A Theatre-Goer's Thoughts

  Armando Dur á n as Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile . Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson Photography.  When a new adaptation (by Ken Ludwig) of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile was announced as the first production to be directed by Hana S. Sharif, who succeeded Molly Smith as Arena Stage’s artistic director, I was surprised. Based on her artistic director bio, and having heard her speak at various openings this past year, I expected something more cutting-edge, more socially conscious, reflecting her penchant for new works and plays concerning underrepresented groups. Yes, this is technically a new work, but a plot-heavy mystery about a group of well-to-do characters set in 1937 was an unexpected choice. But in Sharif’s bio as the play’s director, the first credit mentioned is another Agatha Christie chestnut, Murder on the Orient Express . Perhaps the choice is not as unexpected as it seemed. Plays and films based on Agatha Christie’s mysteries ha...

Patrick Page in his one-man show,  All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain , at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo credit: Julieta Cervantes. All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain , created and performed by Patrick Page, is the current offering (through December 29) on the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre stage. Directed by STC’s artistic director, Simon Godwin, it is, strictly speaking, not a play: it is so much more than that. It is an event, a spellbinding performance, a master class in classical acting (and acting in general), an entrancing lecture about Shakespeare’s genius, and a persuasive argument that Shakespeare is responsible for the villain as we know it today. Page created All the Devils during the pandemic. It was first performed on film, presented online by STC. The performance won major awards when it was presented off-Broadway in the spring (Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk Awards for O...

  The cast of Leopoldstadt  at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo credit: Teresa Castracane. Sir Tom Stoppard may well be the most awarded and one of the most often-produced playwrights of the past 60 years, since bursting upon the scene in 1967 with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead . He is the most honored playwright in Broadway history, having won the Tony Award for Best Play a record five times, including for this play in 2023. Leopoldstadt may be the crowning achievement of his career. He has said that it is perhaps his final play (he is now 87 years old) and in some ways, it is his most personal. Leopoldstadt is a sweeping epic regarding four generations of a Jewish family in Vienna, which at the turn of the 19 th to 20 th century may well have been the cultural center of western civilization, fostering achievement in literature, music, poetry, and philosophy, in addition to the advent of psychoanalysis. The play takes its title from the “Jewish ghetto” of Vien...

The cast of The Second City's  Dance Like There's Black People Watching , (L to R) Breon Arzell, Julius Shanks II, Tameika Chavis, Max Thomas, Jillian Ebanks, and Arlieta Hall. Photo credit: Teresa Castracane. Clearly, the Second City production of Dance Like There’s Black People Watching (hereafter referred to as Dance ) is more of a “show” than a play. Perhaps the most appropriate way for me to describe it is as an experience, unlike any you probably have ever seen. Developed improvisationally by its cast and director Rob Wilson, it provides for an outrageously funny - but also pointedly political – evening of theatrical entertainment. Woolly Mammoth welcomes this production by the Chicago-based company in a very liberal political city just as a presidential election has been held. First, let’s deal with that title. Intriguing, but somewhat misleading, though for one moment in the show, during improvisation with an audience member, a White person does, in fact, dance for the...

Karan Brar as Maneesh and Rob Yang as Alex in Data . Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson Photography. “What are you?” I recall an experience from my college days, when I was part of a touring company playing various locales in Alabama. On one occasion, the accompanist was separated from the rest of us when a stranger asked her that very question. She explained that she was a visiting college student and the pianist for the play that was to be performed that evening. The stranger persisted in asking the same question, “What are you?” She repeated the information she had shared previously, but he asked a third time, “What are you?” Both unnerved and uncomfortable at this point she finally replied, “I don’t know!” His response was “I’m a Libra, what are you?” Astrological sign is one way of defining what you are, though I doubt many of us today would start defining ourselves according to the zodiac. Depending on the context in which the question is asked, I believe the most common respo...

  L to R:  Bradley James Tejeda (Eddie), Luna Lauren Velez (Patti), Rosa Arredondo (Norma), Rebecca Jimenez {Toni), and John Leguizamo (Nelson) in The Other Americans . Photo by T. Charles Erickson Photography. John Leguizamo is a multimedia multi-hyphenate: a stand-up comedian, actor, monologist, social activist, voiceover artist, host, and playwright whose work has been seen on the stage as well as in film and television. He wrote and is currently appearing in the current offering at Arena Stage, The Other Americans , in its world premiere run (continuing through November 24). It is 1998. The Other Americans focuses on an upwardly mobile Colombian/Puerto Rican family who have moved from Jackson Heights, Queens, to Forest Hills, Queens. Leguizamo stars as Nelson Castro, the family patriarch, who owns and operates a number of laundromats in New York City. Nelson instigated the move from the cramped apartment in Jackson Heights to the house in a tonier neighborhood over the...