"Jersey Shore" Gone Wilde, Part 1

The Broadway production of Oscar Wilde's great comedy, "The Importance of Being Earnest," presents transcriptions from "Jersey Shore."
"The Importance of Being Earnest" can be seen in HD in a limited engagement in movie theaters this summer.

VOINA - Russian art collective

By Kriston Capps
The Washington Post April 3 2011

Many contemporary artists marry art and politics in pursuit of a social agenda or to expose a political peculiarity. But in Russia, one group of artists is weaponizing performance art, turning it into a tool to terrorize the state.

The Voina Group

Since 2007, Russian activists operating under the name “Voina” — the Russian word for “war” — have been performing anti-state, anti-authoritarian, frequently violent and patently illegal acts as artworks. They hosted a sit-down dinner party on a Moscow subway train, performed public sex acts in a museum, staged a mock execution in a grocery store and have otherwise intimidated the public square — even, and perhaps most notoriously, going so far as to throw cats at McDonald’s employees to celebrate International Workers’ Day.

As an art collective, Voina is testing the boundaries of performance art. As activists, they are testing the patience of Russian authorities.

“Voina is waging a relentless struggle against the current Russian authorities,” Oleg Vorotnikov, who founded Voina with his wife, Natalya Sokol, said in an e-mail. For their part, Russian authorities don’t much care for Vorotnikov and his ilk, either. Vorotnikov, Sokol and Leonid Nikolayev — three of the half-dozen core members of Voina — claim that they were beaten by plainsclothes police in St. Petersburg on March 3, suffering bruises and lacerations.

To be sure, Voina admits to violently harassing security officials. Last Sept. 16, Voina staged “Palace Revolution,” an action in St. Petersburg in which members of the art collective overturned police cars. The group claims that intoxicated police officers were sleeping in those cars when the activists vandalized them. Two months later, officials of the Center for Extremism Prevention, known colloquially as Center E, detained and jailed Vorotnikov and Nikolayev.

That action, or perhaps the subsequent response from authorities, earned Voina the respect of the notorious street artist Banksy, who posted bail for the artists. But in addition to earning the respect of other street-level artists, Voina has also earned honors from Moscow’s cultural elite. For a June 2010 work, executed under the cover of night, members of Voina poured white paint on the surface of the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg. When the drawbridge rose in the early morning, the adjacent headquarters for the Federal Security Service (the successor of the KGB) was saluted by a 200-foot tall depiction of an erect phallus. Showing good humor, Russia’s Ministry of Culture nominated and even shortlisted Voina’s “Penis Captured by KGB” performance for the state’s prestigious Innovation award for art. Voina rejected the nomination.

Voina disdains any honors from a state they consider to be corrupt — and money from any source whatsoever. Voina member Alexei Plutser-Sarno says Voina spent 2008 living in a non-heated garage on the outskirts of Moscow. The group does not own any property (though network members may). Its ideology is something like freeganism, an anti-consumerist lifestyle marked by alternative living strategies, such as dumpster diving.

“Voina never sells or buys anything. Never makes any money. Never works with Russian galleries,” Plutser-Sarno e-mailed. Its members “live in squats and confiscate food in large supermarkets.”

Matthew Bown, a Berlin-based art dealer who specializes in Russian art, says the attitude is not entirely uncommon among Russian artists. “It’s partly a political attitude, partly a necessity,” he said in an e-mail. “For example, a couple of months ago I was invited to a lunch party at the flat of a well-known 25-year-old Moscow artist (not a Voina member). Her colleagues, all roughly the same age, were there. All the food on the table was stolen. She stole it all from the supermarket in order to feed her guests.”

Consumerism is a frequent subject in Voina’s works, but even in these, there is usually a national security angle missing from other Western contemporary art about consumerism. For “Feast,” an August 2007 work, Voina members held a banquet to commemorate artist, poet and Soviet-era dissident Dmitri Prigov, who died in July of that year. Some 50 Voina activists entered the Moscow Metro and set up the dinner on a Circle Line train.

Although the Moscow Metro is patrolled by armed police, the 40-minute “Feast” artwork toured the entire line and concluded without incident, according to Voina. During a repeat of the action in Kiev, Ukraine, the group was arrested.

Voina has staged several performances in supermarkets. For a 2008 piece, Vorotnikov dressed in a police hat and an Orthodox priest’s cassock and stole a shopping cart’s worth of goods — without incident. Again in 2008, Voina members carried out a faux lynching in Moscow’s largest supermarket. Five activists representing Kyrgyz and Uzbek migrant workers and Russian and Jewish homosexuals, all of whom were reportedly heavily drugged, voluntarily submitted themselves to hangings. Video of the work appears to show Russian security authorities participating in the performance, which was intended to protest the subjugation of minorities in Moscow.

“The group is absolutely democratic,” says co-founder Natalya Sokol. “There is no compulsion. Activists decide whether they want to participate or not. They can leave the group and afterward come back to it.”

For one extreme performance, staged days before the election of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Voina held a public orgy at the Timiryazev State Biological Museum in Moscow. Five couples met inside the museum’s Hall on Metabolism, Energy, Nutrition and Digestion and copulated. The performance was filmed and posted online.

Voina’s performances have earned them infamy and imitators. A 2011 video showing individuals assaulting female police officers by kissing them without their consent was falsely attributed to Voina. And they weren’t the people who released thousands of cockroaches in a Russian courtroom.

What is the difference between Voina and their non-artist imitators, both of whom break the laws of state and sometimes decency? For one thing, Voina has supporters in the legitimate art world. Esteemed art historian Andrey Kovalev and curator Andrey Erofeev joined officers from Memorial, the Russian human rights organization, for a February 2011 panel to discuss Voina’s work and legal crises.

And though the members are protective of the Voina brand, calling out imposters, they are dismissive about their own political role. They don’t see a way forward with the status quo.

“We don’t have anything to do with any Russian political groups or platforms,” says Vorotnikov. “If you ask us a question about whom would we prefer — Putin or Medvedev — it shows that you don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

Christopher Walken's Brechtian Tap Dance in "Pennies from Heaven"

So here's what we'll talk about: How does Christopher Walken "alienate" the striptease in classic Brechtian manner?

Molly Smith interviews Edward Albee during "An Evening with Edward Albee"

An interview conducted during Arena Stage's season-long celebration of the works of Edward Albee--two days before his 84th birthday.

The Great Balancing Act -- Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance"

Here's another scene showing Edward Albee's mastery of the surrealism of ordinary dinning-room conversation. From a film version of Albee's A Delicate Balance, featuring truly great actors: Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Lee Remick.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - final fight

"George and Martha -- sad, sad . . ."

