The Scarlet A(s): Inventing Van Gogh and The Argument, reviewed.

Lawrence Remond & Ryan Tumulty in Inventing Van Gogh. (C. Stanley Photography)

In today's Washington City Paper, I review two shows I mostly liked: Washington Stage Guild's Inventing Van Gogh and Theater J's The Argument.

You are alerted.

Mentor of Attention: The Night Watcher, reviewed.

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Won't someone PLEASE think of the children? Charlayne Woodard. (Igor Dmitry/Studio Theatre)

Charlayne Woodard is an actress and storyteller of no mean talent. I did not care for her solo show The Night Watcher.

Reviewed in today's Washington City Paper. 

Youth Aches: In the Forest, She Grew Fangs and Romeo & Juliet, reviewed.

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Megan Graves and Jenny Donovan bare their Fangs. (Chris Maddaloni/The Washington Rogues)

I review Stephen Spotswood's new play In the Forest, She Grew Fangs, as well as Aaron Posner's oddly inert new Romeo & Juliet for the Folger Theater, in this week's Washington City Paper. Available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away gratis. 

Oh, and the costume and props designer for And In the Forest is Jesse Shipley, not Jenny. My mistake.

Crone Warfare: Round House's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, reviewed

Sarah Marshall and Kimberly Gilbert do battle.

My review of Round House Theatre's new production of Martin McDonagh's first play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, is in today's Washington City Paper.  

Shock and Law: Keegan Theatre's A Few Good Men, reviewed

Ubiquitous director Jeremy Skidmore's tenacious production of A Few Good Men, the play that gave us Aaaron Sorkin, cuts a dashing figure in its dress whites. Reviewed in this week's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away for free.

College Try: Theater J's The Hampton Years, reviewed

Crashonda Edwards & Julian Michael Martinez play real-life artists Samella Lewis & John Biggers.

This week's City Paper theater column was supposed to include reviews of Theater J's new The Hampton Years and American Century Theater's revived Biography. The Sunday matinee of Biography I attended was cancelled due to a power failure 30 minutes into the show, and there wasn't another performance scheduled before my Monday-evening deadline, regrettably.

So I ended up with a few more hundred words of real estate in which to unpack what I consider be the very earnest and honorable Hampton Years' very earnest and honorable shortcomings. And also the rather less honorable shortcoming of my published review, wherein I reported that the artist Elizabeth Catlett, a character in The Hampton Years, is still alive. In fact, Ms. Catlett died last year. I apologize for my stupid, sloppy error.

Theater on the TV: Discussing Stupid Fucking Bird and The Hampton Years on WETA's Around Town

In the unlikely event you've nothing better to do on this rainy Friday afternoon than watch Robert Aubry Davis and Jane Horowitz offer insightful comments about a couple of current plays while I blink my eyes and wobble my head around and emit words, then by all means: Gawk away as we discuss Stupid Fucking Bird and The Hampton Years on Around Town.

Watch Stupid F---ing Bird on PBS.

Watch The Hampton Years on PBS.

ALSO: I reviewed Stupid Fucking Bird in the City Paper this week.

It Takes a Lotta Gull: Stupid Fucking Bird, reviewed

The A-List: Cody Nickell, Kate Eastwood Norris, Kimberly Gilbert and Rick Foucheux in Stupid Fucking Bird.

Of the stage productions that've moved me most in the five years or so that I've been semi-professionally paying attention to theatre in DC, a suspiciously high percentage of those have been directed by Aaron Posner. (His 2009 version of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at the Folger Theatre remains my favorite thing that I've ever seen in a playhouse.)

Posner is the playwright, not the director, of Stupid Fucking Bird, his-flippant-but-faithful rejiggering of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, which opened at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company this weekend. (Woolly Mammoth founder Howard Shalwitz is its director.) The result is pretty goddamn delightful, as I aver in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away for free.