Magic & Loss; Round House Theater's "The Tempest," reviewed.

Nate Dendy, Eric Hissom, and Meagan Graves in an illusion-spiked The Tempest. (Scott Suchman)

The Vegas-birthed production of The Tempest at Round House Theatre through mid-January has plenty to recommend it: jaw-dropping stage illusions, haunting Tom Waits songs, a truly beastly Caliban performed by two actors sweating in tandem. Co-adapters Aaron Posner and Teller have had to do some clear-cutting to make room for all this good stuff, but it’s a fair trade, says I, in my Washington City Paper review.

Despite Its Pedigree, "A Doll's House, Part 2" Is a Fixer-Upper

Holly Twyford and Craig Wallace as the long-separated Nora and Torvald. (Kaley Etzkorn)

I’ve been looking forward to seeing Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 for a couple of years. The announcement that the Broadway hit’s DC premiere from Round House Theatre would star the great Holly Twyford as Nora? Music to my ears.

In this week’s Washington City Paper, I try to diagnose why Nicole A. Watson’s production is so bloodless.

No Jacket Required, Apparently: Talking Death of a Salesman, In the Heights, and The Wild Party on Around Town

You can see for yourself what a business-casual mood I was in the day Robert Aubry Davis, Jane Horwitz, and I convened at WETA to shoot a fresh batch of Around Town segments. Perhaps you are correct that I should have chosen a shirt that is not the same shade as our studio backdrop. Hey, I don't tell you how to do your part-time job.

I reviewed Ford's Death of a Salesman and Constellation's The Wild Party for the Washington City Paper. For In the Heights, the musical I herein refer to as "Lin-Manuel Miranda's THX-1138," I didn't write about it. I just bought four more tickets the morning after to take my folks.

Tinker, Swinger, Playwright, Spy: Or, reviewed.

Erin Weaver and Holly Twyford (Grace Toulotte)

Given that Aaron Posner's 2009 production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at the Folger Theatre, starring Holly Twyford and Erin Weaver (and Cody Nickell and Eric Hissom) remains one of my favorite theatrical experiences, it's a cinch I'd be susceptible to Posner's reteaming with Twyford and Weaver in Or, Liz Duffy Adams' erudite farce about seminal British playwright Aphra Behn. Here's my Washington City Paper review.

The Heaven Over New York: Angels in America, Part I: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika, reviewed.

Mitchell Hébert and Jon Hudson Odom in Perestroika. (Danisha Crosby)

Lemme tell ya, people: It was much easier to figure out why Tony Kusher's most recent play is lousy than it was to try to figure out why Angels in America, the epic masterpiece that shall be his legacy, is so good. You have countless other, more reputable sources on that, of course. I was just writing about the show's latest and largest local revival, the product of a Marvel Team-Up between Olney Theatre Center and Round House Theatre.

While researching this review I discovered that Mike Nichols' 2003 HBO miniseries of Angels in America earned four-stars-out-of-four for its artistic merit and four-for-four for its depiction of the nursing profession on the website The Truth About Nursing.

FURTHER READING: Here's my review of the 2011 revival of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, which came to Arena Stage four years ago. It was the first major play to address the AIDS crisis, and it was written from inside the trenches with shells exploding all around. Which is at least one of the reasons it hasn't had (in my opinion) the afterlife the more contemplative and mythic Angels, written several years afterward, has had. (Twelve years elapsed between Angels' premiere and its emergence as an HBO miniseries; for The Normal Heart to go from the stage to HBO took 29 years.)

Once again, Isaac Butler and Dan Kois' mighty oral history of Angels in America—soon to be expanded to book-length!—is here, and highly recommended.

Faking and Baking: Stage Kiss and Holiday Memories, reviewed.

They can't all be winners, not even shows from playwrights, directors, and actors whose work you often love. Round House Theatre's new production of Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss was a bigger disappointment to me given its pedigree than was WSC Avant Bard's Holiday Memories, but I can't say either one blew my Christmas stockings off. As ever, your mileage may vary.

In the Flesh: Zombie: The American and NSFW, reviewed.

Sean Meehan, James Seol, and Tim Getman in Zombie: The American (Stan Barouh).

Two satires, each alike in indignation. My reviews of Robert O'Hara's world premiere Zombie: The American at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Lucy Kirkwood's 2012 NSFW at Round House Theatre are in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away gratis.

Cheks Mix: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike & Uncle Vanya, reviewed.

We've got an An-ton of Chekhov in DC just now, what with Arena Stage doing Christopher Durang's Tony Award-winning, Chekhov-inflected Sonia and Masha and Vanya and Spike, while Round House Theatre has put together a sublime new Uncle Vanya, working from Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker's recent translation of the play.

I review both of those in today's Washington City Paper. I have seen Live Art DC's staged-in-a-bar Drunkle Vanya yet, but it's stumbling distance from my apartment so I should find the time.

FURTHER READING: My 2010 review of Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation. My 2011 review of Sydney Theatre Company's Liv Ullmann-directed, Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving-starring Uncle Vanya. My 2012 review of Baker's The Aliens. My 2013 review of Aaron Posner's Stupid Fucking Bird, and its follow-up, from earlier, this year, Life Sucks, or the Present Ridiculous. Surely that's more than enough.