed captioning via the GalaPro App.

COVID Safety: Face masks are optional.

Little Shop of Horrors
Book and Lyrics by Howard Ashman; Music by Alan Menken; Music Direction by William Yanesh; Choreographed by Ashleigh King; Directed by Kevin S. McAllister

Scenic Design by Paige Hathaway; Costume Design by Alejo Vietti; Lighting Design by Max Doolittle; Sound Design by David Budries; Hair and Make-up Design by Danna Rosedahl; Dialects and Voice Direction by Rachel Hirshorn-Johnston; Production Stage Managed by Craig A. Horness; Assistant Stage Managed by Taryn Friend

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I will admit I’m hesitant to call Where We Belong “innovative,” not because there is nothing unique or original about it but because of a story Madeline Sayet tells at one point in her one-woman play.

She explains how early in her career, someone called her decolonized interpretation of Shakespeare’s works “innovative,” a description that confused her. As an Indigenous woman, decolonizing Shakespeare isn’t a new idea—for her, it is a natural conclusion.

It is a telling moment, and one that informs much of the thematic basis of Where We Belong, now playing through March 10 at Folger Theatre, in association with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, following a 2021 film adaptation and national tour.

Where We Belong, a powerful play that weaves together Sayet’s and other Mohegans’ stories, grapples with a lot of issues and asks a lot of questions, many of which, at least today, are not new. But Sayet’s identity provides unique and innovative—yes, innovative, at least to me—ways of grappling with the questions of identity that are defining contemporary America.

The central story, one of many, of Where We Belong is Sayet’s experience as an Indigenous person, specifically a Mohegan woman, working on a PhD on Shakespeare in England, an experience that was often isolating. She finds in England a culture completely in denial of its role in colonialism, where even academics seem to only want her perspective on Shakespeare if it doesn’t offend them.

This play, to be clear, is not about Shakespeare—Sayet says so explicitly early on—but Shakespeare does come up a lot, largely because she fell in love with his works as a child, to some extent as an escape from having to grapple with her identity as an Indigenous woman in a country hostile to that identity.

In fact, Sayet’s Mohegan identity is much of the real focus of Where We Belong. She talks about her own experiences while also weaving in stories from the tribe’s history, including that of Mahomet Weyonomon, a sachem of the Mohegan tribe, who traveled to England in 1735 to petition the crown after treaty betrayals.

Although Sayet’s personal narrative is told mostly in chronological order, Where We Belong jumps constantly between personal memories, tribal history, Shakespeare, and broader conceptual questions. The narrative might seem jumbled in another artist’s hands, but as written by Sayet, the whole play flows smoothly from point to point, none of which are wasted.

The staging, as well, forms a kind of connective tissue for Sayet’s work. Director Mei Ann Teo uses the space, alongside Sayet’s movements in it, purposefully, connecting the physical space to memories and ideas in a way that is extremely effective at communicating the story’s weaving narratives.

Meanwhile, Production Designer Hao Bai has crafted a visually stunning environment for Sayet’s performance, utilizing minimalist onstage lighting against a reflective background that is as interesting as it is thematically important. Hao’s lighting design, too, complements the emotions of the performance without becoming the performance.

The themes of Where We Belong—those issues and questions Sayet is grappling with—also work to form throughlines, as Sayet returns to ideas again and again as her views transform over time. Most are related to identity: erasure of identity, reclamation of identity, the borders between identities—both physical and not.

Language, in particular, forms a backbone to the play. After all, language is one of the most important aspects of a culture. And yet, the Mohegan language has been largely erased, and while the tribe is working to revive it, the last fluent speaker—Fidelia Fielding, one of Sayet’s ancestors—died more than a century ago. Sayet compares this to Shakespeare, one man whose words have lived on for hundreds of years.

