I’ve been planning on writing up an actual reviewlet, but the day has gotten away from me.

So, short version, because they’ve got a perf tonight at 8 (at the Source): It’s worth checking out, especially if you’re into the whole ancient-tales-retold thing.

Some strong movement, some interesting work with shadows and (human-generated) sound, a youngish cast of new faces, and so on.

Adaptation’s OK, too: Nice, incantatory feel to the storytelling. Some of the tellers could maybe use a little more experience with the classics — heightened speech ain’t as easy as it looks, and there’s some furry diction here, the odd bit of tentative delivery there — but on the whole it’s a worthy effort, and smart.

And they’ve got one last performance on Saturday, too.

Photo: Paul Gillis

Prototype 373-G
The Source

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 26 @ 1:00 PM
Sunday, July 27 @ 4:30 PM

They say: “In Polynesian mythology, when people were first created, they were born hatching out of turtle’s eggs … maybe they were right. Prototype 373-G blends humor and magical realism to tell the story of a woman battling extraterrestrials, a series of odd dreams, and the unpredictability of her own heart.”

Trey’s take: How much nonsensical fun was that?

Be warned: Prototype is less a finished play than an excuse for playing around — if I’ve got the story right, it started when some Arena Stage folk, working on that house’s tepid Christmas Carol 1941, realized that they were having fun, and someone’s uncle had a barn called Fringe, and gee, why don’t we put on a show?

Also it’s an excuse for: an unhinged bit of costume design courtesy of The Crafts Action League, an outfit that apparently builds a lot of gaudy stuff for shops around town. One dream sequence alone (check the photo) features a seaweedy mermaid fantasia, a belly-dancer whose look is distinctly chelonian, and a leafy-greens cocktail number that might have been hallucinated by a crash-dieting drag queen midway through an enforced week of Chop’t Salad.

So, why the lettuce wrap? Well, the redhead there (Tara Giordano as struggling stand-up comic) has been brainwashed by the commanding general of a belligerent race of space turtles (Hugh Nees), who plans to use her as a host mother, and –

See, I don’t really need to tell you more, do I? Turtles like lettuce, and this show features marauding alien turtles strong-arming comely Titian-haired maidens into terrestrial sex slavery: ‘Nuff said, book your tickets, do not pass Go.

A rapacious talent agent (Helen Hedman), an impulsive and ultimately unfaithful fiancé (Tim Getman), a recently lobotomized next-door neighbor (Daniel Eichner), and a rapidly growing Trojan Tortoise all play their parts in a loopy, no-development-is-too-wacky script — which, again assuming I’ve got my post-show chatter right, playwright Benjamin Fainstein whipped up specifically for this here ensemble.

The style is episodic, disjointed, and largely surreal, but it’s not that much work to stay on top of things. And what’s surprising, given the show’s loose and lark-y nature, is how much texture — how many tender, spiky, coarse, sweet, and downright charming moments — that ensemble manages to create.

Director Dan Pruksarnukul (he’s casting wallah at Arena) doubtless shares much of the credit, but here’s the real trick: No matter how mad the material gets, he’s got his actors honestly invested in their characters, and they’re paying attention to — and connecting with — each other every moment they’re onstage together.

See it if: You’re attracted to frivolity for its own sake — or you’re an sucker for tight ensemble work.

Skip it if: Whimsy makes you queasy, and no quantity of stagecraft will settle your stomach.

Photos: Paul Gillis

Several commenteers (the extra “e” is purposeful, in the vein of “buccaneers” or “racketeers”) have requested a daily open thread for purging purposes.

So…what’s turning you on?  What’s turning you off?  What’s turning you around in circles?  Good God, please, tell us!

The Disappearance of Jonah
The Shop at Fort Fringe

Remaining Shows:
Thursday, July 24 @ 6:00 PM; Friday, July 25 @ 8:30 PM
Saturday, July 26 @ 5:00 PM; Sunday, July 27 @ 12:30 PM

They say: “When small town golden boy Jonah Thompson moves to New York City, he dreams that the city will be his playground but soon he disappears. Two years later his brother Finn sets out to find Jonah, or at least some answers.”

Brett’s take: It’s painful to review a show that clearly has benefited from hours upon hours of effort and attention from thoughtful, hardworking people (who have traveled to D.C. from New York) but that nevertheless leaves you cold. You can see the conviction in the actor’s faces, hear it in their voices, and even see it in the way one of the leads’ limbs shake with apparent nervousness before going into a big scene. But sincerity can’t save this production from pretentiousness and hollowness.

The plot concerns… well, the disappearance of a college student named Jonah. It leaps back and forth from the time leading up to that event and some years afterwards (two years, as far as I could grasp), when Jonah’s younger brother Finn goes to New York City to search for him on Jonah’s birthday. In quick succession, we meet a coterie of educated New York characters, including a writer, a professor, a photographer/physics student, and an aspiring actress/waitress, all of whom had some connection with Jonah and all of whom begin to have new connections to each other. Just why these new connections start happening right when Finn is arriving at the city – besides convenience for writer Darragh Martin- is an unanswered question that points to the problems with the play.

