Category Archives: We Love Arts

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Trouble in Mind

E. Faye Butler as Wiletta Mayer in the Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater production of Trouble in Mind. Photo by Richard Anderson.

If there’s a theme emerging from this year’s theater offerings it’s definitely the play-within-a-play. From Venus in Fur to The Habit of Art, many recent productions have highlighted the rehearsal process itself to uncover uncomfortable truths about power and control. These are all relatively new plays riffing on an old theme, but Trouble in Mind, the 1955 play now on stage at Arena, seems just as fresh. Written by Alice Childress to blow the proverbial lid off racism in the theater of her time, it’s eeriely (and sadly) still relevant. I wasn’t expecting the play to seem so current, but its sharp eye exposes not only racism but sexism and ageism as well. You wouldn’t think a social drama could be a comedy either, but this one’s wit can be deadly and hilarious.

Reading the story of Childress’s struggle with Broadway producers over rewrites is infuriating enough. Watching her character Wiletta Mayer (E. Faye Butler) suffer the patronizing forehead kisses of her director and detail the indignities of having to be grateful to play Mammy roles just drives the discomfort home. Butler’s performance is the touchstone of this production – the war between Wiletta’s ambition to be an acclaimed actress and the betrayal of her integrity carries a constant electric charge.

That Arena, one of the first theaters to integrate black and white actors, is staging a play about an integrated cast, just adds to the frisson. But the weight of history, especially in the District, doesn’t make this a museum piece.
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History, The Daily Feed, We Love Arts
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Smithsonian Snapshot: Skyhooking

Skyhook container; photo courtesy National Postal Museum

In the 1930s, U.S. postal officials tried different ways of moving the mail. One technique was called “skyhooking,” which brought the mail to rural towns that had no adequate railway or highway mail routes. Unfortunately, the towns which needed this type of service usually did not have adequate landing fields for planes.

Although a low-flying airplane could simply drop a sack of mail onto the ground, the tricky part was getting ground mail into the moving plane. The Railway Mail Service’s successful on-the-fly mail exchange system provided the inspiration for an aviation experiment. Mail would be “caught” by a plane flying overhead and reeled up into the plane. Of course, catching the mail was not going to be easy. Continue reading →

Arlington, Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Macbeth

Irakli Kavsadze and Irina Tsikurishvili in Synetic Theater's 2011 production of Macbeth. Photo credit: Graeme B. Shaw

What would you do for absolute power? Could you kill your friend? Murder children? Call it justice? Watch out. On the path to conquering the world, you might lose your soul. “Fair is foul and foul is fair…”

There’s a gasp-inducing moment in Synetic Theater‘s production of Macbeth that focuses it as a straight-up morality tale. Lady Macbeth, in the last throes of madness induced by guilt, slides into a hellish hole like blood down a drain. It’s terrifying, as Irina Tsikurishvili’s eyes roll around and the watching witches smile demonically in approval.

It’s hard to remember there once was a time when Synetic seemed to come out of nowhere, with images like this one shaking up the DC theatre scene. Their physically combustive style was almost subversive in its daring. Now that they’re more established, at home in Crystal City, they could easily rest on the accolades gained by their current signature style of Silent Shakespeare, and audiences might not blame them for it. But I doubt there will be much resting by Synetic’s driven artistic team, and I’m interested to see what they come up with in the next phase.

Before they move on with new explorations of world physical theater next year, their Silent Shakespeare Festival Speak No More revives three of their popular wordless adaptations – Macbeth, Othello (my personal favorite) and Romeo & Juliet. Each run will be just about three weeks – Macbeth closes October 2.

This revival of the 2007 production is darkly militaristic. Forget the tartan. Bring on the choke chain.

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The Features, We Love Arts
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DC Graff: The Case for Open Walls (Part I)

Murals DC Piece at Fuller and 15th NW

The debate is fresh but the line seems to already have been drawn.

On one side, facing an uptick in tagging that has cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in removal fees this year alone, DC officials agree that illegal graffiti is criminal before artistic: “I appreciate art,” said Nancee Lyons of the Department of Public Works (DPW) at a panel discussion on the issue earlier this summer, “But if Picasso made a painting on the side of my house—it may be beautiful but if I didn’t ask him to do it it’s still vandalism.”

While the event—titled “The Art of Vandalism: A Closer Look at DC Graffiti”—featured an eclectic panel of experts on the art form, including a former graffiti artist, DC new brow art collector Philippa Hughes, a graffiti documentarian from Georgetown University, and Cory Stowers, Art Director at Words Beats Life (a hip-hop nonprofit), the debate still served as the official kick-off for the MuralsDC Project—the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ answer to tagging.