Shakespeare does indeed come up a lot in Where We Belong, not because the play is about him but because he serves as a conduit for many other issues in the play. Early in her career, she viewed his work as anticolonialist, but later grapples with whether doing so serves as a form of reclamation or a form of assimilation, because white people so desperately want Shakespeare, a man very much of his time and context, to be universal.

Perhaps the harshest realization for Sayet is that, in order for her to tell Indigenous stories, she must wrap them in Shakespeare in order to do so. It is a harsh realization for the audience, too. Where We Belong, after all, was co-produced by and is being performed at Folger Theatre, part of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Of course, we will never know if Sayet’s work would have been produced at this level without its Shakespearean connection, but at least in this form and in this space, Where We Belong—a compelling and important work of theater, to be sure—is less a victory lap for platforming Indigenous voices and more a reminder of the work still to be done.

Running Time: 90 minutes, with no intermission.

Where We Belong plays through March 10, 2024, at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, 201 E Capitol Street SE, Washington, DC, in association with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Purchase tickets ($20–$84; discount programs available) online or from the Box Office at (202) 544-7077 or folgerboxoffice@folger.edu.

Credits for the cast and creative team are online here.

COVID Safety: Masking is optional. Masks will be provided upon request. Folger Theatre has denoted several performances during the 2023/24 season as mask-required by all audience members, staff, and volunteers. The mask-required performances for Where We Belong are on Saturday, March 9, 2024, at 2 pm and 8 pm. Folger’s complete COVID safety protocols are here.

Where We Belong
By Madeline Sayet
Directed by Mei Ann Teo

SEE ALSO:
Her Mohegan name means blackbird and she soars in ‘Where We Belong’ (review of the video version by Bob Ashby originally published June 14, 2021)

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It might seem, at first, like too obvious a solution.

Scholars and theatermakers have tried for centuries, after all, to fix the issues that make Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure a “problem play.” The play is one of paradoxes—it’s both a comedy and a tragedy, its tone is funny and dark, it relies on simplistic plot devices to speak to complex themes, it aims low and high at the same time.

In their loose adaptation of the play, Peter Kellogg and David Friedman fixed the paradox simply by removing the tragic elements, the dark tones, and the complex themes. Now set in the Wild West, the musical Desperate Measures is all comedy. It’s a simple solution, really—no paradox, no problem.

Still, in the wrong hands, Desperate Measures could end up aiming too high or too low. Luckily, the production at Constellation Theatre Company, now in performances through March 17, strikes the right balance, bringing out the best in this rip-roaring, hilarious musical.

Set in the territory of Arizona at the turn of the 20th century, Desperate Measures follows a madcap effort to convince a strict law-and-order governor to grant a pardon to Johnny Blood, a cowboy who killed a man in a bar fight and is now set to be hanged in just two days. The governor agrees to grant the pardon, but only if Susanna, Johnny’s sister and a nun, sleeps with him, at which point the sheriff conceives of a hair-brained scheme to trick the governor.

If that all seems ridiculous, don’t worry—not only does the plot spiral into further absurdity, but the execution is equally ridiculous, by design.

The Wild West world portrayed is an extreme exaggeration of all the classic tropes of the genre. Samuel Klaas’ detailed set transforms the Source Theater’s blackbox space into a stylized frontier town, fitting a jail, saloon, stage-within-a-stage, and band into an intimate area. The only thing missing is a tumbleweed.

The characters are each a trope, as well, and each seems to have a distinct accent (which somehow works, with the exception perhaps of the governor’s quickly abandoned German accent). To top it all off, the dialogue is delivered entirely in rhyming couplets—most of which hew closer to Dr. Seuss than to Shakespeare.

There are many ways this combination of ingredients could go wrong, particularly if a director tries to take the show’s most ridiculous elements too far. Constellation’s founding artistic director Allison Arkell Stockman, though, has paid careful attention to take Desperate Measures’ wildest moments to the peak of hilarity, without tipping over the edge. The show is certainly a hoot and a holler, but not because it’s heedless.

