Archive for the ‘Performances’ Category
Hip Shot: “The Sin Show”
The Sin Show
The Mountain at Mount Vernon Square UMC
Remaining Performances: Wednesday, July 22nd at 10 p.m.; Friday, July 24th at 8 p.m. [SOLD OUT]; Sunday, July 26th at 2 p.m.
They say: “Riding on the sold-out success of last year’s Chocolate Jesus and Revenge of the Cat-Headed Baby, SpeakeasyDC presents yet another sure-to-be-Fringe-fave, THE SIN SHOW featuring true stories about pride, greed, envy, sloth, gluttony, lust, and wrath.”
Glen’s take: Look, the SpeakeasyDC guys don’t need our help — they’ve a proven record at Fringe as both vets and all-stars, they’re selling out shows, they got a rave in the paper blog of record. So they really don’t need us to tell you the show’s pretty great, but they’re getting it anyway, because, turns out? The show’s pretty great.
It’s great for the reasons their previous Fringe outings were: With seeming effortlessness, these stories, and these storytellers, provoke precisely what they mean to — gasps, laughter (raucous and rueful, in turn), along with quieter, more introspective reactions.
Hip Shot: “Missing Pages”
Missing Pages
Fort Fringe – Redrum
Remaining Performances:
Sunday, July 19th at 6:45 p.m.; Thursday, July 23 at 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, July 25th at 4:30 p.m.; Sunday, July 26th at 2:15 p.m.
They say: “A World War II hero, his daughter and Vietnam veteran son confront the secrets that haunt and divide them. This powerful new drama, lightened with laughter, was inspired by the author’s father, whose war diary she discovered after his death.
Glen’s Take: ”Emerging” local playwright Susan Austin Roth is a well-known and highly successful writer of gardening books, so should you see other reviews of Missing Pages busting out a lot of cheap gardening puns, you’ll know why. Not here, though. No, faithful F and P reader, here you will find no references to grafting, cutting or pruning; that is my solemn vow.
A play that revolves around Alzheimer’s has a tough row to hoe.
Hip Shot: “She Moved Through the Fair”
She Moved Through the Fair
Warehouse – Next Door
Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 18th, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, July 19th, 3:45 p.m.
They Say: “The romantic life of a contemporary Irishwoman is illuminated in bittersweet, often comic tales of coming of age, illicit love affairs gone wrong, an unforgettable plan for revenge, and its surprising aftermath.”
Glen’s Take: Scheinman’s preview precis sheds a bit more light: ”One-woman show; reminiscences of a brandy-swilling Irish lass delivered in a soupy brogue.”
The one woman in question, possessed of both brandy and brogue, is one Polly MacIntyre, whose show takes the form of four brief slice-of-life monologues — each one, in this case, sliced neatly from the life of a character named Kathleen.
We first meet her as teenager as she recounts to us — in hushed, embarrassed whispers — the tale of her decidedly unromantic deflowering. A quick backstage change of hairstyle later, and a slightly older Kathleen shares with us the tale of her abortive romance with a pompous musician. Next, she finds herself thrust into the role of mistress, afloat in a romantic limbo that’s beginning to wear at her nerves, and finally we come upon a middle-aged Kathleen waiting in a Paris cafe, attempting to figure out just how she ended up there.
Hip Shot: “Headscarf and the Angry Bitch”
Headscarf and the Angry Bitch by Zehra Fazal
Warehouse – Next Door
Remaining Performances:
Jul 17th at 8:30 p.m.
Jul 18th at 3:30 p.m.
They say: “Join Zed Headscarf on a tongue-in-cheek romp through faith and growing up Muslim in America. Featuring hits like ‘The Only Thing I’ll Do Five Times a Day is You’ and ‘I Lost My Virginity During Ramadan.’ This beef ain’t halal!”
Mike’s take: The future of American-Islamic relations could hinge on this one-woman show. Before Muslim folk-rocker Zed Headscarf (Zehra Fazal) got involved, America’s most memorable depictions of Islam were a.) Lil Kim sporting a hijab and not much else on the cover of One World and b.) that episode of Southpark wherein the boys travel to Afghanistan to return a mail-order goat to its starving family. (And to kill Osama bin Laden, who, in the words of Cartman, “has a small penis.”) No wonder those pious clerics up and declared America’s objectification of women and obsession with dick jokes as deserving of–dare I say it?–jihad! Zed Headscarf, infidel-licking lesbian though she be, really could change all that.
