A Theatre-Goer's Thoughts

  John Jarboe in  Rose: You Are Who You Eat at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Photo credit: Teresa Castracane. I could not more succinctly explain Rose: You Are Who You Eat than does John Jarboe, who conceived, wrote, and performs it: A true story of gender feasting, set to music. Once upon a vine, John Jarboe’s aunt revealed that John not only had a twin sister in the womb, but that John consumed her: “You ate her. That’s why you are the way you are.” This was a lot for John to swallow! In this musical shrine to the consumed twin, named Rose, John welcomes you into a feast of gender through song, storytelling, and a full plate of wordplay. Something between (or incorporating aspects of) a play, a performance art event, a cabaret act, a stand-up comedy act, and a confessional, this autobiographical tale challenges any (perhaps all) assumptions an audience might have about gender. Opening as it did on the evening after the annual DC Capital Pride parade and during Pride Month, t...

  Step Afrika!'s company performs The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence . Photo by William Perrigen. The current offering at Arena Stage is The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence , performed by the Step Afrika! company, which also created their Magical Musical Holiday Step Show at Arena Stage in December. Migration is a much more diverse production, a synthesis of dance that goes beyond stepping, with aspects of modern, folk, tap, and ballet as well, to a score that combines African-inspired tribal music, jazz, and spirituals, as well as “tunes” created through percussion, including drums, sticks, and the performers’ feet, hands, and bodies, with occasional accompaniment by other instruments. There is minimal use of language outside the lyrics of the handful of songs. The Migration of the title refers to a series of paintings created by the prodigious African American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) depicting aspects of the movement of “the Great Migration” as mil...