That is most clear in songs like “It’s Getting Hot in Here,” which introduces the saloon girl, Bella. The song relies on sexual comedy, but this staging—including Nikki Mirza’s choreography—thankfully stops short of shock humor. The same could be said of the sheriff’s solo ballad, “Stop There,” a breakout moment for Tyler Dobies, or the twisted love song “Just for You,” a hilarious duet between Bella and Johnny (Hunter Ringsmith) and easily the musical’s standout number.

In fact, the entire cast’s comedic performances, and in particular their ability to work off of each other, deserve a shoutout. Opening night featured understudies in the roles of Susanna and Bella—Julia Link and Audrey Baker, respectively—both of whom worked seamlessly with the rest of the cast. The performances, under Stockman’s direction, make good on Constellation’s promise of “epic theatre in an intimate space” with a genuinely hysterical production.

And yet, for how consistently hilarious this musical is throughout, it might be unfair to say Desperate Measures, and this production of it, has truly stripped Measure for Measure of all its thematic ambitions. To be sure, this musical doesn’t have anything groundbreaking or overly deep to say, but it does speak to some higher themes.

Susanna and Bella, for example, learn from each other new ideas about femininity and female agency. And it’s taken as a given that Johnny Blood’s specific circumstances mean he shouldn’t be hanged. There is a thematic foundation to Desperate Measures in the idea that morality is not as simple as following rules and justice is not as simple as following laws.

In its communication of these themes via such an unabashedly comedic musical, Desperate Measures may actually be just as much a paradox as Measure for Measure. At least produced by Constellation, though, that isn’t a problem.

Running Time: Two hours and 10 minutes, including one intermission.

Desperate Measures plays through March 17, 2024, presented by Constellation Theatre Company performing at Source Theatre, 1835 14th Street NW, Washington DC (between 14th and T). Purchase tickets ($20 to $55) online or by calling the Box Office at 202-204-7741.

First responders, active or retired military personnel, teachers, and students are eligible for
a 50% discount on regularly priced tickets. Visit ConstellationTheatre.org/special-offers for discount codes and more information.

Credits for the cast and creative team are here (scroll down).

COVID Safety: Masking is optional on all shows except Saturday matinees. See Constellation’s entire Company Safety Plan here.

SEE ALSO:
Constellation Theatre to mount new musical ‘Desperate Measures’ (news story, January 29, 2024)

Desperate Measures
Book and Lyrics by Peter Kellogg
Music by David Friedman
Inspired by Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure
Directed by Allison Arkell Stockman

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The title of Mindplay is its most telling feature. It’s not a real word, but rather is a created one — two pre-existing, and distinct, ideas have been compounded to create one whole thing.

That “mind” and “play” have been formed into a compound word for the title of Vinny DePonto’s work makes sense — Mindplay is essentially a compound performance. The production weaves together a mentalist performance with a one-man, autobiographical show about DePonto’s own life and, of course, his mind.

Or, at the very least, tries to. Mindplay, now performing at Arena Stage through March 3, struggles to blend its two overlapping but distinct halves into a cohesive whole, making for a satisfying evening of mentalist tricks but a much less rewarding theatrical work.

The first half — we’ll call it the “mind” half — is made up of DePonto’s mentalism, a performance art similar to magic but reliant instead on psychological tricks like mindreading and manipulation. Throughout the show, DePonto performs these tricks on a number of audience members — one by one he appears to read their minds or convince them to give specific answers to his queries.

DePonto’s mentalism is, to be clear, both impressive and entertaining. There’s a diversity of tricks — none of which I will spoil — throughout the performance that keeps the show fresh and kept me stumped. DePonto also has a knack for working with audience members that is funny but doesn’t make them the butt of the joke. Audience participation here is akin more to group therapy than to humiliation.