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?- making conversation

Another amazing scene from the film. The subtitles are distracting (unless you speak Portuguese or whatever that is) but this seems to be the best version available on YouTube.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - arriving home

The 1966 film version of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, directed by Mike Nichols, is deservedly famous--but it's not really an ideal version of the play. For that, you should see the current Steppenwolf production at Arena Stage. But it does show Elizabeth Taylor in an extraordinary performance, even if she's not exactly right for the role. Everyone should see this movie.

Samuel Beckett - Rockaby (Part 1)

Here is an excerpt from Beckett's Rockaby, to give a little sense of what the Kennedy Center program might be like.

Beckett at the Kennedy Center - directed by Peter Brook

The Kennedy Center offers a very unusual opportunity this month to see selected short plays by Samuel Beckett directed by Peter Brook, one of the most admired and influential living theater artists. (You will see excerpts from his film Marat/Sade in class in a couple of weeks.)

As you can tell from Godot, Beckett's method was minimalism. He kept cutting down the essentials of theatrical presentation until all that was left was a single figure on the stage. And then he kept on reducing after that. So this show is only for those who have a lot of patience, the ability to pay very close attention to small gestures, and a fascination for the most experimental forms of theater.  For those who do, it's an extraordinary event.

C.I.C.T./Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris
production of
Fragments
By Samuel Beckett
Directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne

Revered director Peter Brook, returning to the Kennedy Center for the first time since 1973, brings together five short works by playwright Samuel Beckett for his theater collection, Fragments. Brook's pared-down style is the perfect complement to Beckett's lean examinations of the absurdity of life. The works, Rough for Theatre I, Rockaby, Act Without Words II, Neither, and Come and Go, combine "cruelty, laughter, and unexpected tenderness" (The Daily Telegraph). "They give us Beckett distilled. And in the hands of Brook…the sharp observation of human conduct is lovingly delivered" (The Financial Times).

Apr 14 - 17, 2011

• Eisenhower Theater
• 1 hour
• $25.00 - $85.00

Tickets and Schedule | About the Program

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at Arena Stage

A scene from the production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, currently at Arena Stage.

"Red Herring" at Washington Stage Guild

A very positive review for this light comedy from The Washington Post:

Brit Herring, left, Jeff Baker and Michael Avolio put on their shades for the Washington Stage Guild's production of "Red Herring."

By Nelson Pressley

Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 8, 2011; 5:55 PM

Silly spy games are the focus - or are they? - of Michael Hollinger's comedy, "Red Herring," which sends up McCarthy-era Soviet paranoia while getting gumshoe on its plot. That means it's a hard-boiled crime story, too, plus a romance - a happy mash-up performed with sass (and on the cheap) by the Washington Stage Guild.

Don't go to the cozy Undercroft Theatre expecting razzle-dazzle. Jonathan Rushbrook's 10-cent set is its own joke of minimal plywood props briskly rearranged as Hollinger's terse scenes shift from Boston to Wisconsin to the South Pacific (for nuclear tests). The slinky music on the sound design is a little too tinny to generate a real good noir effect, but then again, ersatz is a better fit for this monkey business.
The actors in Steven Carpenter's production are wise to Hollinger's style, and that's what really makes the show work. Led by Marni Penning's wry turn as a tough lady detective with a soft heart and a Barbara Stanwyck shell, the cast fairly skips through the heavy undergrowth of story. Penning plays Maggie Pelletier, who just might marry handsome G-man Frank Keller (Brit Herring), except as soon as he pops the question, a body floats up in Boston Harbor. Naturally, Maggie's on the job.
Meantime in Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy's daughter Lynn (a perky Bligh Voth) is falling for a young Army guy named James (cheery Michael Avolio), who's idealistically passing secrets to the Soviets. This leads to more subterfuge and mistaken identities as James gets Lynn to make a connection for him in Boston, where a lusty landlady and her Soviet paramour skulk into the picture.
Repartee sometimes seems like a lost art in the theater, so the snappy dialogue and wisecracks rate as real pleasures. Hollinger scrapes bottom a couple of times trying to keep the hijinks percolating, most notably with shtick that has the Soviet guy pantomiming like a bad charades player once the landlady nervously blurts to investigators that he's mute. Mostly, though, the patter hums along. As the law enforcement types, Penning and Herring pitch woo in the same gruff tones they use on the job, and cute couple Voth and Avolio, as Lynn and James, winsomely improvise a rhyme of "Commie" and "mommy" to cover up their clandestine conversations.
Lynn Steinmetz offers frothy turns both as Mrs. McCarthy and as the nefarious Beantown landlady, and Jeff Baker, playing four roles (everyone except Penning doubles up), has an especially nice long scene as the Russian, bantering sluggishly over drinks with an unwitting Maggie the cop. Toss in some appealing early-1950s gray suits and poodle skirts by costume designers Jenny Bernson and Adalia Vera Tonneyck, and you have an attractive, amusing throwback spoof.

Red Herring by Michael Hollinger. Directed by Steven Carpenter. Lighting, Marianne Meadows; sounds, Steven Carpenter. About two hours and 15 minutes. Through March 27 at the Undercroft Theatre, Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Call 240-582-0050 or visit www.stageguild.org.

Peter Marks reviews 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at Arena Stage

