Tête-à-Tête Offensive: Tender Napalm and The Carolina Layaway Grail, reviewed.

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Laura C. Harris and Elan Zafir in Tender Napalm (Teresa Wood)

In one of the the shows at Signature Theatre right now, a woman (named "Woman") tells a man ("Man") in precise, step-by-step detail how she plans to sever his penis and scrotum.

In the theater next door, Beaches: The Musical is playing. Six of one...

I review Philip Ridley's Tender Napalm in this week's Washington City Paper. Plus Allyson Currin's The Carolina Layaway Grail, the inaugural production from DC playwriting collective The Welders.

Why yes, I am fairly pleased with the hed, thanks. It's one of the very few times I've ever managed to top my editor (and Heds Will Roll Tumblr proprietr) Jon Fischer's suggestion, which is on Heds Will Roll now though it's far more tasteful than mine. Then he came back and nailed the photo caption, so. 

Habit, Run: Water by the Spoonful and Normal, reviewed.

Vincent J. Brown and Amy Kim Waschke in Water by the Spoonful (Teddy Wolff)

Brian McDermott, Elizabeth Darby, and Alex Zavistovich in Normal (Kristin Jackman)

In today's Washington City Paper, I review the Pultizer-winning drama Water by the Spoonful at Studio Theatre and Molotov's production of Normal, a play about the Dusseldorf Ripper.

Fear of a Dwarf Planet: Forum's Pluto and WSC's Orlando, reviewed.

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David Zimmerman, Jennifer Mendendall, and Kimberly Gilbert in Forum Theatre's Pluto.

NOTICE: My reviews of Steve Yockey's "rolling world premiere" Pluto for Forum Theatre and Sarah Ruhl's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando at WSC Avant Bard are in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away yadda yadda yadda.

The Life Despotic with Drew Cortese

Cortese and Alyssa Wilmoth Keegan as Lady Anne (Jeff Malet/Folger)

Richard Sheridan Willis as Lord Stanley (Jeff Malet/Folger)

I didn't know Drew Cortese until I saw him in The Motherfucker with the Hat at Studio Theatre this time last year, but the performance made a powerful impression. He's in Richard III at the Folger Theatre now. We talked about roads not taken and being the bad guy for a piece in today's Washington City Paper.

All photos by Jeff Malet, courtesy Folger Theatre.

Devise and Conquer: We Are Proud to Present..., reviewed.

Peter Howard, Holly Twyford, and Dawn Ursula in We Are Proud to Present...

I can't think of another time I've had as visceral and angry a reaction to a play as I did to Jackie Sibblies Drury's We Are Proud to Present. It takes a lot of gall to sit down with the intent of illuminating a little-known genocide and then decide, at some point during the writing process, to make it all about you. 

Profiles of the playwright in the New York Times and the Washington Post cover this. I still kind of want to see the zombie play mentioned in the Times piece, but its revelation that she puts emoticons in her stage directions is unsurprising in light of the clumsiness of We Are Proud, wherein Drury chooses a hacky, wrongheaded premise and then executes it in a way that devolves from merely dull to actually loathsome.

My review of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's production is in today's Washington City Paper, along with a review of Spooky Action Theatre's local premiere of Brazilian playwright Nelson Rodrigues's surreal 1943 play The Wedding Dress.

The Motherfucker with the Limp: Folger's Richard III, reviewed.

Drew Cortese is a supervillain for the ages. (Jeff Malet)

No one was more excited than I was when the Folger Theatre announced that Drew Cortese -- a standout player from Studio's The Motherfucker with the Hat last year -- would play Richard III. The show is good, but not the radical reinvention I'd hoped it might be.  Read all about it in today’s Washington City Paper.

Mucho Mistrust, Love's Gone Behind: Rorschach's Glassheart, reviewed.

Megan Reichelt and Lynette Rathnam

That's a refrain from Blondie's "Heart of Glass," by the way. Who knew? Not me.

I'm of the opinion that Reina Hardy's spin on Beauty and the Beast, Glassheart, is an undercooked play, but the cast of Rorschach Theatre's production is doing admirable work. My review is in today's Washington City Paper.

Diamond Dawgs: Bang the Drum Slowly, reviewed.

Evan Crump as Author  Richie Montgomery as Bruce in Bang the Drum Slowly. (Johannes Markus) 

I've never been a big sports fan, but I'm weirdly susceptible to baseball stories. I found American Century Theatre's stage adaptation of Mark Harris' 1956 baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly to be an anachronistic pleasure. My review is in today's Washington City Paper.