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Carnal Node
Harman Center – Forum

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 26 @ 9:00 PM
Sunday, July 27 @ 3:00 PM

They say: “Sex, love, and lies in the internet age: what is it about technology that simultaneously brings us together and drives us apart? Where can lonely souls find love in this age? Great Noise Ensemble explores these ideas through the works of D.J. Sparr, Mark Mellits, and Ryan Brown.”

Brett’s take: Reading the blurb, you’re forgiven for not realizing this is primarily a musical performance. It consists of three pieces, of which the one entitled “Carnal Node” is the second. That titular piece is an operatic miniature, the story of a lonely man engaging in an Internet romance, sung by a soprano who “fills the dual roles of narrator and protagonist.” The first piece, “Thick Skin” is in an avant-garde jazz vein, while the final section, “Five Machines,” comprises a quintet of ‘musical machines’ (more on that in a moment).

Here is a sampling of the notes I jotted down during the performance, when I wasn’t too enraptured to do so: “Oddly triumphant,” “powerful,” “mashup artists,” “never lose grasp of a hook, head or melody even when way off-kilter,” “Beatles (Abbey Road) drum solo?,” “old woman in audience plugged ears,” “unpredictable,” “Gastr del Sol,” “surprisingly down-to-earth humor,” “Tubular Bells.”

This is modern composed music at its best; nimble, expressive, ear-turning and strange in an accessible way, highly virtuosic (7/4 time, anyone?) but never pretentious. “Thick Skin” is a good choice for an opener because it works in the most familiar forms: despite the odd time signatures and musical use of clothes hangers (yes, clothes hangers), the three movements recall jazz ballad, film score, march, even rock n’ roll (that Ringo Starr-on-bebop drum solo I noted). It’s fun, it’s beautiful.

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So apparently there’s a big honkin’ protest going on down at the Studio Theatre, where Jerry Springer: The Opera is running as sorta-kinda part of the Fringe. Apparently some religious folk think it’s blasphemous.

(Got a fuzzy cellphone pic from Scot McKenzie, but can’t put it here for arcane technical reasons.)

Now, honestly, people: Of all the stuff at Fringe, you’re going to take exception to a bona fide box office hit that was old news in London three or four years ago? What is up with that?

I mean, not that I want you to go protest over at H Street, but last night I saw a show in which a guy has a poo in his briefcase.

OK, he mimes having a poo in his briefcase. But still.

More later.

UPDATE: Thursday a.m. – So I ambled by Studio to catch the ruckus before the 9 p.m. Fringe show I was planning to see last night. Protesters were still there. Very disciplined bunch. Odd outfits – blazers, with little red-fabric ceremonial wings attached.

Also banners — which you can see here, being rolled up and put away as God washes out the protest with a Noah-size thunderstorm.

And bagpipes. I was fascinated by the presence of the bagpipes. Apparently it’s not a good protest unless there are bagpipes.

Even before I got down there, theatregirl piped up in the comments, saying that the protest group was American Needs Fatima.

Sorta: Technically, it seems America Needs Fatima would seem to be the name of the protest campaign; the group behind it appears to be the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.

Which may or may not be a wack hard-right Catholic cult. But which certainly, according to its own Web site, runs summer Call to Chivalry camps where “teams of boys [are] pitted against each other in feats of prowess and heroism.”

Also, there seems to be an emphasis on something called “manly piety.” Which, you know, makes a boy like me go all squishy inside.

The American TFP, inevitably, is represented on YouTube, where you can watch an earlier Jerry Springer protest in Cincinnati.

And I must say, based on last night’s jaw-droppingly odd experience, that a good Hail Mary, chanted in a vigorous display of manly piety, makes a better protest refrain than “Hey, hey, ho, ho, [whatever it is] has got to go.”

Before I knew all this, however, I told Studio Theatre boss lady Joy Zinoman — who came over to my spot on the 14th Street sidewalk to share samples of the protesters’ charmingly homophobic leaflets, and to ponder the encoded antifeminism in the “Tradition/Family/Property” slogan on those big red banners — that I suspected she’d arranged the whole business for the sake of publicity.

She was not, it appeared from the expression on her face, particularly amused by this attempt at levity.

What: OmegaBand
Who: You
Where: The Baldacchino (607 New York Ave NW)
When: Tonight, 10 PM – 11 PM
How much: $0
Why: Why not?

I struggle with plays about the Iraq War. On Sunday, I saw Jack Gilhooley’s The Warrior, and it was probably the best Iraq piece I’ve seen. Still, I can’t say I enjoyed it, nor did I find it very dramatically compelling, and as I left the theater I realized that I have never seen what I consider to be a “well-made” or “good” play about the war in Iraq.