Launched in 2007 in partnership with DPW, the program aims to “replace illegal graffiti with artistic works” and “promotes respect for public and private property as well as community awareness for the young people [involved].” According to the website, sites are chosen “in collaboration with the Department of Public Works’ assessment of areas with high incidents of illegal graffiti. Each mural reflects the character, culture and history of the neighborhoods in the District.”

But the character, culture and history according to whom? Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Fela!

The music from Fela! can only be described as infectious.

The Broadway musical that won the 2010 Tony for best Choreography certainly deserves its praises in regards to dance- but the show’s music is worthy of recognition as well. Presented by the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Broadway World Tour of Fela! opened at STC’s Harmon Hall this past weekend to the fusion of Jazz, Cuban, and Big Band beats that make-up Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s iconic Afrobeat genre. When the lights went down and the sound rose up, audience members were already dancing in their seats as the stage was transformed into Kuti’s nightclub, The Shrine. Fela! takes us into the life of Kuti’s life as a Nigerian musician/activist/social leader.

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We Love Arts: The Heir Apparent

Floyd King as Geronte and Carson Elrod as Crispin in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of The Heir Apparent,
directed by Michael Kahn. Photo by Scott Suchman.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of The Heir Apparent is quiet and subdued for about as many seconds as you can count on your two hands. Then Crispin (Carson Elrod) comes clamoring in the window and we’re off at full tilt until intermission. The story’s initial complication revolves around the desire Eraste (Andrew Veenstra) has to marry Isabelle (Meg Chambers Steedle) while lacking the necessary financial means. We soon layer on the ambition of his manservant Crispin, Isabelle’s mother Madame Argante (Nancy Robinet) and the holder of all the money that Eraste wants to get his grubby mitts on, Geronte (Floyd King). The only person without an agenda of their own is diminutive whipping boy Scruple (Clark Middleton), the lawyer summoned and repeatedly abused in the second act.

Seriously, you thought I was going to pan a play that has that much fun abusing lawyers?

It’s a whirlwind, madcap, fourth-wall-breaking, rhyming, asiding, many-joke-gliding play that works in more jokes than you’d expect to hear in a day. Much less two hours. It’s a good, light-hearted time which rarely missteps and is filled with contretemps and eventually the rhythm gets under your skin and is hard to shake, even a few days later when you’re writing your review.

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: The Habit of Art

Ted van Griethuysen and Paxton Whitehead in The Habit of Art. Photo: Scott Suchman

Artistic process. Can it make for a sexy night at the theater? The grueling path to perfection through grinding repetition, as the artist develops techniques and habits that can release creativity or stifle it, sometimes makes for a great play. Sometimes not. Recently Studio Theatre explored the artistic process in Venus in Fur, where the artist must grapple with his muse in a deadly game. It was electrifying.

But not all process is sexy. Sometimes it’s downright plodding. The Habit of Art is another play-within-a-play about rehearsal and collaboration, written by British playwright Alan Bennett (perhaps best known to American audiences as the writer of The Madness of King George). It’s a dense work that might delight lovers of British theater history (Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness and Richard Eyre all have important references), taking place as it does in a rehearsal room at the National Theatre. It might also delight lovers of British culture, as the play-within-a-play details the charged reunion of former collaborators, poet W.H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten.

There are moments of hilarity interspersed with painful truths, as Bennett skewers all facets of the artistic process. There are also moments of well, boredom, just as in life. Though it features a talented cast, a thoughtful director, and a fascinating subject, often I found The Habit of Art difficult to watch because of its realism – parts drag on like an afternoon with a brilliant old don who has lost his spark. Only at the very end was I teased by a monologue that made me realize that may be Bennett’s intention, as a stage manager simply explains how the very habits of the artistic process, the act of trying repeatedly to achieve success even in the face of failure, may be the true value after all. Continue reading →

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We Love Arts: Stop Kiss

No Rules Theater Company’s Stop Kiss tells the story of reluctant Callie and bold Sara as they meet and change each other’s lives in late-90s New York. Callie has a level of comfortable living that lazy accidents and compromises have delivered to her, and with it the ability to take in the cat of a friend of a friend. Sara’s handing over her beloved pet to a friendly stranger as one more of many sacrifices she’s making to pursue her dreams and do what makes her happy. It’s a credit to Rachel Zampelli’s portral of Callie that we never find ourselves wondering exactly why Alyssa Wilmouth’s Sara would go through all this hassle to be with her after they meet and strike it off.