The rapture of utter depletion is what you feel these days at Arena Stage, courtesy of the toxic swamp otherwise known as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Happily exhausted - the kind of post-workout fatigue that sends endorphins coursing through your system - is how you leave the theater after the marathon session with the brutal partnership of Tracy Letts and Amy Morton, playing George and Martha, antagonists joined in unholy matrimony.
The war between George and Martha has rarely seemed such a fair fight as it does in this sterling production, which comes to Arena's Kreeger Theater from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre under Pam MacKinnon's secure direction. The eternally stewing Letts and brashly assertive Morton prove to be exceedingly well matched. Together they project all the bile, resilience and love - yes, love - that is needed to fully equip these warriors for the vituperative, symbiotic quagmire in which George and Martha forever wallow.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" launches Arena's two-month-long festival of Edward Albee's work, and naturally, a vigorous "Virginia Woolf" - Albee's best-known play - gets things off to a delectable start. Arena has embarked on a serious effort to weave into its programming intriguing work from other companies around the city and the nation; Steppenwolf, birthplace of so much first-rate theater, was a smart place to look.
Its meticulously plotted-out "Virginia Woolf" paves a delightfully scathing path into Albee's world of figurative daggers and demons; the play just may be the sharpest-witted ever purged from the psyche of an American writer. The devastating impact here is magnified by the actors playing the evening's victims, the characters targeted by George and Martha in their vicious game of "get the guests." As Nick and Honey, the young academic couple drawn into George and Martha's manipulative death-grip, Madison Dirks and Carrie Coon both firmly hold their own.
Coon may be a level above; her Honey feels definitive, an ideal embodiment of this wallflower who bumps into marriage with a handsome go-getter via a hysterical pregnancy. As she lapses into a brandy-fueled stupor on a night of bottomless cocktails, Coon's Honey sinks deeper into cluelessness and distress. The actress is effortlessly convincing. The blurrier she becomes, the clearer we see that she and Nick are trapped in a union far less honest than their hosts'.
Alcohol, by contrast, seems to sharpen the instincts of this George and Martha; no matter how many bottles they drain, Letts and Morton never appear to get even a tiny bit tipsy. As a stimulant, it seems, nothing can top vengeance.
Nick and Honey appear late one night at the doorstep of George and Martha, who are, respectively, a history professor of no more than middling achievement and the daughter of the university's domineering president. Their marriage is beyond tempestuous; it's a salted wound of disappointment and resentment. On this particular night of drinking - you get the sense it's one in an ongoing series - the recrimination that ensues seems to redefine the standard for disastrous social events.
Or maybe, it's the best darn party they've ever thrown. George and Martha wind themselves up in round after round of poisonous one-upmanship (are they just addicted to pain?) and then, smelling the fear on their guests, they turn their artillery on Nick and Honey until the unwitting couple is cruelly exposed to the sham of their own situation.
Told in three acts, the play is long, but it's the opposite of a long sit. The hilarious assault of Albee's quicksilver barbs makes sure of that.
"Virginia Woolf" becomes a problem only if the actors think it's a shouting match. Elizabeth Taylor was misguidedly given an Oscar for turning Martha into a scenery-chewing harridan in the film version. Morton, dynamite in the Broadway transfer of Steppenwolf's "August: Osage County" - written by none other than Letts - never commits that error.
Her lithe, carnivorous Martha may say monstrous things, but she's more wounded bird of prey than monster, a complicated woman conscious of her own great hungers and flaws. If George is guilty of any crime, she confides at one point, it's being devoted: He's made "the insulting mistake of loving me," she says, "and must be punished for it." That perverse logic makes sense in Morton's well-constructed portrayal, which rewardingly reveals that Martha seems to retain just as powerful a need for him.
Evidence of the embers of old feelings still smoldering is reflected in Letts's hypersensitive George, who prowls the stage with clenched jaw and worried glances over his shoulder, ready for the next blow; it's a messy marriage, but not a dead one, and this George has real power over it. Letts delivers Albee's priceless ripostes with a crispness that conveys both an actor's strength and a writer's appreciation for the brilliance of a script. "In my mind, Martha, you are buried in cement, right up to your neck," Letts's George says. "No - right up to your nose. That's much quieter." (It seems no accident that in "August's" scalding exchanges one sometimes hears echoes of Albee.)
Set designer Todd Rosenthal conjures George and Martha's home as the sort of substantial manse with carved-wood trimming that you find in any old-line New England college town; amusingly, he has stacked books everywhere, even in the non-working fireplace. And Nan Cibula-Jenkins's costumes, from George's stuffy cardigan to Honey's dowdy green ensemble, convey the style choices in a cerebral environment that's mostly immune to fashion. (Only the exhibitionist Martha wears clothes for their effect.)
The production's energy does flag from time to time, but these lulls are fleeting and only occur when Letts or Morton is absent from the stage. At every moment of onstage contact between them, this "Virginia Woolf" generates friction in megawatts.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. Directed by Pam MacKinnon. Lighting, Allen Lee Hughes; sound, Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen; fight choreographer, Nick Sandys. About 3 hours 10 minutes. Through April 10 at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. SW. Visit www.arenastage.org or call 202-488-3300.

Now at Rorschach Theater

 Antonya Huntenberg found a mention of this interesting play, offering $15 student tickets. Rorschach is an interesting, experimental local theater company.

VOICES UNDERWATER

By Abi Basch
Directed by Jenny McConnell Frederick
Performing at
The National Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts
1556 Wisconsin Avenue, Georgetown
(Wisconsin and Volta - entrance on Volta)
Opens March 7, 2011
Pay-What-You-Can Previews on March 5 and 6
(Full schedule and ticket prices below)
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS
"A poetic, time-and-space bending exploration of race and desire, set in the attic of an abandoned plantation house during a night of never-ending rain."
– American Theater Magazine
A storm rages outside. Emma and Franklin take refuge in the attic of an Alabama plantation house. As they explore the attic they are haunted by the spirits of a dark past – the daughter of a 1920’s Klu Klux Klan leader and a wounded civil-war soldier. As time and space spin around them, the rain continues, the waters rise and the house begins to leak its secrets. VOICES UNDERWATER is an exquisite exploration of the ghosts that lurk just beneath the surface.
FEATURING Ricardo Frederick Evans, Julie Garner, Kari Ginsburg and Clementine Thomas
DESIGNED BY Company Member David C. Ghatan (Set Designer) with Lynly Saunders (Costume Designer), Andrew Griffin (Lighting Designer), Nicole Martin (Sound Designer) and Lauren Cucarola (Props Designer)
STAGE MANAGED BY Sharon King (Stage Manager) and Joseph Jones (Asst. Stage Manager) PRODUCED BY Jenny McConnell Frederick and Randy Baker with Catherine Tripp (Associate Producer)

FULL SCHEDULE AND TICKET PRICES:

PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN PREVIEWS
on Saturday, March 5 and Sunday, March 6 at 8pm
There are no reservations for Pay-What-You-Can previews. Tickets go on sale one hour prior to the show
RUN CONTINUES UNTIL APRIL 3
With performances on
Thursdays, Fridays an Saturays at 8pm
and on Sunday, March 26 and Sunday, April 3 at 3pm.
TICKET PRICES:
$25 full price suggested donation
$15 student/senior/group suggested donation

Edward Albee Festival starts at Arena Stage

By Peter Marks

Washington Post Staff Writer
March 4, 2011

A debate rages over whether it's useful to experience the life's work of playwright Edward Albee simply by having actors read aloud his scripts. On one side are organizers of Arena Stage's Edward Albee Festival, who say the 26 staged readings of virtually every Albee play produced since the late '50s - from works such as "The American Dream" to "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?" - constitute a rare opportunity to float at length in the dazzling metaphorical universe of one of America's greatest living dramatists.
On the other side is Albee himself. "I'm not so sure about how this whole reading thing will work. I mistrust readings," grumbles the writer, who turns 83 Saturday. He worries that his prose - intended for more vibrant platforms - will end up competing with the sound of snores. "Some of them will be okay. Some of them will work better than others," he adds, resignedly. "I try to, but I can't control the world."
People who know him say that the skeptical tone is vintage Albee, a man who, no matter how elliptical his characters can seem, is enamored of straight talk. Fierceness is another trademark of the indelibly undiplomatic personages he has created over the span of six decades: Think of venomous Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" or the restive Jerry, fulminating over his love-hate relationship with a neighbor's dog in "The Zoo Story." Albee's reservoirs of passion and playfulness, his sense of daring and mischief, will churn and swell over the next several weeks in the corridors and performance spaces of Arena Stage, as the ambitious festival pores over his work. (Albee says he's unaware of any previous undertaking of the entire canon of this range.)
Included are two full productions: one by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and Arena's own staging of "At Home at the Zoo," a pairing of 1959's "The Zoo Story" with a prequel to it that he wrote a couple of years ago. These, Albee says, are the entries that for him are the most worthwhile.
That is not to say, however, that the sparer stagings will not generate spikes of imaginative energy. The parade of readings begins Monday with Albee's 1981 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" and then hopscotches back and forth, in no particular order, through full-length masterpieces such as "A Delicate Balance" and shorter works that reveal Albee's embrace of the absurd, such as "The Sandbox.