The rest of Mindplay — the “play” half, if you will — is much less impressive. These scripted sections — Josh Koenigsberg co-writes the show — are framed as an exploration of the mind and how it works, with visual metaphors and artistic symbolism utilized by DePonto as both explanations and visual spectacle. DePonto also delves into his own mind, particularly his struggles with anxiety, and his own past, including his relationship with his late grandparents.

These sections lead in and out of DePonto’s mentalism, but the “play” half of Mindplay might as well be a separate show, considering how disconnected it seems from DePonto’s mentalist tricks. There is nothing, other than perhaps a few vague transition sentences, thematically connecting the insights gleaned from DePonto’s interactions with audience members to his one-man “play.”

Obviously the show changes from night to night, given that audience members’ answers will differ, but the trick setups presumably do not, and the setups seem to exist each in their own world. Put these together with the rest of the performance, and Mindplay becomes no greater than the sum of its parts.

The disjointed nature of Mindplay’s two halves may not be an issue if the “play” portions could stand on their own, but they don’t. Each section is thematically scattershot, jumping from idea to idea with no discernible throughline or connective tissue other than being an “exploration” of the mind. That exploration, for what it’s worth, does not offer any insights beyond direct, surface-level observations: We humans sometimes regret, sometimes revel. We cherish memories and forget other ones. So true.

It does not help that there is a tonal tension between DePonto the autobiographer and DePonto the mentalist. The former is vulnerable in how he speaks about his life and his mind. The latter is essentially a psychological magician, and a magician’s job is, inherently, to trick you. The spectacle of magic is in not knowing what is an illusion and what is real. That difference makes it difficult, as an audience member, to seesaw between DePonto’s moments of emotionality — emotions that I’m sure are very real but are scripted nonetheless — and moments when trusting DePonto is against your better judgment.

To be sure, Mindplay is an overall enjoyable viewing experience. The mentalist tricks are memorable enough to make the disconnected and ineffective sections forgettable. And the staging by Andrew Neisler, along with the design work — scenic by Sibyl Wickersheimer, lighting by Pablo Santiago — makes for an arresting visual spectacle. To put it bluntly, Mindplay is a great magic show.

Mindplay, though, does not want to be just a magic show. That’s clear in how it is performed, in the sections of autobiographical appeals to larger themes and emotions. It’s clear in how it is billed, as a “love letter to the imperfect mind.” It is clear in the fact that Mindplay is being programmed by Arena Stage, one of Washington’s foremost professional theater companies.

Indeed, it is telling that the accompanying executive Producer’s note in Mindplay’s program is largely a defense of its inclusion in Arena’s season. I will withhold judgment on that decision — I am reviewing a performance, not Arena’s governance — and simply say this: If Mindplay is trying to be a work of capital-T Theater, it isn’t trying very hard.

Running Time: 80 minutes, with no intermission.

Mindplay plays through March 3, 2024, in the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage, 1101 6th St SW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($41–$95) 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 30 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 Mindplay is online here.

COVID Safety: Arena Stage recommends but does not require that patrons wear facial masks in theaters except in occasional mask-required performances. For up-to-date information, visit arenastage.org/safety.

SEE ALSO:
Arena Stage reveals ‘Mindplay,’ a surprise addition to 2023/24 season (news story, November 18, 2023)

The post ‘Mindplay’ at Arena Stage is a great magic show but so-so theater appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

When Iris Bahr first came onstage and began talking, her speech felt so informal that I assumed it was a precursor to the actual show, some kind of prologue to set the scene. She spoke to us directly, not like she was performing or giving a speech, but rather like she was regaling her friends at a dinner table. I realized soon that, in fact, the play had begun the moment Bahr stepped onstage.

That casual, conversational tone actually makes up almost all of See You Tomorrow, a new solo show, which Bahr also wrote and directed, the first in a series of three solo shows performing at Theater J that explore issues of identity and family.

Now performing through November 22, See You Tomorrow is an intimate story about family and grief that, when it plays to its strengths, finds the humor in life’s most serious moments and the poignancy in life’s most comical.

