On Around Town, talking King Hedley II, Mary Stuart, and Cherokee

On this trio of Around Town discussions, host Robert Aubry Davis, Washington Post arts writer Jane Horwitz, and I dissect Arena Stage's powerful King Hedley II, Woolly Mammoth's meandering Cherokee, and Folger Theatre's intriguing Mary Stuart.

(My Washington City Paper reviews of are here, here, and here, respectively.)

I'm sorry my hair wasn't as concise and insightful on this day as I strive at all times for it to be.These videos are no longer embeddable, so you'll get links and like it.

King Hedley II:

http://watch.weta.org/video/2365433218/

Cherokee:

http://watch.weta.org/video/2365433239/

Mary Stuart:

http://watch.weta.org/video/2365433276/

Feline Fatale: The Lieutenant of Inishmore, reviewed.

Megan Dominy and Thomas Keegan get bloody (Constellation Theatre Co.)

I reviewed Constellation Theatre Company's new production of Martin McDonagh's bloody 2001 farce The Lieutenant of Inishmore in today's Washington City Paper. The fine Washington Post story I cite (by David Segal, not long after he'd handed off his gig as the paper's pop music critic to my pal Josh du Lac) about the blood work in the play's U.S. premiere back in 2006 is here.

Enter the Drag: Kung Fu Elliot, reviewed.

Elliot Scott is the delusional subject of a documentary by Matthew Bauckman & Jaret Belliveau.

Kung Fu Elliot, a documentary about a man who aspires to be the Canadian Chuck Norris, turns nasty enough quickly enough to call its makers' intentions into question. I reviewed the 2014 Slamdance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winner for Documentary Feature for The Dissolve.

Bleak-Ass House: King Hedley II and Cherokee, reviewed.

My reviews of Arena Stage's unsparing new production of August Wilson's "century cycle" tragedy King Hedley II and Woolly Mammoth's premiere of Lisa D'Amour's shaky Cherokee are in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away gratis.

Pop Culture Happy Hour #230: Jupiter Ascending and Chemistry

Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis in Jupiter Ascending (Murray Close/Warner Bros.)

I was happy as always to join my buddies Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, and Glen Weldon on this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein we dissect Jupiter Ascending, the "original" sci-fi epic from auteur siblings Lana and Andy Wachowski from which audiences flocked away in droves last weekend. (I reviewed the film for The Dissolve.) We also try to figure out what people mean when they talk about "chemistry" among performers onscreen.

As always, I thought of more stuff I could've mentioned after we taped. I must disagree with my Pal-for-Life Glen we he praises Jupiter Ascending as being light on exposition, wherein stuff is "asserted, not explained," but I do believe in leaving some stuff on the table vis-a-vis world building.

One of the consequences of having sequels and prequels and reboots to almost everything now is that it's very difficult to sustain any sense of wonder or mystery. (We really didn't want to know about the Midichlorians, did we?) But the Matrix spinoff The Animatrix – shorts written and directed by animators handpicked by the Wachowskis – builds out the world of The Matrix much more satisfyingly than its own feature sequels do. These shorts are on DVD; they were released online for free in the run-up to the release of The Matrix Reloaded in May 2003, and you can still watch four of them gratis – including the best one, Mahiro Maeda's "The Second Renaissance."

For our chemistry experiment, I brought in a few more clips than we could use. This is an inexhaustible topic, but these are the ones I thought I might have something to say about on this particular day.

William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick & Nora Charles in 1934's The Thin Man and its five sequels. File under: Chemistry, romantic and spousal.

Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg as Steed & Mrs. Peel, from The Avengers, circa 1965-7. The show ran from '61 to '69, giving MacNee a succession of partners during that span, but the Rigg Era seems to be the most fondly remembered. It's certainly my favorite. File under Chemistry, Professional and Sexual.

And of course, the Riggs & Murtaugh of film criticism, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. File under Chemistry, Professional and Adversarial.

Finally, I can't believe I misidentified my own Justified viewing club, The Justified League of America, as the Justified Society of America. We're Silver Age, not Golden Age. Chalk it up to nerves.

The Feminine Critique: Rapture, Blister, Burn, reviewed.

Maggie Erwin & Michelle Six represent two different generations (Danisha Crosby/Round House).

When I saw Round House Theatre's production of Becky Shaw two years ago, I found in Gina Gionfriddo a playwright whose humor and unpredictability made me want to read everything she'd written. I got the scripts for After Ashley and U.S. Drag, and I read them both during the same flight. My review of Round House's new production of her latest – 2012's Rapture, Blister, Burn – is in today's Washington City Paper.