Before I go on, let me clarify a few things. As Tammy, the main character and documentary subject of the play, Marietta Elaine Hedges is quite remarkable. She gives an emotionally draining and extremely passionate performance. The play’s content is also dense, well-developed, and rife with conflict. The whole experience is very disturbing, and I left the theater unsettled, as I gather was the playwright’s intention.

But on the whole, I found The Warrior dramatically unsatisfying. I don’t expect to like or enjoy plays about the Iraq War. But I do expect a play to be a play, and in the various Iraq pieces I have seen, there seems to be a trend towards politically virulent, dramatically unsound playwriting.

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The Naked Party
The Shop at Fort Fringe

Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 25 @ 10:30 PM; Saturday, July 26 @ 11 PM; Sunday, July 27 @ 2:30 PM

They say: “A hot new play that gives an intimate and honest look at exactly how much there is to lose when you decide to reveal yourself. The Naked Party takes nine students and strips them of their costumes, armor (and inhibitions) in order to fully see themselves for the first time.”

Brian’s take: All right, I’ll admit it. I may have been to a naked party or two. Ok, fine, and by “two” I mean two dozen. And maybe, just maybe a handful of those were held in my living room. So what? I’m not ashamed. We nibbled sashimi and rhapsodized about Kant, you know, normal Saturday night stuff. Hell, the New York Times covered a naked party I helped host–that’s gotta lend a guy some credibility, right?

Maybe not. However, I do feel particularly qualified to offer my opinion of The Naked Party, which has been selling out the Shop at Fort Fringe. There are elements of the show that work very nicely, such as a conceit by which every party-goer gets time in a closet to undress while airing their inner feelings. Likewise with the staging–maneuvering 9 actors around a space as small as the Shop with quite a few set pieces is no easy task, and playwright-director Jason Schlafstein manages to minimize traffic jams while keeping the picture dynamic and balanced. And I have to give a shout-out to Guitar Guy, a character that might have been forgettable had not Rob Shand done such a superb job engaging (and, at all the appropriate times, blissfully disengaging) with the silliness around him. Plus he reminds me of about 15 of my buddies rolled into one.

It’s actually quite remarkable how Guitar Guy, who has very few lines and integration with the main action, emerges more fully than some of the more prominent characters. My first thought upon leaving the theater was that Schlafstein should excise a character or two–Julie, perhaps, or Jordan, who both seem to represent the same moral conundrum. But the concept for this play poses a logistical dilemma: it requires a quorum in order to put the party in “naked party,” and each member of this quorum, if the play is to reach its potential, must be more fully fleshed out.

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Thousands of Years—Rome
Flashpoint – Mead Theatre Lab

Remaining performances:
July 24, 9:30 p.m.; July 25, 6 p.m.; July 26, 1 p.m.; July 27, 12 p.m.

They say: “Thousands of Years—Rome takes a Roman Legionnaire and a Senator’s daughter from their 1st Century parting in the Roman Forum to their 21st Century reunion there. They participate in the Roman conquests of Britain and Spain, the Renaissance, Unification of Italy, Nazi occupation of Rome, and the Iraq war.”

Ted’s take: Like the rape of the Sabine women or the reign of the Emperor Otho, this is an hour and change that I will never, ever get back. The accompanying wherefore, however, is hard to peg. Calling the play historical romance is an insult to that already debased epithet; calling the whole thing a vacuous cliché would be an insult to vacuums.

Take Dead Again, mix it with a little Forrest Gump and a touch of Quo Vadis, then toss in the “never let go” moment from Titanic, and you’ll have a good sense for this piece. Spanning twenty centuries (and making each look at its watch and squirm), Thousands of Years traces the ill-starred love of Octavia and Marius (or, after 800 A.D., Mario) through various pitfalls and entanglements including but not limited to:

• war
• sickness
• poverty
• bad luck
• “Daddy don’t approve”

and, last but not least,

• a toothsome, barely-clad Boadicea, to whose military superiority, leather undergarments, and general sexiness Marius eventually responds by making lotsa whoopee…

…thus spawning future hordes of Marii for the reenactment ad nauseum of said pitfalls and entanglements. The acting is difficult to watch, not merely because of the technical glitches in a technically spare show (before every gunshot scene, the audience hears whisper-shouts of “Two shots or three?” “It’s three.” “Three gunshots?” “Yes, three.” “Okay! Three gunshots”…and then the effect),* or even because the term doesn’t necessarily apply—it’s difficult to watch because one likes and feels for the actors nearly immediately, as one never can for the characters in whose service they toil.

The Washington Post, in its rather mindless promotion of this piece, exhorts readers: “When in Rome, Love as Romans Do, Over Again.” The proper epithet for my money? “Sic transit gloria…over and over again.”

See it if: You’ve always wondered why “bodacious” means what it means.

Skip it if: You believe, as I do, that reading a facing-page translation of Livy might provide a more titillating, better staged, and adequately lit experience.

*It bears acknowledging that the reviewer saw the show on opening night, and that these glitches may well right themselves in successive performances.