You can tell from the title that Love’s Labor’s Lost is not going to end “happily ever after.” But far from being messy or depressing, actor Edmund Lewis finds this early William Shakespeare comedy to be refreshing and realistic.
“I think [Shakespeare] was trying to explore the idea of, sometimes it doesn’t work out,” he says. “Sometimes you wind up with that person you’re in love with. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes your heart is broken. It’s just a charming exploration of love in its many forms…and of wisdom. And how love can make us do these silly things when we’re…not being completely honest with ourselves, or when we’re following our heart rather than our mind.”
Lewis plays the clownish everyman Costard in what he calls “a really lovely, romantic, silly production” of the show at Folger Theatre. It marks the New York-based actor’s second gig in D.C., after appearing in last season’s St. Joan, also at the Folger. While in recent years the 49-year-old Lewis has been seen in classical productions — most by Shakespeare — none of it has been by design.
“Actually, Shakespeare was not something I have ever aimed to do,” he says. “It really wasn’t something I had trained for or had a huge desire to do. It just kind of happened, and then my love for it developed.” In addition to increasing forays in film and TV, Lewis hopes to stretch himself with more contemporary stage works — and the out actor would be eager to finally get the chance to play a gay character. “I really haven’t [played gay], but I would love to explore that and tell that story.”
For now, however, he’s enjoying treating Folger audiences to the Bard’s early battle-of-the-sexes comedy, directed by Vivienne Benesch. “This one’s always been considered one of his troubled plays, because there are certainly a couple of logic things that are strange,” he says. “And it’s not a terribly plot-heavy comedy. I’ve seen a couple of different productions of it that haven’t quite worked. I think this one gets pretty close to what it should be.
“I think Vivienne has done a really great job with it. And it’s a really great cast, and so it kind of keeps things fun and buoyant. We’ve taken a somewhat difficult play and just made it hugely entertaining.”
Love’s Labor’s Lost runs to June 9 at the Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol St. SE. Tickets are $42 to $79. Call 202-544-7077 or visit www.folger.edu.
The enchanted woods of past and current Stephen Sondheim productions are full of Mama Roses and Georges and Sweeney Todds. Washington audiences have journeyed up the beanstalk with that giant killer Jack three times in nearly as many seasons.
So, Signature Theatre's outstanding new production of the late Maestro's more rarely produced Pacific Overtures (★★★★☆) sounds doubly refreshing to ears eager to venture somewhere less familiar in Sondheim-land.
The score, with music and lyrics by Sondheim, also simply sounds lovely filling the openness of director Ethan Heard's in-the-round staging, grazing the graceful, watercolor-hued screens set designer Chika Shimizu has wrapped around the Max Theatre. Alexander Tom conducts a nine-piece orchestra -- complete with a booming taiko war drum -- that breathes vitality into those plunking, repeated quarter notes that so sing of Sondheim.
This summer marks Molly Smith's 25th anniversary as artistic director of Arena Stage -- and it also marks her retirement from the organization, one of the oldest and largest theater companies around.
Under Smith's leadership, Arena's national stature and influence increased by leaps and bounds, helping nurture a sizable contingent of new playwrights and plays -- including "nine projects that went on to have a life on Broadway," to quote an Arena press release.
Among those projects: the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal, the Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen, and the plays Looped starring the late Valerie Harper and The Velocity of Autumn starring Estelle Parsons.
A picture, as the adage goes, may be worth a thousand words, but not all of them require exposition. Nor do the people or places depicted always offer insight to those outside the frame. Such are the problems with Pictures From Home (★★☆☆☆), Broadway's lethargic family drama based on a book of photos.
Between 1982 and 1992 photographer and college professor Larry Sultan took a bounty of photographs of his parents, Irving and Jean. He captured them in both candid, unrehearsed moments and in staged poses.
The process was painstaking, both for him and his subjects, but it ultimately launched them all to a sort of stardom within the photography world. Sultan released the book to numerous accolades and, according to the New York Times, it has "become a definitive guide to narrative photography."
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