See You Tomorrow is the story of how Bahr watched, while video chatting with her mother in February 2022, as her mother had a stroke. Since her mother lives in Israel, Bahr had to find someone there to call an ambulance, before flying to Israel herself a few days later to take care of her. She guides her mother through rehab as she recovers physically, only to find out the stroke resulted in dementia, and then stretches herself thin trying to be a caregiver in the following months.

Bahr recounts her experience largely in the form of a monologue, sometimes re-enacting key moments by adopting the voices and mannerisms of people she met along the way. Sometimes in solo works, these long-winded monologues can get tedious, but in this case, Bahr has a knack for expressively telling her story and varying the pacing and structure just enough to keep it interesting.

It helps, of course, that See You Tomorrow is often funny. Bahr weaves casual punchlines, comical descriptions, and recurring bits into even the show’s most serious moments. As she describes the hours in which she sought emergency help for her mother from across the globe, she also re-enacts her mother’s zany South African friend with a triangle of gray hair like a Playmobil character.

In fact, the best moments in See You Tomorrow feel less like a solo show and more like a stand-up comedy set, so much so that the show may even work better if it leaned into that structure.

After all, the moments in the show that are the least effective are when Bahr does an extended re-enactment or even a pantomime of a moment. Normally, these moments would be necessary in a solo show to give it variety and texture, but in this case, Bahr is so skilled at witty descriptions that her dramatization pales in comparison.

There are also a handful of humorous anecdotes that, as it stands, feel somewhat out-of-place because they are only tangentially related to the main story about her mother, but would feel more connected to the overall show if they were framed as comedic asides.

To be sure, those anecdotes don’t severely diminish See You Tomorrow, largely because the show’s casual, conversational nature allows for a more informal structure. In a performance space like Theater J—which sits inside the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center—that conversational tone is fitting for an audience that is largely part of the community. Admittedly, that also means that many of the show’s comedic references require some familiarity with the Jewish community, as well as modern Israeli society.

Still, although much of See You Tomorrow does explore Bahr’s Jewish identity, the story is also a wholly universal one. In the months after her mother’s stroke, Bahr experiences intense heartbreak, grief, anxiety, and guilt as she attempts to care for a mother she loves but whom she had a complicated relationship with, even as the mother she once knew has already disappeared.

See You Tomorrow is as much the story of these emotions as it is the story of trying to work through all of these emotions. In the end, Bahr never does fully work through them—maybe not doing so is the most universal experience in the show. But in the reflection on her experience by creating and performing in this show, she did find the blurred lines between the most comical and most critical moments in life.

Running Time: Approximately 50 minutes with no intermission.

See You Tomorrow plays through November 22, 2023, at 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 or by calling the ticket office at 202-777-3210.

See You Tomorrow is the first in Theater J’s Here I Am series of three one-person plays focusing on identity and the relationship between the individual and the family. The next two plays are Michelle Lowe’s world premiere of Moses in December and Sun Mee Chomet’s East Coast premiere of How to Be a Korean Woman in January.

COVID Safety: Masks are required for Thursday evening and Saturday matinee performances. For more information, visit Theater J’s COVID Safety Guidelines.

See You Tomorrow
Written, Directed, and Performed by Iris Bahr
Set Design: Nephelie Andonyadis
Lighting Design: Jesse W. Belsky
Production Stage Manager: Becky Reed
Assistant Stage Manager: Margaret Warner

SEE ALSO:
Israeli-American comic Iris Bahr on the tragedy in the Middle East (interview by Ravelle Brickman, November 9, 2023)

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Betrayal is a play that, in many ways, defies logic. Its plot structure appears to push the action of the story backward, beginning where it should end and ending where it should begin. And yet even as it does so, Betrayal’s emotional arc is continuously propelled forward.

