Stage section: Metro Weekly

All for One

Synetic's Musketeers dazzles with storytelling that is not simply entertaining, but transporting

Published on May 16, 2013, 7:29am

Though the urge to wax lyrical is almost overpowering (and follows below), let's cut to the chase: Synetic's The Three Musketeers is a joyously accessible adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's classic swashbuckler and is simply, absolutely, the most superb fun, whether you are a diehard Synetic fan or chose this as your first foray into the unique world of this one-of-a-kind theater company. With an adaptation (by Ben and Peter Cunis) of the novel delivered in a whirl of wild and ...[more]

Arid and Overwhelming

This Palm Springs play needs both far less and much more

Published on May 16, 2013, 7:25am

It's always a little disconcerting when you don't get what all the fuss is all about. A case in point, Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities is an award-winner with a successful Broadway run, and yet beneath its flamboyant premise, flaming one-liners and starkly delineated characters, there is only a tentative foray into its subjects: the bond between parent and adult child and the harsh edge between public and private lives. Of course, the play's popularity suggests that the flaws ...[more]

Gilgamesh Follies

Constellation's latest epic is only worth it for the visual stimulation provided by the cast

Published on May 16, 2013, 7:23am

Right now, there's a work of art gracing the stage at the Source on 14th Street. And I don't mean Gilgamesh, the fantastical show created around Yusef Komunyakaa's flowery prose poetry. Well, not the script or the story of Gilgamesh anyway. Based on an ancient written epic from Mesopotamia, Komunyakaa's work is too fanciful and over-the-top to fully draw you in or even really understand. You may find yourself asking what's the point? There's no clear answer, even with a ...[more]

Heel Thyself: ''Kinky Boots''

Cyndi Lauper's original songs go beyond the Broadway box in the new Tony-nominated musical

Published on May 1, 2013, 8:39am

The new Broadway musical Kinky Boots is hands down this year's gayest -- or ''most fabulous,'' to go with Entertainment Weekly's coded description. You could even think of it as an update on La Cage Aux Folles, with a few heaping sprinkles of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert's good cheer and confetti, and even a nod to the British working-class milieu of previous movie musical adaptations Billy Elliot and The Full Monty. In other words, it all but dares you ...[more]

War Torn: ''Wallenstein''

Robert Pinsky boldly and cleverly freshens Wallenstein's solemn historical premise with an irreverently modern voice

Published on April 25, 2013, 2:20am

Playing in rep with Coriolanus, the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Wallenstein offers another angle on a powerful military man falling fatally from grace. As extraordinary as the manic Coriolanus, albeit in a very different way, Wallenstein similarly finds he cannot reconcile his vision with the powerful realities and vagaries of the politics that dictate war. Whereas for Coriolanus it meant the end of his hope to rule Rome, for Wallenstein it means the end of a soldier's wish to settle a ...[more]

Mother Lode

The Shakespeare Theatre Company's bristling production of ''Coriolanus'' is a stunning work of urgency and clarity

Published on April 18, 2013, 9:24am

It's no surprise Coriolanus isn't staged as often as Shakespeare's other tragedies -- the protagonist is as inscrutable as he is excitable, the battle scenes require ingenuity, and the sense of a volatile and fickle proletariat is not easy to evoke with a modest ensemble. And yet despite these inherent shortcomings, to see the Shakespeare Theatre Company's production -- a stunning work of urgency and clarity -- is to wonder why it is not more of a staple. And to ...[more]

Sewing Discontent

Tazewell Thompson's play about the relationship between Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckly stays safely within the speed limits

Published on April 4, 2013, 3:08am

Of his Mary T. & Lizzy K., Tazewell Thompson's exploration of the relationship between first lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her seamstress Elizabeth Keckly, the playwright states boldly that it is a work of the imagination. Freed from the necessities of historical accuracy, one would expect the possibilities to be near endless. And with so many of the complexities of iconic public figures lost to the obstacles of patriotism, political correctness and the incurious minds of most modern Americans, one ...[more]

Perfect Match

Broadway veteran Nancy Opel makes the role of Dolly her own in Ford's revival of the beloved Jerry Herman classic

Published on April 4, 2013, 1:15am

No, Carol Channing has not returned to Washington in the new revival of Hello, Dolly! Channing has played the role of Dolly Gallagher Levi so many times, including several times in D.C., it's hard to think of anyone else in the role. But director Eric Schaeffer decided to put his hand in and play matchmaker with little-known Broadway veteran Nancy Opel. And the delight of Ford's Theatre's revival, a co-production with Schaeffer's Signature Theatre, is not so much how well ...[more]

Heart of Darkness

''Voodoo Macbeth'' touches, with rawness and relevance, on all that is unsettled about humans at war

Published on March 28, 2013, 2:21am

Adapting an adaptation, The American Century Theater puts an intelligent and provocative spin on Orson Welles's Voodoo Macbeth, itself a radical interpretation of Shakespeare's Scottish play. Instead of Welles's dangerously all African-American, magic-filled Haiti, director Kathleen Akerley sets her tragedy in a war-torn Scotland of 2033 in which, for reasons left to the imagination, all-male American troops have been dug in for a decade. They are tense, battle-weary and living an insular and uneasy existence among an unseen local population. ...[more]

Political Animal

Richard Schiff stays connected to political roles

Published on March 14, 2013, 8:07am

Having West Wing withdrawal? House of Cards DTs? Richard Schiff has the answer for you. It's called Chasing the Hill, and it's a political Web series the former West Wing star serves as an executive producer for and appears in. The drama concerns the re-election campaign of a California representative (Deadwood's Robin Weigert) trying to hang on to her seat. Three episodes have been produced so far, and are priced at only $1.99 each, or, as Schiff laughs, ''the cost ...[more]

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