Hip Shot: “FICTITIOUS The Musical”
FICTITIOUS The Musical
The Warehouse – Mainstage
Remaining Performances: Wednesday, July 15th at 5 p.m.; Friday, July 24th at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, July 25th at 10:30 p.m.
They Say: “This (sic) satirical musical comedy. Hugh Diffindoffer, a young immigrant from ‘Nonexzistia’ comes to America. His journey leads him to become The Number One Bodybuilder in the World, Movie Star in the World and finally, Leader of the Free World.”
Glen’s Take: They also say: “127 Minutes.” So yeah; know that.
Look, the songs by Tom Hyndman are solid, the harmonies both precise and euphonious, and the band, led by Mary Sugar, is tight. They sound great — yes, grampa, they’re loud (amplifiers + teensy space = scowls from the Olive-Garden early-bird contingent) — but they’re great.
The music itself is pleasingly catchy; it’s lyrically that the songs underperform. Many of Hynder’s most hummable tunes dispense with the verse as quickly as possible so they can head straight for the chorus and homestead there, but that’s par for the Broadway course.
Hip Shot: ‘Magnum Opus’
Magnum Opus
Warehouse – Mainstage
Remaining Performances:
Sunday, July 12 at 4:15 p.m.
Thursday, July 16 at 5:30 p.m.Saturday, July 18 at 2 p.m.
Saturday, July 25 at 8:30 p.m.
They say: “Robert, a struggling playwright, undertakes a Faustian bargain of inspiration in return for his sanity. Driven by his desire to please his wife Claire and succeed as a writer, he risks his life in return for his Magnum Opus.”
Brian’s take: When he was a kid, my little brother refused to eat eggs. And I remember one morning when, despite his protestations, my mother kept on cajoling him to take a bite — just one bite — until finally he explained, “I like eggs, I just don’t like the taste!”
That’s pretty much how I’d describe my feelings about Magnum Opus, a new opera by the Alterna Opera company. It’s a predictably well-made tragedy: You’ve got your struggling playwright, his casually flirtatious wife, the composer charming her into casual flirtation, and a pair of muses (though they behave more like sirens) whispering some nefarious solutions in the playwright’s ear.
Hip Shot: ‘My Fabulous Sex Life’
Why yes: That is a monument in my pocket, and I am happy to see you.
My Fabulous Sex Life
The Shop at Fort Fringe
Remaining Performances:
Sunday, July 12 at 8:00 p.m.
Thursday, July 16 at 5:15 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 9:30 p.m.
Thursday, July 23 at 7:45 p.m.
They say: “Funny. Obscene. Dangerous. Welcome to My Fabulous Sex Life, the story of one gay man’s sexual adventures in DC. Think you know how far you’d go? Think again.”
Trey’s take: “This,” drawls Brent Stansell midway through his jaw-droppingly frank bedroom confessional, “isn’t the first time I’ve tried to get attention.” And you think: Well, duh. (The man’s an actor, after all, and if there’s a closer synonym for “exhibitionist,” I’ve yet to encounter it.)
Like many solo shows, this one’s a a coming-of-age story, and despite its saucy title and its explicit language — no, really, it’s explicit, so don’t say you weren’t warned — it’s also the story of a boy looking for love. That he’s looking for it in what some would call the wrong places (bedrooms, bathrooms, hotel rooms, balconies, the grounds of the Washington Monument) only adds to the tang of an evening that rings truest when it’s most blunt: After a mildly stunned recap of one especially outré encounter, Stansell cops to the shame and the self-loathing that can accompany the memory of such moments, even for a man who’s since come to terms with an exuberant sense of his sexuality. Then he takes his tales one level deeper, daring the audience to measure its own memories and mores against his own — and that’s when what might have been a naughty bit of fluff becomes something more serious, and rather brave.
Photos: A Touch of Fringe
Hip-Shot: ‘If You See Something…’
If You See Something Say Something
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 26 @ 4 PM
Saturday, July 26 @ 8 PM
They say: “Master storyteller Mike Daisey’s new comic monologue takes aim at the history of the Department of Homeland Security. Combining eye-opening research and witty autobiography, he bores into the dark heart of America to discover the meaning of security and the price we are willing to pay for it.”
