A Theatre-Goer's Thoughts

  Suli Holum as Daughter (L) and Holly Twyford as Mama (R, projected onto the exterior of her apartment) in My  Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Photo credit: DJ Corey Photography. Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is more than 5000 miles from Washington, DC. A bit of Ukraine, however, is alive and fighting on D St. NW, where the Woolly Mammoth Theatre (in a co-production with Philadelphia’s Wilma Theatre) stages the world premiere of an important new play, continuing through October 8. Sure, you can read about the Ukrainian invasion by the Russians online or catch a report on the news. But if you really want to understand, see My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion by Ukrainian playwright Sasha Denisova. The program’s “About the Show” provides a more concise summary than I could create: Sasha’s 82-year-old mother, Olga, is on the frontlines of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, having lived in Kyiv her whole life. Olga is thrust into increasingly f...

  Omar Lopez-Cepero (center) and the cast of Evita   at Shakespeare Theatre Company.  Photo credit: DJ Corey Photography. Evita , currently running at the Shakespeare Theatre Company (produced in association with the American Repertory Theatre of Cambridge, MA), was the third collaboration between lyricist Tim Rice and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Their first two collaborations focused on Biblical material: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar . Writing a musical (or what one might consider a “rock opera”) about the deceased wife of an Argentinian dictator was about as far afield as possible from its Bible-based precursors. But after listening to a radio program about the life of Eva Perón , R ice convinced Lloyd Webber that this story could be dramatized for the musical stage. Like its predecessors, Evita began life as a “concept album,” released in 1976. Two years later, it appeared on the stage in London’s West End and a year lat...

  Mark Evans (Robert Kincaid) and Erin Davie (Francesca Johnson) in The Bridges of Madison County . Photo credit: Daniel Rader. Amazing, when you think about it, how much of our lives can be traced back to chance meetings, to finding ourselves in a place or with people unexpectedly. We may think we plan, but much of life is happenstance.  As Francesca sings in “Always Better,” the final number:      You could have driven into someone else’s driveway.      You could have tried to find the bridge another day.      I could have gone off to the Fair,      Or locked the door, or washed my hair…. A chance encounter incites the action of The Bridges of Madison County , the 2014 musical version of the best-selling 1992 novel by Robert James Waller, which also served as the basis for the acclaimed 1995 film starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood. Marsha Norman is responsible for the book and Jason Robert Brown for the music ...

  The cast of the national company of Moulin Rouge! , now playing at the Kennedy Center. Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade. Moulin Rouge! , the Broadway musical adaptation of Baz Luhrman’s 2001 film, is a big, splashy, glitzy, jukebox musical that is a dazzling display of theatrical panache. When it debuted in the summer of 2019, it was the “next big thing.” Over a thousand performances later, it continues to draw large audiences and will no doubt do so during its Kennedy Center run, which continues until September 24. Personal disclosure: I managed to avoid seeing the Luhrman film, so I didn’t know as much about the show as I often do before seeing a production. Reflecting on the current production, I am reminded of a comment once shared with me by a fast-talking salesman: “You’ve got to sell the sizzle with the steak!” To which I replied, “Yes, but the sizzle hardly matters when there is no steak.” The story at the heart of Moulin Rouge! is simple and familiar. At ...

  Abraham Kim, Joe Ngo, Brooke Ishibashi, Jane Lui, and Tim Liu in Cambodian Rock Band . Photo by Margot Schulman. If confronted with a world map with the countries’ outlines but no captions, I daresay the number of Americans who could correctly locate Cambodia would be miniscule. And even those who might locate it (especially those born after about 1968) probably have little idea what happened there or why it mattered then – and matters now. Cambodian Rock Band may well be the most unexpected and distinctive title in dramatic literature. But it is a perfect title for Lauren Yee’s challenging and thought-provoking work, now on stage in the Kreeger Theatre space at Arena Stage. Joe Ngo, Brooke Ishibashi, Abraham Kim, Jane Lui, and Tim Liu in Cambodian Rock Band . Photo by Margot Schulman. A multi-talented cast of six (all but two of whom play multiple roles) takes us back to the early 1970s. We learn that Cambodian capital Phnom Penh has a long-standing, thriving, vibrant music s...

  Breon Arzell as Markus, Nehassaiu deGannes as Tanya, and Brandon J. Pierce as Marcus in Incendiary by Dave Harris at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Photo by Teresa Castracane. Incendiary is the first production I have seen at Washington’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. It is aptly titled, as fire and fire power play major roles in this world premiere by Dave Harris, directed by Monty Cole. When we first meet Tanya, she is firing a revolver for the first time. The program tells us that she “is a Black mother determined to break her son, Eric, out of death row – or die trying.” She has an uncanny aim, especially since she shoots with her eyes averted from the target. She tells her brother (a gun dealer) that she needs lots of guns, rifles, automatic, grenades, and, oh, yeah, a flamethrower, too. When asked why she needs all this hardware, she explains that it will soon be her son’s 33 rd birthday and she is going to free him from jail. We later learn that he is scheduled to ...

  Cara Ricketts (Aisha), Joel Ashur (Travis), and Johnny Ramey (Earl) in Good Bones  at Studio Theatre. Photo by Margot Schulman. “This house has good bones” is one of those realtor-speak phrases, meaning that the house is foundationally sound, but needs work – probably lots of it – in order to make it habitable. Just as “cozy” is realtor-speak for “really small,” a house with “good bones” is a fixer-upper. Proceed with caution. “Good Bones” happens to be the title of an HGTV show as well, in which a mother and daughter duo take on the task of rehabbing abandoned homes in Indianapolis. It is also the title of a world-premiere play by 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner and 2023 Tony nominee for Best Play (for Fat Ham ) James Ijames, now playing at Studio Theatre’s Milton Theatre. The subject here is gentrification, but unlike the stereotypical gentrification, in which trendy, privileged Whites move into run-down neighborhoods, filling them with Whole Foods and Starbucks, to repl...