Dry Goods: Hamlet and Sovereignty, reviewed.

I wish I could muster more enthusiasm for Michael Kahn's final Hamlet, starring Michael Urie, or for Sovereignty, an Arena Stage World Premiere entry in the Women's Voices Theater Festival written by Mary Kathryn Nagle, who knows whereof she speaks but not how to make it sing. Those reviews are in this week's Washington City Paper.

Bad Times, Good Times: Studio's Cloud 9 and Constellation's Urinetown, reviewed.

For various critic-related, theater company-related, and publication-related reasons, my reviews of Studio Theatre's production of Caryl Churchill's anticolonial sex romp Cloud 9 and Constellation Theatre Company's new production of the Y2K-era Greg Kotis-Mark Hollman musical Urinetown have taken a long time to see print. But they're in this week's Washington City Paper, and online, too.

Heal Thyself: The Critic and The Real Inspector Hound, reviewed.

The cast of The Real Inspector Hound (Scott Suchman/Shakespeare Theatre Co.)

I couldn't make the Monday-night press premiere of Shakespeare Theatre Company's twofer of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Critic and Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound last week, as I am teaching the Sweet Science on Monday nights this season. But I caught up with the show later in the week and my Washington City Paper review went up this afternoon. Stoppard's play, especially, makes the pain of hackery burn more than usual.

The Prince of Wails: Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, reviewed.

View fullsize

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Edward Gero in Henry IV, Part 1.

That's Edward Gero as King Henry IV. I found out only the other day he was in Die Hard 2: Die Harder, a film I loved in 1990 but which has not aged as well as Die Hard or even Die Hard with a Vengeance. I probably didn't talk about him enough in my tangled but enthusiastic Washington City Paper review of both parts of the Shakespeare Theatre's Company's new, Michael Kahn-directed repertory of Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2.

The Chimes at Midnight, Orson Welles' 1965 compression of the Henriad, which I probably spent too much real estate on in the review, is officially, criminally out-of-print, but you can watch it in its entirety for the time being on YouTube. Do.

A Bit of the Old Albrecht Von: Wallenstein, reviewed

​Colin Carmody and Steve Pickering in Wallenstein.

My enthusiastic review of the Shakespeare Theatre's ironicized and much-slimmed-down new version of Wallenstein, an epic of the Thirty Years War first performed in 1798, is in today's Washington City Paper.