As is the case with "Lolita," directed by Round House Theatre's Blake Robison, the readings of many of the plays are being guided by other theater companies in town that are coming to Southwest Washington at Arena's invitation. The readings conclude April 24, with a recital of Albee's 1966 "Malcolm," overseen by director Michael Dove of Forum Theatre Company.

David Dower, Arena's associate artistic director and the guiding force behind the festival, says the all-inclusiveness evolved in conversations with the playwright. "He was so touched at the notion of seeing them all that we knew we were doing the right thing," Dower says, adding that the point of hearing Albee's work is an immersion in the rhetorical craftsmanship of a theater poet and technician.
"Listening to him talk about his plays, and he was so linguistically precise about them, it reminded me how precise his characters are," Dower continues. "From a reading standpoint, it's the linguistic construct of these worlds."
Albee is doubtless well known, especially as a result of the 1966 movie version of "Virginia Woolf" with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton that's more fondly remembered than it deserves to be; a much more rewarding touchstone was the play's 2005 Broadway revival with Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner that eventually visited the Kennedy Center. But because he has so steadfastly remained a man of the theater, his is not a crossover sort of fame. Although he's won three Pulitzer Prizes - for "A Delicate Balance," "Seascape" and "Three Tall Women" - his renown is largely confined to a few famous titles.
More to the point, he's not for dabblers. His plays provoke and puzzle and require your complete engagement, for an Albee play can verge on opaque. The scaldingly funny George and Martha of "Virginia Woolf" are less emblematic of his output than, say, the miniature house that lights up ominously in the 1966 "Tiny Alice," the marvelously peculiar story of the seduction of a lay Catholic brother by a wealthy matriarch. So, in a sense, a playgoer signs up with Albee for a long-term relationship, not a one-night stand. Because so few prominent dramatists these days devote themselves exclusively to the stage, Albee's commitment to his audience feels almost quaint.
He's revered in the theater for his ceaseless experimentation, of a type often grounded in a comprehension that there are questions, mysteries and fears we all share. When, for instance, in "A Delicate Balance," the best friends of Agnes and Tobias show up at their house, saying they were stricken with a generalized terror in their own home and now want to move in, Albee weaves a predicament both discomfiting and hilarious. Who hasn't been nagged by the sensation you no longer belong or felt the need to be protected from the world?
"He's the master who you look at your own work in light of," explains Amy Freed, a playwright ("The Beard of Avon") who is in residency at Arena and will direct Albee's "The Man Who Had Three Arms" on March 13. "I don't pretend to understand all of his work, but I've had the experience of feeling rearranged by it. Just the amount of provocation that he creates: the half-tones and undertones and resonances. So he's daunting, like his work is sometimes daunting, but there's nobody braver."
The intellectual affection for Albee's style is such that students, especially, forge powerful connections when they are introduced to his plays. "He's probably my favorite American playwright," says Maya E. Roth, director of Georgetown University's Theater and Performance Studies Program, who is directing "A Delicate Balance" on April 11 and 12. She says that she teaches him often and that in learning about him in tandem with that other modernist master, Samuel Beckett, students are intrigued about the bridge between minimalism and "a world they recognize. It makes them reflect."
Albee in his eighth decade remains a vigilant guardian of how he is perceived and how his plays are performed. (He still teaches playwriting and drama courses each spring at the University of Houston, where he is at the moment.) In November, he came to Arena from New York to meet with the directors of the proposed readings. "Edward being Edward," Dower says, "when we all sat down at the table, he counted around and said, 'Well, this isn't everyone. Where are the rest?' "
The dramatist's goal was to preempt any tendency the festival might have to calcify into a symposium. He told the directors he wanted the pieces to stay fresh. "I said, 'The one thing I don't want you to do is rehearse these staged readings to death,' " he says by phone from Houston. " 'What I want you to do is get some really good actors, maybe run through the plays once or twice, give them their heads, and let's have some spontaneity here.' "
Paul Tetreault, the producing artistic director of Ford's Theatre, says he recognizes in Albee's involvement in the Arena event the dramatist he became close to over several years at the Alley Theatre, the Houston company for which Tetreault worked and which regularly produced Albee's plays. One time, after reviewing Alley's production history, Tetreault remarked to Albee on how popular he had been with the company.
"I said, 'Edward, I've gone through all the years of records, and you are the second most produced playwright for us, after Shakespeare.' And he said, 'We should fix that. I really should be the first.' "

The full schedule for upcoming staged readings of Albee's plays can be found here. Synopses may help you decide if you're interested in a particular play. I especially recommend The Goat, The American Dream, Tiny Alice, The Sandbox, The Play About the Baby, and Three Tall Women.

Waiting for Godot - Beckett on Film 1/13

Waiting for Godot can be found on YouTube in 13 parts. This is the first.
This production, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the Beckett on Film series, features Irish actors and is undoubtedly a very authentic realization of the play. But it is a film, after all, and makes choices about editing that inevitably pull focus from some aspects of the play while highlighting others. It is true that you don't really get Godot until you've seen a really good production--but equally true that you don't really get it till you've analyzed the text for yourself.