As much credit as the actors deserve for bringing the love story to us in a believable way, playwright Diana Son deserves recognition for writing these two characters with nuance. Callie isn’t purely the one who needs help capturing some strength and Sara isn’t a paragon of guts who seems like she could go anywhere and do anything. The great success in this piece is the people and their relationships.

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Special Events, We Love Arts
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2011 All Roads Film Festival at NatGeo

Photo courtesy of
‘National Archives Film Canisters’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

Starting tomorrow, the National Geographic Museum hosts the 2011 All Roads Film Festival. The five-day festival showcases nearly 40 films in 24 countries, created to provide an international platform for indigenous and under-represented minority-culture artists to share cultures, stories and perspectives through the power of film and photography. This year’s theme is “Stories That Shape Our World” and National Geographic is giving WeLoveDC readers a chance to win a pair of all-access passes to the festival.

The five-day event also will include a “Global Groove: DJ Dance Party,” hosted by DJ Dave Nada and DJ Underdog, panel discussions by a number of the filmmakers and two photography exhibits. One photography exhibit will feature works from three provocative voices in the photography medium, each at different points in their careers; the second is an exclusive view into two cultures where photography by outsiders has been severely restricted. Several filmmakers will participate in two panel discussions, “Latinos in Modern Media” and “Indigenous Communities, Film and the Environment,” as well as discussions following their film screenings where they will talk about their careers and the continuing innovation of indigenous filmmaking.

If you’d like to win a pair of festival passes, simply drop a comment below (using an email address we can use to contact you). We’ll randomly select a winner at noon tomorrow (Wednesday 9/14). Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Imagining Madoff

Photo: C. Stanley Photography

If you want to learn about one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, this show isn’t for you. If you want to learn more about the man that ran off with the savings of individuals, charitable organizations, and others- this show may not be for you.

Try one of the documentaries out there on the topic.

Instead of retelling history, Theater J’s Imagining Madoff focuses on a fictionalized meeting between Bernie Madoff (Rick Foucheux) and Solomon Galkin (Mike Nussbaum), one of his clients/victims. Despite the show’s fictional premise, playwright Deb Margolin creates an engaging narrative that whets our appetite as we collectively wonder who was this notorious criminal and how could he steal so much from so many.

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Theater last-chances and possible cancellations

Just a quick pre-weekend roundup on what’s going away and what may or may not be threatened by the weather.

We’re not aware of anyone officially cancelling anything as of yet; several places have made affirmative statements they’re going on with the show.

Shakespeare Theater Company’s Free-for-All is still on. They’ve promised to update via Twitter and Facebook so the simplest thing to to is open up their twitter feed before you head out. If you’re feeling twitchy you have till Sep 4. If you’re a brave one this may be your chance to wait in a smaller line. With current projections having the ugly weather starting after 6p you’ll only be  outside for part of it… if that’s right.

Capital Weather Gang says you shouldn’t be anxious about today or tonight’s weather, so there’s no reason not to go see the show if you’re interested. And if you’re adventurous I think you should go.

As should surprise nobody, Cherry Red not only will be going ahead with the Aristocrats! but have taken inspiration from the adversity. So earthquake, hurricane, now fire and vengeance. If there was an airplane involved we’d have every 70s disaster movie trope covered. Just in case, keep an eye on Ian’s twitter feed for updates if you’re planning on going.

Studio Theater’s POP! closes this weekend with the last scheduled show on Sunday. Jenn was underwhelmed and, having just seen it Wednesday night, I second that “meh.” It’s a well-produced show with some standout acting (alongside some almost inexcusable hammery) and a few catchy songs, but it adds up to a forgettable whole. But if you’re interested these are your last few chances to see it.

Studio, sadly, isn’t big with the twitter but they do update sometimes and used it to verify their continued survival after the earthquake. So it’s possible they’ll be good about announcing there if they cancel shows for weather. However I’d still call their main line at 202-332-3300 before heading out if you’re at all uncertain.

Arena says the show will go on but they’re gonna let you wiggle out of it if you don’t want to get rained on. The linked Capital Weather Gang post above says the peak effects will be in the evening so your 2pm Oklahoma! seats are probably pretty safe. The 8p Saturday show is likely the only one that’s going to be really impacted (unless there’s power outages persisting on Sunday…)

Adams Morgan, The Features, We Love Arts
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Greetings from DC!

For fifteen years, the West-facing wall of Mama Ayesha’s restaurant on Calvert Street stood bricked and barren, save for a narrow painted banner of Middle Eastern desert. In 2007 it was time for a tune up, decided manager Mohammed Abu-El-Hawa, whose family has owned and operated the Adams Morgan icon since 1960.