Brian’s take: Got some free time this weekend? Oooh, I’ve got an idea–you should pay $20 to let a man sit at a table and talk to you for two hours about the history of American security!
You might think I’m being sarcastic (two hours of a man sitting at a table, you say?), but I shit you not. That is actually what you should do, as long as the man’s name is Mike Daisey, the creator and comic purveyor of the exquisitely conceived If You See Something Say Something. I’ll leave the sarcasm up to him.
There may be no metaphor in security, as Daisey astutely notes, but he certainly injects metaphor (and simile, and irony, and synecdoche, and peripetea, &c, &c) aplenty into this series of monologues–stories, really–which he weaves with enthralling dexterity of voice, tone, gesture, and expression. The show is billed as the story of the Department of Homeland Security, but much of the focus is on the history of the atomic bomb. The piece is obsessively researched, and by interlacing the straight history with his own anecdotes and observations, Daisey is able to infuse a somewhat sterile topic with a folksy, around-the-campfire sensibility. In some of the most disturbing but memorable moments, Daisey is even able to turn the monologue into something of a ghost story–one minute you’re laughing at the foibles of Bernard Kerik, the next minute Daisey is describing in unsettling detail what would happen if Cohen’s neutron bomb were detonated above the theater, and you feel just a bit sick for joking around only moments earlier.
Daisey is one of those people (I’ve seen him before) who can make anything scintillating, so even if you proclaim to be uninterested in neutrons and bombs and the Cold War and deserts and Tom Ridge and that kind of thing, go if only to spend some quality time with Daisey. It’s like taking one of your favorite nonfiction authors–I’ll use Ian Frazier but you can fill-in-the-blank–crossing him with your favorite stand-up comedian–let’s say, oh, I don’t know, Robin Williams–and hunkering down in a bar for a few hours to discuss a subject about which he’s read every book possible.
See it if: You’ve ever been frisked ever-so-scandalously by a security guard.
Skip it if: You are overly paranoid about getting radiation poisoning.
‘The 70% Club’
The 70% Club
Social Hall, Trinity University, 125 Michigan Avenue NE
(Note: The performance changed rooms within the Main Hall at Trinity; they have signs to direct you.)
Remaining Performance:
Saturday, July 26 @ 7:30 PM
They say: “Can a woman find lasting love these days — especially a black woman? Can two people stay together “’til death do us part”? As a couple prepares to say “I Do”, these issues are explored. Will Cynthia and Chris save their marriage? Will Deanna make it out of the 70% Club?”
Brett’s take: Deanna and Jackson are about to get married, but he might have cold feet, or possibly a secret that he’s worried will ruin their marriage. Chris is not sure he wants to stay with Cynthia after five years of marriage. Deanna’s friends, including a backstabbing roommate, her sassy mother and a gay man, are preparing for the big event.
You might be able to see from the synopsis, but “The 70% Club” is not a play. It is a Hollywood romantic comedy on a stage. That’s not a judgment; the play follows the familiar structures and keeps with the tropes almost exactly. Considering romantic comedies usually take several Hollywood screenwriters and script doctors to put together, it is impressive that Mary McCallum constructed this on her own – and more so that she then puts in a necessarily likeable appearance playing Deanna, a lead role.
Actually, the script occasionally dips its toes into darker waters, as at the end of each act. The title is a reference to a New York Times article which reported 70% of black women are without a spouse; although producing company Sista Style Productions “prides itself on providing quality and relevant theatre” only during a scene at Deanna’s bachelorette party (the overall highlight of the evening) does the play actually tackle the subject with any interest.
The actors all acquit themselves well, particularly Jene India who effecitvely plays against her apparent youth to portray Deanna’s mother. If not for the awkwardness of the musical cues covering transitions, this could very well be filmed and put on screen as part of TInseltown’s menu of romantic comedies. The play is performed in a massive, echoey ballroom; the sumptuous decor actually matches the plush set (no set designer is credited), although the venue has no place for lighting whatsoever, and thus overhead lights remain on the whole time. The actors effectively project above their own echoing and the din of an air conditioner.
See it if: You like romantic comedies.
Skip it if: You don’t. (Sometimes these things are simple.)