March theater in Washington

By Stephanie Merry Friday, March 4, 2011 The Washington Post


With Arena Stage's celebration of playwright Edward Albee, the Kennedy Center's spotlight on India and Atlas's heaping buffet of music, theater and dance, you'd think D.C. had reached its festival quota. Yet this month promises a deep dive into the work of Irish playwright Enda Walsh and a blowout for Tennessee Williams's 100th birthday, not to mention some promising productions that stand alone.
Washington Stage Guild, always dependable for witty and thought-provoking productions, takes on Michael Hollinger's Cold War-era farce "Red Herring." The company has found success with the playwright's works, including the well-received "An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf" in 2006. This offering follows three couples (one of which includes Joseph McCarthy's daughter) dealing with Russian spies, murder and nuclear arms. Through March 27. Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW. 240-582-0050. www.stageguild.org. $40-$50. Pay-what-you-can Friday.
You might describe Molotov Theatre Group as gutsy. Literally. Shows from the local masters of gory Grand Guignol theater have involved bloody splash zones, lost limbs, even the removal of tongues. But now the Fringe Festival favorites have outdone themselves with the English-language premiere of the Brazilian "Morgue Story," which culminates in a cutthroat fight scene - performed in the nude. Through April 2. Playbill Cafe's black box theater, 1409 14th St. NW. www.molotovtheatre.org. $20.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of its hit play "The Chosen," Theater J heads south for a guest performance at Arena Stage. Aaron Posner adapted and directs this rendition of Chaim Potok's story about two boys growing up in Brooklyn, starring Rick Foucheux ("The Odd Couple") and Edward Gero (from Signature Theatre's "Sweeney Todd"). Tuesday through March 27. Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. SW. www.arenastage.org. 202-488-3300. $30-$60. Pay-what-you-can Tuesday.
Director Keith Baxter is no stranger to Shakespeare Theatre Company or Oscar Wilde, having directed "Lady Windermere's Fan" at the Lansburgh Theatre in 2005. Baxter returns with "An Ideal Husband," Wilde's charming play about a well-respected politician whose past threatens his promising future. Imagine that in this town. Tuesday through April 10. Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW. 202-547-1122. www.shakespearetheatre.org. $20-$98.
Hot on the heels of its production of "The Cripple of Inishmaan" at the Kennedy Center, Ireland's Druid Theatre stages Enda Walsh's critically lauded play "Penelope." This fresh take on Odysseus's more patient half is part of Studio Theatre's festival celebrating the works of the Dublin-born playwright. March 15 through April 3. Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. 202-332-3300. www.studiotheatre.org. $44-$65.
The world premiere of "And the Curtain Rises," part of Signature Theatre's American Musical Voices Project supporting the creation of musicals, is a fictional - and farcical - retelling of the staging of America's first musical. March 17 through April 10. Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. 703-820-9771. www.signature-theatre.org. $54-$86.
Monologist Mike Daisey isn't big on bells and whistles. Usually seated at a wooden table in a black shirt, Daisey manages to enthrall his audience with words alone. After taking on the financial crisis ("The Last Cargo Cult") and the Department of Homeland Security ("If You See Something Say Something"), Daisey returns to Woolly Mammoth Theatre to turn his perceptive eye and clever wit on the ever-expanding Apple empire in "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." March 21 to April 10. Woolly Mammoth Theatre, 641 D St. NW. 202-393-3939. www.woollymammoth.net. $45-$65. Pay-what-you-can Monday and Tuesday.
You may not get to hear an alarming "Stella!," but Georgetown University's Tennessee Williams Centennial Festival promises a weekend full of activities, including performances of "The Glass Menagerie," a concert inspired by "A Streetcar Named Desire" and a visit from John Waters, who will stage his one-man show "This Filthy World" before discussing his admiration for Williams's work. March 24-27. Georgetown University, at the Davis Performing Arts Center. performingarts.georgetown.edu. Prices vary.
After taking on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Othello," among other Shakespearean classics, Synetic Theater gives the tragedy "King Lear" the group's singular movement-focused treatment. March 24 through April 24. Lansburgh Theatre, 450 Seventh St. NW. 202-547-1122. www.synetictheater.org. $30-$55.

Hey! Do you play guitar?

Here's a chance to be on stage, get paid, and still not have to "act":

Seeking great guitar player 21-30 for onstage band in the rock musical "F#*king Up Everything", which will be performed this summer at Woolly Mammoth from July 15 - Aug 14. Rehearsals begin June 24.

Guitar Player character has no lines, just needs to look cool and play great. Non-equity. Paid.

Send picture, resume, and mp3s to wowamilucky@yahoo.com.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Charlie Fink
Producing Artistic Director
http://newmusicalfoundation.org

Bernard sez: I can vouch for Charlie Fink. He's a good guy, and the show should be interesting. Plus you can't beat that title.

From "The Scotsman"

A newspaper in Scotland offers this report which may provide another context for Black Watch:

Police report massive rise in Scottish gay hate crime

Published Date: 06 February 2011
By Ben Archibald

HATE crimes against homosexuals in Scotland have risen almost fivefold in the past five years, shock new statistics have revealed.The statistics - gathered by a freedom of information request to Scotland's eight police forces - show a disturbing rise in reports of violent attacks, indecent assaults, abuse and vandalism against people targeted just because of their sexual orientation.

Figures show there were 666 incidents of homophobic abuse in 2009-10, almost double the 364 incidents reported in 2007-8, and almost five times the 114 incidents reported in 2004-5.

In Strathclyde, reported incidents have risen from 50 in 2004-5 to 286 last year, while in the Lothian and Borders area there was a rise from 45 to 167 over the same period.

Rights organisation Stonewall Scotland revealed that two thirds of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people had been verbally abused in the past year, while a third had been physically attacked. The overall number of incidents is likely to be much higher as Stonewall said 61 per cent of victims did not report the crime to police.

The freedom of information statistics show that homosexuals have been abused or assaulted in their own homes, while eating in a restaurant, on public transport and while on a night out.

In one case, in the Central Scotland area, a lesbian and gay centre was set alight.

After a Stonewall Scotland campaign, police have been required to separately report incidents since March 2010.

However, the FoI figures pre-date the new laws. Carl Watt, director of Stonewall Scotland, said: Over a quarter of the people attacked told us they accept abuse and attacks as part of being LGBT in Scotland.

"Having said that we have a strong message from our police forces that crimes committed against people simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity will not be tolerated."

Ian Latimer, chief constable of Northern Constabulary and spokesman on diversity for the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, said: "Hate crime in any form is unacceptable."

And a Scottish Government spokesman added: "There is no room for complacency in this fight."

Molotov Update

Coincidentally, I just received this press release today. For Guignol fans only:

Molotov Theatre Group Premieres “Morgue Story” in US
Brazil’s Underground Grand Guignol Film Favorite Brought To Stage In English

Washington, DC (February 4, 2011) Molotov Theatre Group, America’s second-oldest Grand Guignol theatre, is proud to present the English language, US premiere stage adaptation of the Brazilian underground film hit “Morgue Story,” from March 3 through April 2, 2011 at 1409 Playbill Café (1409 14th Street NW, Washington, DC).

Showtimes are Wednesday through Sunday evenings at 8 PM. Tickets are available at the door for $20, or through the Molotov Theater Group Web site (www.molotovtheatre.org).

The cast of “Blood, Sweat & Fears” includes Luke Cieslewicz, Kevin Finkelstein, Dave Gamble, Genevieve James, Heather Whitpan and Alex Zavistovich.

“Morgue Story: Sangue, Baiacu e Quadrinhos” (“Morgue Story: Blood, Blowfish, and Comics”) is the latest production from Molotov Theatre Group, which won “Best Comedy” in 2007 and “Best Overall” n 2008 in the Capital Fringe Festival. The script for Morgue Story was adapted from the original screenplay by its author, Paulo Biscaia Filho, artistic director of Vigor Mortis, Brazil’s celebrated Grand Guignol-inspired theatre company. Filho also is a Professor in the Faculdade de Artes de Parana in Curitiba, Brazil.