Originally founded as Calvert Café by Ayesha Abraham, a Palestinian immigrant who arrived in Washington in the late ‘40s, the restaurant has “served ambassadors, foreign dignitaries, and U.S. officials,” according to its website, and found a regular in one DC institution in particular: reporter Helen Thomas.

The distinguished (and now controversial) White House correspondent seemed the perfect fit for his DC venue, and Abu-El-Hawa envisioned a mural of Ms. Thomas interviewing every president since the start of her career, beginning with Kennedy and on through, at the time, George W. Bush.

He just needed an artist. Continue reading →

We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Reggie Watts at Woolly Mammoth

Reggie Watts, photo by Wendy Lynch Redfern

Andy Kaufman would have loved Reggie Watts.

Be careful how you take that bit of praise. If you’re of my generation and largely remember Kaufman solely as loveable goofball Latka on TAXI you’re not getting the right picture. Watts’ stage performance is reminiscent of Kaufman – a wandering path that includes comedy but isn’t limited to it. Slotting him as a comedian, as GQ did, is no more accurate than calling him simply a musician or a monologuist. Watts is a Performer; I’d call him a performance artist if that wasn’t such a loaded phrase.

Reggie Watts live performer makes a lot more sense for Woolly Mammoth and their commitment to adventurous on-stage performance than Reggie Watts, internet & television performer. Reggie Watts puts on a multi-faceted and entertaining show that combines music, jokes, subtle comedy and physical humor. It’s right up my alley and I loved it all the way through. If you think it might be to your taste I suggest you get in to one of the remaining four shows. If you’re looking for a straight-up comedy performance… you might want to adjust your expectations.

Case in point, my darling wife’s reaction.

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: The Ramayana (2011)

Andreu Honeycutt as Lord Rama in Constellation Theatre Company's 2011 remount of The Ramayana. Photo credit: Scott Suchman.

If you were one of the many potential audience members turned away at the doors of Source last summer for The Ramayana‘s sold-out run, you’re in luck. Constellation Theatre Company has remounted its production for a limited three week engagement now through August 21, and in many ways it’s a superior show than before. Subtle changes have tightened the pacing and streamlined the focus, certainly due to director Allison Arkell Stockman, and the cast’s confidence in embodying a multiverse of the sacred and profane is noticeably stronger, with several new faces to rediscover roles.

As with last year, three elements provide the visual, aural and emotional backbone of this production – the gorgeous pageantry of Kendra Rai’s costume design, the expressive sound design of percussionist Tom Teasley, and the journey of Hanuman the monkey god. Returning with the live music performance that won him the 2011 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Sound Design, Teasley’s magical beats propel the audience into another world. His continued collaborations with Constellation really help define their particular epic theater style. Rai’s costumes also help dissolve the modern world for the audience – still simply sumptuous (and I want to steal all the accessories).

But you don’t have to be familiar with the first run to enjoy the second. Playwright Peter Oswald’s take on one of India’s most beloved and scared texts weaves essential questions of philosophy and religion through the love story of Rama and Sita as they battle the demon Ravana. Though there’s plenty of humor to be had as they enlist the help of forest creatures like the monkeys and the bears, it’s essentially a serious quest, the interplay between divinity and humanity. Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Clybourne Park


Photo Stan Barouh

Before this weekend, I rarely used the word gentrify except when describing neighborhoods like Columbia Heights or H-Street NE.

“Yes I know it looks a little rough- but hey it’s gentrifying! Now let’s go hit up Wonderland Ballroom!”

This weekend brought two events that have given new meaning and significance to the word, first Washington Post columnist/grouchy old man Courtland Milloy decided to stereotype DC’s youth into hipsters out to improve property values and find great Happy Hour specials.

Second was a performance of Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park over at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. I’m happy to report the latter had a deeper impact on my life.

Woolly Mammoth made a wise choice in restaging the production they first brought to life in the spring of 2010. Not only can DC relate to the theme of race and gentrification, but also the show is still buzzing after winning a Helen Hayes award for outstanding resident play and the Pulitzer in Drama. With local theatre taking a bit of a summer break, crowds have been beating the heat and taking advantage of this second chance to see what I think has been one of the best plays I’ve seen this year.

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The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Oklahoma! at Arena Stage

Ensemble of Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! Photo by Suzanne Bluestar Boy.

Arena Stage’s 2010 production of Oklahoma! has been revived for another run. Don reviewed the original production in November of last year. Here’s Rachel’s take on the current remount.