In fact, the 1978 work by Harold Pinter — his most famous work, surely — so defies logic that it is far too easy to make simple mistakes in staging it. Some directors overthink, trying to push deeper meaning into the words that isn’t there; others underthink, not reading between the lines.

Still, the worst mistake a director can make in staging Betrayal is trying to make it logical, and in doing so, ruin what makes it work in the first place. Thankfully, Nomadic Theatre — a student-run theater organization at Georgetown University where Betrayal is performing through November 5 — does not make that mistake.

Betrayal is, quite simply, the story of an affair. Emma cheats on her husband, Robert, for seven years with Robert’s best friend, Jerry. Emma and Jerry procure a flat for the secret life they form together, all while Jerry continues to maintain his friendship with Robert.

It would be a straightforward story, except Pinter has placed the scenes in reverse order. We first meet Emma and Jerry when their affair is long over, and follow their story as it moves backward in time, learning what really occurred and who knew what really occurred and when they knew what was really occurring. As a result, the story is about one big betrayal, but it is also about a series of smaller betrayals.

Pinter is also known for not revealing too much in the words alone. Rather, the characters in this play speak in spare dialogue soaked in subtext. In another context, their words may not even seem out of the ordinary, but here they are riddled with underlying tension. Emma, Jerry, and Robert weaponize their own intense emotions and memories against each other, cutting the others to get only briefly ahead in a strange, relational power struggle.

The moments where Nomadic’s production of Betrayal really works are the scenes in which this tension is at its most palpable. In a sequence of scenes surrounding Emma and Robert’s vacation to Venice, around halfway through her affair with Jerry, the characters’ competing interests feel particularly intense. Emma (Becca Haley) meets once again with Jerry (Sasha Montefiore) upon returning from the trip, before Jerry meets with Robert (Patrick Clapsaddle) for lunch. The three performers portray how each character knows something the other doesn’t, but don’t speak of it. Rather, tinged undertones become a source of hidden conflict.

As much as that sequence works in Nomadic’s production, though, it also stands in contrast to much of the rest of the play, where this production, directed by Alex Wang, could have taken tension and conflict in the dialogue’s subtext further. It seems, especially in early scenes, that an effort to avoid overplaying Betrayal’s undercurrents results in buried subtext. It surfaces often enough to make clear that this cast and creative team understand the play — no small feat, to be sure — but not often enough to maintain a continuous magnetism.

What could benefit Betrayal, in this specific case, may have been more out-of-the-box thinking. There are, of course, inherent constraints that come with student theater — smaller and often awkward venues, low budgets, little time on top of other commitments — but those constraints can also be thought of as a license to experiment, to find nontraditional ways through staging and design to evoke the emotional arc of this play. (Pinter may not like those decisions, but he is also dead.)

Still, Betrayal is not an easy show to stage, and it is clear from this production that Wang and Nomadic Theatre understand the play and its logic-defying emotional arc, which cannot be said of even some of the most celebrated artists in the theater industry. That alone is impressive.

Running Time: One hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.

Betrayal plays through November 5, 2023, presented by Nomadic Theatre performing at Village C Theatre at Georgetown University. Purchase tickets ($5–$10) online.

The program containing credits for Betrayal is online here.

Betrayal
Written by Harold Pinter
Directed by Alex Wang (CAS ‘25)
Produced by Roshni Powers (SFS ‘26)
Stage Managed by Mariana Salinas (CAS ‘25)
Technical Direction by Brendan Teehan (CAS ‘25)

CAST
Emma: Becca Haley (CAS ‘25)
Robert: Patrick Clapsaddle (SFS ‘26)
Jerry: Sasha Montefiore (CAS ‘25)
The Waiter: William Kennedy (CAS ‘25)

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I can’t say that by the end of The Humours of Bandon, I had figured out how to judge Irish Dancing. I can’t even say that I had figured out where I should be looking. The answer is probably the bottom half of the body ⁠— the dancing entirely occurs there, while the top half stays still.

