It is 2004. As the lights dim in the auditorium, a tall, powerfully-built man of late middle years slips unobtrusively into a seat in a back row. He is a critic. The week previous, he had re…
Edgar Allan Poe's tale has grown so large in the literary imagination that we forget that the original was a short story, less than 7200 words in length and more atmosphere than incident. It…
Kathleen Akerley's Something Past in Front of the Light remains, in my view, the finest original work by a Washington-area playwright not named Posner. She has written other excellent plays …
There was a time, in the nineteen sixties, where it seemed we had come to the end of the world. The muscular optimism of the Kennedy years had closed, literally, with a bang. Hemmingway, who…
Alexandra Petri, who writes a humor column for the Washington Post, has here written a sex comedy. By this I mean she has written a play in which people say witty things while, um, having se…
On days when I'm seeing a Fringe show, I generally put my button on when I get dressed in the morning and leave it on all day. It's more convenient that way. Yesterday I was riding the Metro…
Gidion's Knot is a story of irredeemable grief. It is a story about the fragility of childhood, and whether it is the duty of parents to protect their children or to let them flower. It is a…
Since the entertainers who make up The Capital City Showcase change from production to production, the only useful thing a review can do is address broad themes. The broad themes to The Capi…
I know what you're thinking, brothers and sisters. "If everybody f*cking dies, why is he writing this f*cking review? They're all dead!" I have a single-word answer for you, my friends: repl…
We know so little about the remarkable Restoration-era novelist/playwright/spy Aphra Behn (1640?-1689) that her life can serve as a tabula rosa upon which other artists project their own ide…
This video is pretty disturbing. But if you're unfamiliar with the Rodney King story, you should probably watch it. In 1991, after being pulled over for reckless driving and x-treme speeding…
"I am your spaniel," Helen averred in Midsummer Night's Dream, "and, Demetrius,//The more you beat me, I will fawn on you// Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,//Neglect me, lose…
Here, let me tell you what I saw on opening night. It won't spoil it for you, since each rendition of Persephone will tell a different story, with a different artist in control*. So as I giv…
There is a clever idea behind The Matty Matthews Foundation. But as Mies van der Rohe said, God is in the details, and playwright John McGrath and his cast will need a couple of come-to-Jesu…
Okay, this show is better than it sounds. Four pathetic misfits " the squeaky-voiced Jerry Lipkin (Brandon Howell), the odiferous misogynist Spider Chavez (Ruben Rosthenhausler), the effete,…
The bass player's hands are wracked with eczema. The lead singer belongs to a religion apparently designed for fourth-graders, and the guitarist wears a ridiculous moustache. And the drummer…
We are two hundred years or more in the past, in the hold of a slave ship during the Middle Passage. An African man (Rashard Harrison), bound for slavery, slips his bonds and tiptoes quietly…
We generally do not grade art on the curve, but if anyone ever deserved it, the two artists who staged this artistic blind date do. Nineteen hours before We Forget, We Never Forget was about…
"Every word," Samuel Beckett once wrote, "is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness." In Beckett's Happy Days, Winnie (Nancy Robinette) proceeds at a rate of about sixty stains…
Before we begin, let's establish a few things. First, you and I are very dignified people. We are teachers or physicians or actors or homemakers or practitioners of some other honorable …
By the window, Swedian Lie folds paper cranes. Facing him, Raymond Wellacher shuffles a deck of cards. There are three chalk outlines on the floor and Meredith Bove is walking them, slowly, …
The family members of Tracy Letts' Killer Joe are just like the Westons of August: Osage County would be if the Westons weren't so sweet and cuddly and loving. Chris (Matthew Marcus) owes $6…
"Some men seek immortality through their work," Woody Allen once explained. "Some men seek immortality through their posterity. I seek immortality through…not dying." I feel ya, Wood-man. …
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter what sort of memorial he wanted. "I should like it to consist of a block about the size of this," he sai…
Have we duly noted our collective obsession with the conclusion of things? Freud's Last Session. Krapp's Last Tape. The Last Days of Pompeii. The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. The Last Hurrah…