Goethe Institut – Mainstage; 812 7th Streen NW
Remaining Performances:
Wednesday, July 13th 10 p.m.
Saturday, July 16th 7:45 p.m.
Sunday, July 17th 2 p.m.
Wednesday, July 20th 8 p.m.
They say: “Is this comedy? Theater? An actual motivational talk? Whatever you call it, it will change your life forever, maybe. Off-Broadway writer/performer Laura Zam conjures Ken Johnson. Washington Post praise [...]
District of Columbia Arts Center, 2438 18th Street, NW
Remaining Performances:
Saturday July 9th, 8:00 p.m.
They say: “Approximately 219,000 people annually in the United States are diagnosed with lung cancer. Even if one of them is your dad, it can be funnier than you think. The perfect show for anyone who has, or ever had, a [...]
A revisionist farce in two acts loaded with decidedly un-Pilgrim levels of innuendo, intrigue, and incontinence.
In this pared-down staging of John Ford’s (literally) visceral Renaissance tragedy, several subplots get cut; several characters, cut up.
Chameleon
The Apothecary
1013 7th Street NW
Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 23 at 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 24 at 3:45 p.m.
Sunday, July 25 at 2:15 p.m.
They Say: “Chameleon is a multi-disciplinary presentation about global citizens who have been exposed to several cultures in their developmental years. Exploring the notions of home, cultural identity and relationships through film, [...]
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. 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.
Roth is on to something, here; she’s created some interesting parallels between father and son. She’s still pushing them at us, rather than letting the us find them — which is why, I think, that scene in which one of George’s dementia-fueled WWII memories combines with Andy’s Nam flashback feels as needless and over-the-top as it does.
MacIntyre has given the thing a crisp narrative shape, and each monologue is flecked with lovely bits of language and the kind of small, telling detail that turns anecdote into art. Tonally, however, the evening never moves off the starting block — each vignette covers the same, smallish patch of emotional terrain, and, perhaps inevitably, MacIntyre’s performance keeps hitting the same beats, and the emotional delineations between the stages of Kathleen’s life blur together.
No wonder those pious clerics up and declared the western objectification of women and glorification of dick jokes as deserving of–dare I say it?–jihad. Zed Headscarf, infidel-licking lesbian though she be, really could change all that.
The problem — and it gets to be a big one, after the first hour — is that those choruses, in true “The Song That Goes Like This” fashion, tend to consist of a given song’s title, repeated and repeated and repeated. That’s a good way to pump up a song’s earworm potential, certainly (you’re not gonna forget that “Across the Bay” refrain anytime soon, pal), but it serves to makes Hyndman’s songwriting seem flatter, thinner, than his agreeable melodies would indicate.