In the script, a famous comic book artist, frustrated with her personal relationships, meets two weird men with equally weird lives. One is a perverted sociopathic coroner; the other is a chronically cataleptic insurance agent. They could only meet in one place: The morgue. (For more information on the film version of this production, see www.imdb.com/title/tt1358996.)

"I am really excited to see this first international production of Morgue Story,” said author Filho. “Molotov has all the humor and the right guts to make this the most fun play around."

Molotov’s Producing Artistic Director Lucas Maloney, who directed the group’s award-winning productions, takes the reins again for “Morgue Story.”

“This is an insanely dark comedy horror play that taps the limits of what even we at Molotov are capable of doing,” Maloney said. “I imagine most people will have never seen anything like this on stage. You’ll definitely need your plastic ponchos for this show.”

“Morgue Story” runs approximately 60 minutes with no intermission.

Children will NOT be admitted under any conditions. Adult content includes nudity, profanity, and graphic depictions of murder, suicide and sexual violence. And one very hairy man with his shirt off.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE EMOTIONALLY OR PSYCHOLOGICALLY IMPRESSIONABLE OR FOR PEOPLE WITH CARDIAC OR NERVOUS CONDITIONS.

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED FOR COUNTER-CULTURAL, UNDERGROUND AND CULT FANS WITH PROPERLY WORKING HEART AND CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEMS.

From today's Washington Post:

Anna Deavere Smith and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius talk healthcare and booze

By The Reliable Source

Anna Deavere Smith chats with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 2011. (HHS photo by Chris Smith)

Here's something to make your lunch break a little more interesting: a performance by Anna Deavere Smith in the lobby of your office building.
Standing on a makeshift stage at the Independence Avenue headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday afternoon, the acclaimed actress/playwright performed excerpts of her one-woman show, "Let Me Down Easy," for about 200 employees and health experts (including Surgeon General Regina Benjamin), followed by a brief discussion on health care with Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
"To say that the debate in this country has been volatile may be an understatement," said Sebelius.
"I think it's volatile everywhere," responded Smith.
Which makes it a perfect subject for the 60-year-old actress -- A-list provocateur, MacArthur "genius grant" recipient, professor and activist -- who's taking her look at health care (based on 300 interviews from doctors, patients and workers on three continents) beyond the confines of the theater. Plenty of VIPs (Sebelius, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Attorney General Eric Holder, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan) have been to Arena Stage to see her perform, but Smith is also reaching into the community -- to HHS, National Institutes of Health, meetings with Hill staffers and policy experts -- to drum up even more debate on the hot-button issue.
After Smith's 30-minute performance and a standing ovation from the crowd, Sebelius played talk-show host to Smith, asking her to share the origins of the play, what she learned putting it together and the reactions in different parts of the country.
"You have the best questions," Smith praised her.
"No answers," quipped Sebelius dryly. "Lots of questions."
There was, Smith told her, one interesting difference between New York and D.C. audiences over a doctor's line about people who cope with tough issues using alcohol.
"New Yorkers didn't think that was funny," observed Smith. "In Washington, they think that's very funny. Do you all drink more?" The audience broke out in laughter.
"More than what?" asked Sebelius with a grin. "You would too, if you lived in Washington."

Peter Marks reviews "Black Watch" in The Washington Post

Peter Marks' review today agrees with the unanimous praise for this production:

By the end of 110 remarkable minutes in Shakespeare Theatre Company's Sidney Harman Hall, I was in tears, moved as much by the enthralling stagecraft as by the virile commitment of the superb, 10-man cast. Director John Tiffany, assisted by experts in movement (Steven Hoggett) and music (Davey Anderson), creates astonishing tableaux, whether depicting warriors in meticulous formation or in the simple act of reading letters from home.

To pass up "Black Watch"- which runs only through Sunday - is to deprive yourself of the theater's most ingenious portrait to date of the war in Iraq and of modern warfare in general.

Find the whole review here.

Grand Guignol at Molotov Theatre

 Grand Guignol is a strange and wonderful form of performance originating in France in the 1800s (some people say in response to the bloodlust aroused by the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars). The pleasure in this form of theater comes from outrageous special effects simulating hanging, stabbing, disemboweling, decapitation, and other forms of bloodletting. (In 19th-century France, the violence was often committed upon the person of a beautiful young woman in the course of her utter ruination.) So: kind of like Saw, or Hostel, or Friday the 13th but live onstage.
As you might imagine, one of the conventions of this form of theater is the provision to the audience of special cloaks, to protect them from the gouts of stage blood that will spew from the stage.

DC has one Grand-Guignol theater, Molotov Theatre Company. Looks like they will be opening their next production March 4: Morgue Story, described thus:  A comic book writer and narcoleptic insurance salesman have a date they’ll never forget when they wake up in a morgue with a deranged coroner.

Meanwhile, here's a hilarious excerpt from their weblog, mercilessly ridiculing an audience member who had the temerity to object to being soaked with stage blood:

Brought to you from the desk of Lucas Maloney, Molotov Theatre Group Artistic Director
So we got this email from a less than satisfied customer after one of the performances of our most recent show, The Horrors of Online Dating. By the way, this was the only written complaint that we received for the entirely sold out run. I am posting it with my own editorial comments (found in parenthesis) for your amusement. I have only deleted text concerning identifiers to protect the idiotic and innocent. Everything else here was written by an actual person who lives somewhere nearby…maybe in your own neighborhood! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Let me preface this email by saying that I’m not typically the type to complain about petty little things and especially to write a “formal” complaint in an email like this about something. I tend to be the sort of person who tries to not sweat the small stuff and easily let things go (The first thought I have about a random person when a novella-sized email from him lands in my inbox.).  HOWEVER…I can’t shake this complaint and feel it needs to be voiced….so here I am at after 4am in the morning, still pretty pissed off…and I just need to get this off my chest. (Fasten your seatbelts my dear droogies.)
I attended tonight’s 8pm production of “The Horrors or (sic) Online Dating”.  (He has a tough time with two letter words.) Upon receiving my ticket I was also handed a plastic “cover”, a gargabe (I guess his spell check was tuckered out at 4AM too.) bag material with a hole in it to slip over your head.  Somewhat hesitant, I asked, “What exactly is this for?” (Simpleton, what do you think it’s for? It has a hole for your head and it’s covered in dried blood, and EVERY other person in the theater is wearing one. Oh, and then there is the sign before you enter saying you might get hit with flying fluids. OH! Then there’s that mention about the ponchos and flying blood in every piece of press that was out there! We’re not exactly known for being subtle.)  The reply I was given was, “There are liquids involved in the show and you can use it to keep dry so you don’t get anything on you.” (Doesn’t sound concise enough to be an exact quote that myself or Kevin would say, but it gets the idea across that you may be hit with stuff.)  I proceeded to my seat which was in the very back row, closest to the door, probably one of the “safest” seats in the house (Had he been skilled in the art of deductive reasoning, the blood splatters on the back wall of the theater would have hinted otherwise.) and after a couple minutes of thinking about the fact that I was wearing brand new white shorts and was potentially going to get liquid squirted at me, I went back to the ticket guys and asked, “So just to clarify, what sort of liquids are involved here.  I just want to make sure my clothes aren’t going to get stained or anything.” (We are a HORROR company. TAKE ONE GUESS WHAT KIND OF FLUID IT’S GONNA BE!)  The assuring reply I received as a response to that direct question was, “Oh don’t worry, it’s clear…like water.  It won’t stain.” (I guarantee that was not the reply. It’s fake blood, which is fluid like water, but not clear. I know, I’ve worked with a lot of it. That being said, it’s very expensive fake blood that is washable, which is why we use it.)
If I would have been told the truth at that point that, “It is a red liquid that is supposed to represent (We’re too shallow to “represent” things in our shows. It IS blood .) blood in the show and it may stain” I would have left right there. (Apparently, context clues aren’t this guy’s strength.)  I would have foregone the $12.50 I paid for the ticket and I would have just left as I happened to be wearing new shorts that I was planning to wear to Rehoboth Beach this weekend (Anything for Rehoboth Beach.).  And I was going to see a 10pm production and then go out for drinks afterwards.
The response I was given was a straight out lie (This man has a selective memory. An attractive quality after a regrettable night on the shores of the Rehobs, maybe. For a written complaint, not so much.).  It was a red liquid (I say Holmes, it’s blood!) of some sort (Ben Nye “Zesty Mint” Brand Stage Blood), not a clear liquid, and the truth of the matter is that it does stain and did stain my shorts.
(PSSSSSSSST, POSSIBLE FORESHADDOWING!)
I met friends after the show and when I approached them they both asked me, “What’s all over your shorts?” (I hope it was in unison with hands upon cheeks.)  I replied, “I guess I didn’t read the fine print (Or the sign, or the reviews, or the show description, or listen to the guys at the door, or look at the ponchos that the guys at the door gave you, or the walls of the theater or the other people in the theater.) that whatever clothes I was wearing would be ruined by fake blood in the show I just saw.” (You damn dirty apes!)  I received an “Oh that’s fucked up!” and a “Do you think it’ll come out?” (What did our hero say?)  I replied, “Yes it is fucked up.  And I’m telling myself it will come out so I’m not pissed off just yet.” (Our hero is the picture of poise and restraint.)
I am leaving for Rehoboth Beach in about 7 hours and I am just finally going to bed after attempting to let these shorts soak in cold water, squirting them with (Some sort of soapy, liquidy, laundry-type fluid) Wisk Away stain removing liquid and letting it penetrate the fabric for a while, and then washing them for a full cycle. (I hope I get to the point in my life when things are so stress-free that it will take something as ridiculous as a pair of shorts to keep me up for hours at night. By the way, thanks for the play-by-play of how laundry is done. Madden better watch his back.) The result:  The shorts are ruined.  (That’s funny, because we throw all of our costumes into one laundry load on regular cold cycle. Many of our costumes are lightly colored–white even!–because it shows the blood better. We never had to replace a single costume piece and it came out every night, and we were literally rolling in pools of it onstage.) They are overtly stained with pink splashes all over the front and wearing them would make me look like I was either a man on his period (Which this dude sounds like anyway.) or food stains all over the front of himself.  Not exactly the look I’m going for. (I wonder if he managed to find something… no, ANYTHING else to cover his naughty bits for the trip, or if these shorts were the fatal iceberg to his Rehoboth Titanic? I assure you, this question did not keep me up till 4AM.)
Now again, I’m telling myself, “Get over it.  It’s a pair of shorts. (In the future, listen to those inner thoughts… or learn how to wash a pair of shorts.) This really doesn’t matter in the scheme of life. (See previous editorial comment.) There are bigger fish to fry, etc etc.” (Ibid.)  But you know what…I don’t think I should just cut my losses and move on. (If you had, this wouldn’t be on the Internet now.) The truth of the matter is that nowhere in the advertisement for this show was there any warning that they were going to be squirting fake blood into the audience and that it may stain clothing (Aside from the blood on the poster and all of the other evidence previously mentioned.).  And when I flat out asked the ticket guys about it after being handed a piece of plastic to protect myself, one of the guys was actually in the production and clearly knew very well it wasn’t a clear liquid, (That would be me, a guy who had his white shirt soaked in blood every night, waited a few hours before tossing it in the wash with all the other gore soaked vestments, and found it none the worse for wear the next day.) I was given a flat out lie as a response.  Had a warning been in the production description somewhere, I still would have gone to the show, but I would have worn a grubby dark shirt and an old grubby pair of shorts that I don’t care about getting stained.  I clearly would not have worn a new pair of white shorts. (I wonder if he plans ahead this hard before eating Spaghetti O’s? Why buy a pair of white shorts anyways unless you live in Miami and it’s the 1980’s and you simultaneously have a sweater tied around your neck?)
So yeah, I’m wondering what you would do in this situation if you wore new clothes to a play and they were stained by fake blood that you didn’t know was going to be a part of a production, after you specifically asked about and were told it would be ok because the liquid was clear and would not stain? (I wonder if this horribly written sentence was unintentional, or if he was trying to convey distress through bad sentence structure? Shakespeare was known to do that by using irregular iambic pentameter.)  Am I supposed to politely explain things, at the same time trying not to rant and rave (Too late.) and demand that I get reimbursed $39.99 to cover the cost of the shorts (I’m sure American Eagle will be having an end of season sale real, real soon!)?  I’m sort of leaning towards that option right now. (Good luck.) Do I chalk it up and say, “Oh well.  I just bought those shorts and wore them 3 times and now they are ruined.  So what if they lied to me and as a result, my shorts are ruined.  I’ll just throw away that $39.99 and call it a day.  As long as those crazy kids enjoyed splashing blood all over the audience (We do.), that’s what counts (It does.).”  I can tell you that I’m really not leaning towards that option. (Ever hear of Sisyphus?) Please let me know what you think might be a fair middle ground in this situation.
Thanks for hearing me out and I look forward to a response.
–He who will not be named for his sake.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Needless to say, there was no response from us but this blog post. In the future, a word to the wise (or at least those who need things spelled out word-for-word)…
“Yes, blood might go in the audience.”
“Yes, you should take a poncho. Look at the current, blood-spattered state of the poncho. For shows that don’t need them, we don’t give them. They are a hassle for us. We need to answer these questions about them and none of us are super great with people. For the love of everything that is holy to you, take the poncho… unless you’re really cool.”
“Yes, it washes out, unless you don’t know how to wash your damn clothes.”
“Yes, we care about our audience members and we hope you have a kick-ass time. We hope we see you again. Maybe you’ll even donate vast sums of money to us so we can cover even more people with blood and force them to create new and groundbreaking beach ensembles. Donations are tax deductable. However, if you’re an idiot and send us something like this… ‘SUCK IT WIMP!’”