In this case, though, I found myself more transfixed on Margaret Mc Auliffe’s face while she danced. Her expression was one of intense focus, making sure every movement was executed with precision, but also one of intense and shifting emotions ⁠— passion, love, anger, confidence, joy, insecurity, disillusionment.

Mc Auliffe’s one-woman show is, to be clear, not a dance show. Rather, it utilizes Irish Dance to communicate a story that is at once incredibly specific and wholly universal. Now performing through June 11 in its final stop on a North American tour, The Humours of Bandon is a sharply executed exploration of how passions can shape identity⁠ — and what happens when that passion starts to fade.

Presented by Solas Nua and Fishamble, Humours is the coming-of-age story of Annie, a teenager in Dublin. Inspired largely in part by Mc Auliffe’s own experience doing competitive Irish Dancing, Annie’s goal — her dream, really — is to win the Irish Open Championships. We follow her from 1999 to 2001 as her passion drives her through the highs and lows of working toward that dream.

A dozen or so characters appear alongside Annie⁠ — her mom, coach, friend, competitor, schoolmate⁠s, etc. — all of whom are played by Mc Auliffe. It’s a bold choice, but Mc Auliffe pulls it off as she fluidly switches between these characters, embodying each with a distinct personality and physicality that makes it feel natural. There’s a humor to this, in a distinctly Irish style of comedy, but it never veers into caricature. At one point, in a feat of both acting and dancing, Mc Auliffe does a fast-paced Irish Dance routine while at the same time performing a scene between Annie and her coach.

Dancing is, understandably, integral to the storytelling of Humours. In fact, movement in general is used constantly to evoke emotion in Stefanie Preissner’s staging. Annie moves frantically when the energy is high, pacing and circling and, of course, Irish Dancing⁠ — it is almost like second nature, both to the show and to Annie as a character.

Indeed, Irish Dancing seems, at first, to be woven into Annie’s DNA. It feels crucial to her identity, defining her sense of self and the way people think of her. Defining her identity around this passion, though, clearly comes with a weight⁠. That is not, to be sure, necessarily a bad thing. We can see the drive, joy, and expressiveness that Annie gets out of Irish Dance.

But over time, too much weight can also take a toll. There’s the internal pressure, of course, but also the external pressure from the competition, from her coaches, from tradition and culture. It speaks volumes that throughout the entire show, Mc Auliffe wears green clothing with “Ireland” displayed across the front.

We can see the toll all of it takes as well, over time. It’s in Annie’s voice, the way her tone when she talks about Irish Dance changes. It’s in the lighting, the way it shifts to cooler, darker tones (design by Eoin Winning). It’s in the dancing, still just as precise but less passionate, and notably, done less often as disillusionment begins to set in.

Coming-of-age stories tend to focus on how identities are formed at a time when self-identity isn’t clearly defined, when people don’t quite know what they think of themselves yet. Annie, though, seems to have defined herself already when we meet her. Humours, then, is the story of what happens when Annie feels like she is losing the very thing she has built her identity around.

Disillusionment is portrayed like grieving a lost loved one. Annie struggles to confront what her life, and identity, might look like without its definition. This struggle, and all the complex emotions that come with it, eventually explodes into a climax that is so transfixing I did not realize my jaw had dropped until it was over. (I will not spoil it here⁠. It does, as I’m sure you can guess, though, involve Irish Dancing.)

Annie’s skill, she jokes at one point in Humours, is a niche skill, and the story Mc Auliffe tells here is a niche story. And yet, what makes The Humours of Bandon so effective is that it is a niche story that is as universally human as a story could possibly be.

Running Time: 60 minutes with no intermission

The Humours of Bandon plays through June 11, 2023, presented by Solas Nua and Fishamble performing at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE in Washington, DC. Tickets ($45) are available online.

The program for The Humours of Bandon is online here.

