Woolly’s Amm(i)gone Centers Faith and Family in Pre-Pride Performance
“What happens to the living when all our hopes and dreams are reserved for the afterlife?” It’s a question that has been mulled over, in one way or another, since the beginning of modern religion. And it emerges again as the guiding question in Amm(i)gone, a new play created and performed by Adil Mansoor and…
Spooky Action’s Frontiéres sans Frontiéres Is Satirical, Surreal, and Overwrought
Loud, pointedly delivered farts might seem out of place in a play about three stateless youths scrapping for their lives in an unnamed war zone, but they’re hardly the most absurd touch in Frontiéres sans Frontiéres. Phillip Howze’s play, now running at Spooky Action Theater under the guidance of artistic director Elizabeth Dinkova, uses just…
Distillation Takes Audiences on a Theatrical Journey That Continues After the Curtain Drops
Like many young adults working in the arts, Luke Casserly spent time at his childhood home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike many other young adults, he wrote a beautiful play about it. Distillation, Casserly’s taut, elegiac reminiscence about changing life in the Irish Midlands, amounts to far more than an amusing account of socially distant…
The Last Drop Takes You to the End of the World
Somewhere, 139 paces from the shore at low tide, near a tree stump, sits a still, an assemblage of sundry parts tended by Mary (Stacy Whittle) and Joe (Robert Sheire). The long-married couple, dressed in faded and threadbare clothing, seem to have divided the labor accordingly: Joe, who built the still, tends the fire, and…
An Unbuilt Life: A Too Polite Drama About Art Looting
Considering D.C. is a city with both a vibrant theater scene and lots of museums, art galleries, murals, and working artists, it is not surprising that there is overlap in the audience for both theater and visual arts. Of course, art is not always about aesthetics and appreciation; it’s an industry: Works are not just…
Unknown Soldier: A Valiant Quest With an Underwhelming Conclusion
It’s easy to sit in a dark theater, listen to a tuneful new musical, and thoroughly enjoy yourself. All it takes is pleasant piano, decent voices, and interesting visual elements. Yet upon leaving, you can still turn to your companion and say, “Wow, that show has some issues.” Such is the case with Unknown Soldier,…
Forget Sticks and Stones, Words Hurt in Webster’s Bitch
Words matter. And in Jacqueline Bircher’s Webster’s Bitch, they truly cut deep. From Disney evoking its First Amendment right to fire actor Gina Carano over hateful social media posts to J.K. Rowling’s damaging and backward stance against trans lives, is it even worth it to ask if words have no impact on the world around…
A Jumping-Off Point Only Scratches the Surface of Race and Gender Dynamics in Hollywood
“It’s all fiction,” says Leslie (Nikkole Salter), a Black writer leading her own HBO (MAX) show in playwright Inda Craig-Galván’s world premiere play A Jumping-Off Point. The line is delivered as a bit of wry wisdom, but the flippancy of it undercuts the compromises and mistakes Leslie has made to get this point. In this…
Olney’s Pitch-Perfect Islander Plays on Loop
It begins with a pitched sigh from the depths of the belly, lingering for a moment before the button gets pushed. Originating millimeters from the microphone’s waffled cap, the forced air grows tighter and fuller, morphing into a pulsating, gentle “shhhh.” Another push. Like a descant above a meditative symphony, the kinetic crackle of a…
Revolution Is the Heart of Sunset Baby
There is nothing sentimental about a “dead revolution,” hustler Nina tells Kenyatta, her political prisoner father, early in Sunset Baby. Kenyatta intended his daughter to be the embodiment of Black liberation, a role she has rejected—even as she secretly regards herself as a disappointment. Revolution is the heart of Sunset Baby, written by Dominique Morisseau,…
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