Druid presents The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh - Kennedy Center Feb 8-12

Famed Irish theater company DRUID and New York's Atlantic Theatre present The Cripple of Inishmaan, written by Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh and directed by Tony Award winner Garry Hynes, the first woman to win a Tony Award for Best Direction. Set in rural Ireland in 1934, this dark comedy depicts the impact that a Hollywood film crew has over the local residents when it shows up to document the tiny island of Inishmore. When a young, orphaned "cripple" named Billy Claven is selected for a part in the film, his dreams of escape take flight.

McDonagh's plays are usually hilarious, violent, and bizarre--often described as classical Irish theater as updated by Quentin Tarrantino. He wrote and directed the great, underrated Colin Farrell vehicle, In Bruges.

One of Bernard's Best Bets for Spring 2011 theater.

Synetic Theater

Hamlet (and Others) as the Strong, Silent Type
By PATRICK HEALY
January 21, 2011

WASHINGTON — For their first attempt at wordless Shakespeare — that’s right, wordless Shakespeare — the husband-and-wife leaders of the Synetic Theater company chose to apply their physical-theater aesthetic to “Hamlet,” counting on audiences’ familiarity with the plot.

In place of three-plus hours of verse, Synetic presented 90 minutes of highly stylized dance, movement, acrobatics, pantomime, music and story. “To be or not to be” was never uttered, but Hamlet stormed across the stage, gesturing to convey desperation. He and Ophelia never touched; their tortured attraction was reflected, instead, by the two actors’ bringing “their fingertips to within a hair’s breadth of each other,” as The Washington Post noted in its rave review in 2002.

Just a year-old troupe at the time, Synetic ended up drawing wide critical praise and winning local theater awards as best resident play for “Hamlet” and best director and best choreographer for the husband-and-wife team, Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili, who also played Hamlet and Ophelia. Since then Synetic has won many more local awards — mostly for wordless Shakespeare stagings like “Macbeth” and “Romeo and Juliet” — as well as a devoted following in this city and nationally among admirers of physical theater.

Émigrés from the former Soviet republic of Georgia whose style draws on the popular tradition of pantomime there, the Tsikurishvilis (pronounced T-SEE-koorish-VEAL-ee) have also been embraced by establishment theaters here.

“No one does what they do — not in Washington or, really, anywhere that I know of,” said Michael M. Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, who has advised the couple on building a theatrical troupe and provided performance space for some Synetic productions.

Read the New York Times article on Washington's Synetic Theater here.

Drama with roots in the real world is burgeoning theater field

By Nelson Pressley
The Washington Post
Friday, January 21, 2011; 2:00 PM

Long before the reality-TV craze took off, there was Anna Deavere Smith, the virtuoso mimic who carried her tape recorder into riot minefields to create "Fires in the Mirror" (about New York's Crown Heights conflict in 1991) and "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992" (exploring the Rodney King beating and aftermath). Already a decade into her work then, Smith was a pioneer in terms of creating "documentary" theater. Aside from writer-director Emily Mann's "theater of testimony," which included "Execution of Justice" - at Arena Stage and then on Broadway in the mid-1980s, and dealing with Harvey Milk's assassination - Smith had few peers to emulate or models to work from.

Twenty years later, behold the burgeoning docudrama field. Examples of this surprisingly flexible form include "The Exonerated" (about death row inmates wrongly convicted) and journalist Lawrence Wright's solo stage forays ("My Trip to Al-Qaeda" in 2005, "The Human Scale" in Manhattan last fall). There's also Eve Ensler's perpetually performed "The Vagina Monologues," based on interviews. And there's Doug Wright's PulitzerPrize- and Tony Award-winning "I Am My Own Wife," which put facts up for grabs as the playwright rooted through documents and his own provocative interviews with a slippery East German transvestite who survived World War II.

"Some of the work has been very, very impactful," says Moises Kaufman, who directed "I Am My Own Wife" on Broadway. "These are works that over the last decade have been among the most performed plays in America."

The verbatim wave is hitting a high tide now at major Washington area theaters. Smith is holding forth at Arena Stage with "Let Me Down Easy" - a meditation on health, health care and death, drawn from 320 interviews and performed with her trademark panache as she impersonates doctors, patients and celebrities (Lance Armstrong, Ann Richards and others, including Ensler). . . .

Read the full article here.

Black Watch at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Sidney Harman Theatre

From the Washington Post article by Lavanya Ramanathan, Thursday, January 20, 2011

A docu-play of sorts, Black Watch was inspired by Scotland's famed Black Watch military regiment, which lost three men in a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2004, a defeat soon followed by news that the elite unit, which had fought since the 18th century, was being disbanded. ... The play flits between scenes from the pub in Scotland (where an interviewer has come to talk with the soldiers, just as Burke did) and flashbacks to Camp Dogwood, an outpost in a particularly dangerous region of Iraq. (A warning: The play, written in the voices of young military men, is peppered with crude language and cruder jokes.)

The show's first performance was at the Edinburgh Fringe. Before the three-week stint was up, the company had decided to tour, taking the show to New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Los Angeles, among other big cities. In New York, every ticket for the first run in 2007 was snapped up, and the second run was extended by nearly a month. The performances in Washington - which for Shakespeare Theatre follow last summer's successful production of another war drama, The Great Game - will kick off a longer U.S. tour of Black Watch.

Read the full article here.

AS2010 Humanities II - The Stage and the World - Spring 2011

Theater is a symbolic social space, enacting both the community that unites us and the divisions that keep us apart. This interdisciplinary course considers the power of the stage by focusing on the elements and contexts of symbolic actions, crossing the lines usually drawn between theater, performance art, and performative acts in culture and everyday life. The course adopts the perspective of directors, actors, and designers as they develop their own approaches to theater and performance, drawing upon sociology, anthropology, semiotics, and modern theatrical performance theory.

OBJECTIVES:
By the time you complete this course, you should be able to:
• Develop a critique of a theatrical performance, based on established aesthetic standards and your own ideas about the goals of performance
• Identify the distinguishing characteristics of theater and performance art, and consider them in historical, social and cultural context
• Analyze a playscript according to the model of directors’ and actors’ work in developing a theatrical production
• Compare theories of theater historically--from traditional western drama, non-western performance models, and avant-garde theater of the past century
• Analyze rituals in light of fundamental principles of anthropology, sociology and performance theory
• Identify and analyze aspects of performance in everyday life
• Characterize how performance theory affects and influences other forms of art and ideas about culture, politics and society