COVID Safety: Atlas Performing Arts Center strongly recommending that all audience members wear masks while inside the venue, but they are no longer required. The Atlas Health and Safety policy is here.

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Difficult conversations were not hard to come by in the summer of 2020. They seemed to be taking place everywhere, all the time ⁠— in living rooms, over Zoom, in DMs, on street corners, in cafes.

The aftermath of the murder of George Floyd created an urgency to talking about racism, and as a result, the thoughts that had been bubbling under the surface boiled over all at once. Many of these conversations were, unfortunately, marred by a sense of antagonism, making difficult discussions even more so.

Dissonance, a new play inspired by those conversations, imagines what a straightforward discussion about racism might look like if it is approached differently. Now performing through June 11 presented by The Essential Theatre, Dissonance sometimes stumbles but finds its footing when it stays grounded in the relationship at its center.

Written by Marci J. Duncan in collaboration with Kerry Sandell, Dissonance follows long-time friends Angela⁠ and Lauren⁠ — played by Duncan and Sandell, respectively⁠ — as they set up shop in a new cafe they are opening together in Pensacola’s Belmont-DeVilliers District, a historically Black neighborhood.

It’s clear from the start that Angela, who is Black, and Lauren, who is white, have a unique dynamic. They do a choreographed celebratory dance as they move into the space that will be their cafe. They talk about romance and give each other honest advice. They laugh at inside jokes and tease each other about old times.

They also, notably, seem adept at avoiding conflict. Every time the conversation starts to veer toward a topic or a disagreement that could get dicey, one of them steers it away. That includes the topic of racism, and Blackness in general. When the two do talk about race, they become noticeably more careful with their words, afraid to risk their relationship with each other by having a difficult conversation.

As directed by James Webb, Duncan and Sandell portray both sides of this friendship with a chemistry that feels natural. There are clear cultural differences between the two characters, sure, but you can also see the little ways that they have rubbed off on each other, the ways they work off each other, the ways that they unspokenly avoid crossing a point of no return. The specificity of their relationship, and the subtle tension that comes with it, drives the show forward for much of the first half.

It is in the second half of Dissonance, once the characters do cross a point of no return that the show loses its driving force. The tension elevates to conflict as the two have a difficult conversation for the first time in their relationship, in this case about racism and Blackness. The conversation broaches everything from interracial relationships to pay inequality to code-switching to white fragility.

Through it all, Angela is brutally honest. Lauren, meanwhile, is defensive. Somewhere in the mix, the specificity of their relationship is lost, not because of what they are talking about but because of the way they talk about it. For much of the show’s latter half, the way they speak to each other doesn’t feel grounded in the relationship they established in the first half. It doesn’t help that, too often, both actors resort to elevated volume in order to express elevated conflict. As a result, the conversation seems to move forward while the emotion beneath it stays still.

Luckily, Dissonance does eventually find its footing again. The dialogue and performances reach a point where the specificity of their dynamic returns, and the two characters unlock a refreshed emotional tone. Once that driving force returns, Dissonance is able to create an ending that is compelling and, dare I say, rewarding.

After all, both Angela and Lauren were afraid that a difficult conversation like this was too big a risk⁠ — for Angela, too big a risk that Lauren would become uncomfortable and defensive; for Lauren, too big a risk that she would say the wrong thing and Angela wouldn’t trust her anymore.

They do not avoid those risks in finally having a difficult conversation. Rather, Dissonance shows that if you approach difficult conversations like this one with love, respect, and an open mind, the risk is worth taking.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

Dissonance plays through June 11, 2023, presented by The Essential Theatre performing at Anacostia Arts Center, 1231 Good Hope Road SE in Washington, DC. Tickets ($41) are available online.

The program for Dissonance is online here.

Recommended for age 12 and up.

COVID Safety: Masks are encouraged and welcomed.

SEE ALSO:
New play from Essential Theatre to mark third anniversary of George Floyd’s death (news story, April 15, 2023)

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