319 stories by "Robert Michael Oliver"
Before a show, I never read the program. I read the title, which in this case is Appropriate.  I like to experience a theatrical performance raw, without the parameters that som…
A Staged Reading with Acclaimed Actress Kathleen Chalfant Performance of Lynn Redgrave's Shakespeare for my Father Tony Award® nominee Kathleen Chalfant (Angels in America, Wit) will p…
The ghost story, the horror movie, Fright Night! When one thinks of theatre, one does not usually turn one's mind toward theatre as a good vehicle for the spine chiller. Words can we…
"A rose is a rose is a rose." Gertrude Stein's famous line spoke to the reality of the object: the object in its materiality trumps the symbolic name we offer it. Hence, "a rose by a…
1. Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill at Signature Theatre “What makes this deluge of unhappiness so special is its fierce combination of exquisite comedy and agonizing pain.  …
Parents, caregivers, aunties, nannies, grandparents and godparents: people who love children and care for children and know the struggle to raise them. Do I have a show for you! Th…
Samuel Beckett's Nell (from Endgame) says, "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness."  The four characters in Paul Downs Colaizzo's new play are deeply unhappy.  In fact, they are…
Love in Afghanistan, Arena Stage's world premiere of Charles Randolph-Wright's new play, has all the themes that would make a Washington liberal proud. A bi-cultural romance built on mut…
As directed by Aaron Posner, Shakespeare's love tragedy, Romeo and Juliet (renamed Romeo & Juliet), should have been renamed simply Juliet, not because actors Michael Goldsmith (Romeo) a…
1. Dracula at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company “There are not many places where you can literally follow around the iconic Count Dracula, and become a part of something as well do…
As of Saturday, October 5, the US Government was still shutdown. · This, despite the fact that all government employees will now earn a pay check because our lawmakers deemed it so. · …
You do not hear much about "deicide" these days. After all, America is a very religious country; churches, synagogues, mosques, and other assortments of temples and holy clubs clutter Go…
First a prologue to the review: because of the government shutdown, Ford's Theatre could not use their space for the press opening. They also have had to cancel Wednesday's performance, …
1. Saint Joan at Olney Theatre Center “Saint Joan is great because it cuts to the core of our human dilemma; it is rarely done because in so cutting, so articulately, it leaves the the…
Titus Andronicus"one could not ask for a more violent play, complete with dismemberment and cannibalism. With Shakespeare's "Lamentable Tragedy," as performed by Taffety Punk's all femal…
George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan reverberates with as much force today as it did in 1923 when it opened on Broadway, three years after the canonization of Joan of Arc and one year prio…
Paula Vogel wrote The Baltimore Waltz several years prior to her Pulitzer Prize winning play How I Learned to Drive. Although both plays share a sense of fun, both plays are als…
Many of us have aging parents; some of us have even spent long periods of time with a parent during those final declining days. Those of us who have known that the comedy of such situati…
When the curtain comes down on act one of 1st Stage's The Pitmen Painters the audience bursts into applause"and why not? Breaking the fourth wall, our five coalminers turn to us…
Don Juan"we all know him"the womanizer, the deflowerer of virgins, the cad … the hypersexual hedonist and habitual liar … the atheist. In other words, an all-round wonderful 21st …
Lisa D'Amour's Detroit, now playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, uses the currently bankrupt Motor City as a symbol not a place, as that point of nostalgia when America"fresh fro…
There is much to love about Forum Theatre's season opening Agnes under the Big Top now playing at its Silver Spring location. The play by Aditi Brennan Kapil has poetic brilliance at t…
Although Don McLean and his repertoire of hits from "American Pie" to "Vincent" was the headliner, Judy Collins with her still angelic, pure voice was the Wolf Trap regular, making her 30thÃ…
I just found out about Forum Theatre's new "Forum For All" ticket policy, and I just had to write about it. Essentially, Forum Theatre has decided to institute what amounts to a "Pay …
Alan Bennett's 1999 comedy The Lady in the Van, now playing at the Randolph Road Theatre (produced by the Unexpected Stage Company), has a lot going for it. Bennett's writing is livel…
