This Was Supposed to Be the New World: Theater J's After the Revolution and Woolly Mammoth's Detroit, reviewed

Nancy Robinette & Megan Anderson in After the Revolution. Photo: Stan Barouh/Theater J. 

I was a bigger fan of Studio Theatre's production of Amy Herzog's 4,000 Miles earlier this year than I am of Theater J's new staging of its companion play, After the Revolution.

I can't fault director Eleanor Holdridge's staging of the latter for that; I just connected more strongly to the material in 4,000 Miles. Getting to see two marvelous actors, Tanya Hicken and Nancy Robinette, offer their takes on the same character -- a close approximation of Herzog's grandmother -- in 4,000 Miles and Revolution, respectively, within a half-year of each other was fun.

I review After the Revolution in today's Washington City Paper, along with Woolly Mammoth's production of Lisa D'Amour's Detroit, which is a nice showcase for some of Woolly's favorite actors -- and mine, too.

It Takes Brass Balls to Direct This Play: Round House’s Glengarry Glen Ross, reviewed

This is why I never wanted a real job. Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross: The Motion Picture.​

No stage production of Glengarry Glen Ross feels complete to me without the speech David Mamet added for the movie version, eight years after his play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984.  But Round House Theatre’s Mitchell Hebert-directed version is solid if not revelatory. Reviewed in today’s City Paper.

This Band Is Your Band: Woody Sez, reviewed.

His life was short and sad, but his songs will live forever.

I reviewed the bio-musical Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie, which is at Theater J this month.

Digging in the Dirt

​Holly Twyford and Natalia Payne

In today's City Paper, I review the second entry in the Studio Theatre's Lab Series for new plays, Bryony Lavery's Dirt. She wrote the masterfully chilling unsettling kiddie-killer drama Frozen, which played at Studio in 2006. She also wrote Beautiful Burnout, a boxing play that I'm eager to see because I like stories that involve boxing for the same reason I love to box: metaphors for the bruising, thrilling experience of life itself don't come any clearer.

I was a big admirer of Studio's production of the first Studio Lab show, Duncan Macmillian's Lungs, which was at Studio at this time last year. Dirt has some thematic congruity with that play, but it isn't quite as surefooted, at least not yet. There's some wastage. But the good stuff is very good. Holly Twyford elevates everything she's in and DC newcomer Natalia Payne is an actor I hope we'll start seeing all over the place. She's phenom-mana.

The War on Droogs: Scena Theater's A Clockwork Orange, reviewed.

Malcolm MacDowell in Stanley Kubrick's inescapable 1971 film version.

Scena Theatre's production of A Clockwork Orange, using Anthony Burgess' adaptation of his own 1962 novella, did not make me want to throw up. Reviewed in today's Washington City Paper.

Thanks to my editor, Jon Fischer, for what he called the "inevitable" hed. I have to admit, it's better than The Milk-Plus of Human Cruelty.

Russian Lark: STC's The Government Inspector, reviewed.

​Overdressed & overqualified. (SCOTT SUCHMAN/Shakespeare Theatre Co.)

A seminal Russian comedy, updated with jokes about teacher's unions. It didn't do much for me, but there's a lot of talent on that stage.

Reviewed in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away for free.