Law and Border: District Merchants and El Paso Blue, reviewed.

Seth Rue, Dani Stoller, William Vaughn, and Maren Bush in District Merchants. (Teresa Wood)

Andrés Talero, Lawrence Redmond, and Verónica del Cerro in El Paso Blue. (Stan Weinstein)

District Merchants, Aaron Posner's new Reconstruction-era DC gloss on The Merchant of Venice for the Folger Theatre, is an intriguing muddle; GALA Hispanic Theatre's production of Octavio Solis' El Paso Blue is a surrealist hoot. Both reviews appear in this week's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are still hanging on.

The Man Trap: STC's The Taming of the Shrew and Mosaic Theatre's When January Feels Like Summer, reviewed.

Maulik Pancholy as Katherina and Peter Gadiot as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. (Scott Suchman)

The cast and audience at the intermezzo of The Taming of the Shrew. (Scott Suchman)

Rick Hammerly as the Contessa, Peter Gadiot as Petruchio, Maulik Pancholy as Katherina, and Oliver Thornton as Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. (Scott Suchman) 

Lynette Rathnam and Jason B. McIntosh in When January Feels Like Summer. (Stan Barouh)

Vaughn Ryan Midder and Jeremy Keith Hunter in When January Feels Like Summer. (Stan Barouh)

Shravan Amin and Jeremy Keith Hunter in When January Feels Like Summer. (Stan Barouh)

Directors have reckoned with the misogyny of The Taming of the Shrew in many ways. Ed Sylvanus Iskandar's fix — cast only men, and let the female characters express themselves via covers of old songs from Duncan Sheik, a man — is at least, and most, strange. I review Iskandar's perplexing boys-only Shakespeare Theatre Company Shrew in today's Washington City Paper.

Also reviewed: Mosaic Theatre of DC's When January Feels Like Summer, a shaky play featuring a rock-steady cast. Jeremy Keith Hunter apparently had a small role in Studio Theatre's Chimerica, a show I loved last year, but I don't remember him from that. He's brilliant in January, though.

Unconvention Centers: The Welders' Transmission and Solas Nua's Wild Sky, reviewed.

Dylan Morrison Myers and Megan Graves play young revolutionaries in Wild Sky (Solas Nua).

In today's Washington City Paper, I review two new plays being staged in unusual environments. The Welders' Transmission, by playwright/performer Gwydion Suilebhan, is a thoughtful meditation on the hazards of storytelling, while Deirdre Kinahan's Wild Sky is a human-scale look back at a pivotal moment in Ireland's struggle for self-governance. It's also the first show from Solas Nua in five years. I'm glad they're back.

Losin' It: All the Way and The Mystery of Love and Sex, reviewed.

Most of the cast of Arena Stage's All the Way, starring Jack Willis as LBJ. (Stan Barouh)

Prince is all I've thought about in the can-it-really-be-only-a-day since the world learned of his death, but here are the two theatre reviews I filed earlier in the week for the Washington City Paper. Arena Stage does Richard Schenkkan's 2014 Tony winner All the Way, and Signature Theatre stages Bathsheba Doran's The Mystery of Love and Sex.

Okay, back to deliberating whether I should post Prince's long out-of-print 2002 three-disc live album One Night Alone Live, which is not available for purchase anywhere unless you're prepared to drop north of $300 on a used copy. 

Totalitarian Recall: 1984 and The Pillowman, reviewed.

Jim Jorgensen, Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, and Bradley Foster Smith in The Pillowman (Forum).

My reviews of the British theatre collective Headlong's adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, and Forum Theatre's new staging of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, are in today's Washington City Paper.

Here's the trailer the 1984 Michael Radford's version of 1984 that I mention I saw at an impressionable age. I can't imagine ever saying this in any other context, but the Eurythmics soundtrack was not a good idea.

Popcorn Psychology: Signature's The Flick, reviewed.

Thaddeus McCants, Laura C. Harris, and Evan Casey in The Flick (Signature Theatre).

I review Signature Theatre's production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning comic drama The Flick in this week's Washington City Paper. It's the fourth Annie Baker play I've reviewed — five if you count her translation of Uncle Vanya — and the second in which I've quoted a heckler. Maybe I wouldn't have done that had I remembered doing it in my review of Studio Theatre's The Aliens three-and-a-half years ago.

Further reading, if you really want to see me struggle not to repeat myself: Circle Mirror Transformation, from 2010, and Body Awareness, from 2012.

A Silver Spoonful of Sugar: The Lion, reviewed.

Benjamin Scheuer, composer & performer of the solo musical The Lion (Matthew Murphy).

I struggled with my Washington City Paper review of The Lion, a strong, brief one-man musical play by the singer-songwriter Benjamin Scheuer. This was a case where learning about the circumstances of the show's creation—as one is wont to do when writing about art—made me like it less in hindsight than I did the moment the performance ended. Is that fair? I'm still not sure. You can read my attempt to work through my consternation while still giving the artist his due here.

Less Is Moor: Othello, reviewed.

Screen veteran Faran Tahir in Othello at The Shakespeare Theatre. (Scott Suchman)

I reviewed the Shakespeare Theatre Company's new Ron Daniels-directed Othello, starring Jinn's Faran Tahir as the Moor of Venice, for the Washington City Paper. Jonno Roberts' Iago is the best reason to go.