Modern America is riddled with stress. This stress is self-inflicted. 40-hour work weeks, a 24-hour news cycle, social media overload – these are all characteristics that personify our society. America wasn’t always the go-go-go place that it is now. There was a simpler time when people couldn’t be bothered by a phone call in the middle of the night or a flashing red light on a mobile device telling them that they’ve got e-mail to check and tweets to read.

Oklahoma! is a reminder of those days gone by. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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Fringe 2011: hookups

I’m reviewing seven plays over the course of the 2011 Capital Fringe Festival, in collaboration with DC Theatre Scene. Get your Fringe button and join me!

hookups is about as naked as it can get at Fringe. A quintet of engaging actors make use of an air mattress and the barest essentials to create a series of vignettes covering every imaginable hookup through history and literature, all with a wry wink and a twist. It’s both cute and crass, like that girl dancing on the pool table you just can’t help but smile at even though you think she’s a drunken idiot. She is, but so are you, so get it on.

Starting off with the classic creeping-out-at-dawn hookup, writer Alexandra Petri’s scenes all have an undercurrent of dissatisfaction – there’s always one partner who either needs or wants to get disentangled quickly and painlessly. Even the Virgin Mary isn’t too thrilled with her situation, in one of the more subversive and very funny scenes led by director Laura Hirschberg.

The couplings get more bizarre as the play progresses, from the Frog Prince to an Arthurian menage a trois, even jumping into the Lincoln: Gay or Straight? debate. But it’s the pandas that steal the show, of course, in a hysterical scene detailing their woeful attempts to get the mechanics of sex right while being cheered on by obnoxious onlookers. Continue reading →

Adams Morgan, The Features, We Love Arts
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A True Adams Morgan Original

All photos by the author.

From a lofty brick throne, a voluptuous redhead rules over Adams Morgan, watching and goading all manner of revelry like a contemporary Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. Her territory spans the 18th Street strip; her image an iconic symbol of throbbing crowds, vodka cranberries, and Jumbo Slice pizza.

But just two blocks away from her Madam’s Organ palace stands evidence of a rich heritage that long precedes her reign. Near the corner of 18th and Adams Mill (and now overlooking a Zipcar parking lot), a community has danced, sung, painted and played in the faces of danger and greed for over thirty years, their history preserved in a three-story mural titled “A People without Murals is a Demuralized People.”

Originally painted in 1977 by Chilean brothers and artists “Caco” (Carlos) and Renato Salazar (the first of whom studied at the Corcoran and founded the now-defunct Centro de Arte organization), the work is touted as one of the oldest and largest of DC’s few remaining Latino murals, the last beacon of a wider Latino artistic movement in the city, according to Quique Aviles.

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: POP!

Tom Story in Pop! by Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs. Directed by Keith Alan Baker, with Hunter Styles and Jennifer Harris. The Studio 2ndStage. Photo: Scott Suchman

What to expect from a musical about Andy Warhol, the late 20th century pop art genius who smashed convention and provided a nest for self-proclaimed misfits to help him create wild non-conformist art? His shooting by self-proclaimed revolutionary feminist Valerie Solanas seems like it would make excellent fodder – after all, when Warhol Superstar Viva heard the first shot fired from over the phone, she “thinks it is somebody cracking a whip left over from the Velvet Underground days.”

Possibly the best way to enjoy POP! is to get bombed on your poison of choice, doll up in some outrageous outfits, and loll on the front row cushions like denizens of Warhol’s famous Factory. Everything is a little too clean in this staging at The Studio 2nd Stage, and it needs some chaos. Perhaps it’s up to the audience to provide it, because the book and lyrics by Maggie-Kate Coleman get too lost in its construct of a “murder mystery” party. Though there are key moments that speak to Warhol’s power over his Superstars, his feeding off their craving for attention and love while maintaining his voyeurism, this musical could’ve used a hell of a lot more anarchy.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of talent on display. The cast’s singing is spectacular, so strong they blow out their mikes occasionally. They’re effectively competing for your sympathy just as the real Warhol Superstars might have done had you wondered into their lair. It’s especially fitting that in a musical about a man who preferred to put others in the spotlight, it’s Candy Darling (Matthew Delorenzo) who reigns supreme here in a striking performance of glitter and pathos. As the emcee of the evening, guiding us through the “mystery” of who shot Warhol on June 3, 1968, Delorenzo is simply incandescent.

But Anna K. Jacobs’ score struck me as all wrong – don’t expect any nods to Warhol cohorts Nico or Lou Reed. Velvet Underground this isn’t. Continue reading →