Round House Theatre: Throw Me On the Burnpile and Light Me Up: Beth Hylton –Photo: Harold F Burgess II
For her latest work as a playwright, Lucy Alibar, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Beasts of the Southern Wild, has mined some of the more unforgettable aspects and experiences from her childhood — including Alibar growing up in a small farmhouse on a watermelon field in the Florida Panhandle, and helping her dad, a lawyer who defended death row inmates, by serving as his occasional part-time legal secretary when she was only a fourth-grader.
Alibar starred in Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up when the one-woman play premiered in Los Angeles in 2016. Five years later, Beth Hylton takes on all of the characters in a new digital production from Round House.
Directed by artistic director Ryan Rilette, the company calls the play, presented as a series of vignettes, a “heartfelt, irreverent, one-woman love letter to family, the South, and the belief that everyone deserves a defender.”
Sure to enhance the production if not steal the show outright with any number of signature extravagant costumes is Ivania Stack, part of a design team also including Paige Hathaway on sets, Matthew M. Nielsen handling sound, and Harold F. Burgess II overseeing lights. Meanwhile, well-known actor-about-town Maboud Ebrahimzadeh steps into the role of director of photography.
Throw Me on the Burnpile is the second of three offerings in Round House’s Spring Virtual Season, which launched with Colman Domingo’s A Boy and His Soul, a music-filled memoir and recipient of the GLAAD Media Award for Best Play that recounted the playwright and actor’s coming of age in 1970s West Philadelphia.
The season will conclude with Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die, helmed by Paige Hernandez, which streams for a month starting June 14. Part one-woman play, part live rock concert, the show features Regina Aquino as the Singer, with Jason Wilson as Bass Player, Laura Van Duzer as Keyboardist, Matthew Schleigh as Guitarist, and Manny Arciniega as Drummer — all backed by a real-life, four-piece indie-rock band The Chance Club.
Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up streams through June 13. Digital Access is $32.50 including fees. Call 240-644-1100 or visit www.roundhousetheatre.org.
The D.C. theater season doesn't tiptoe in -- it arrives with gale force. The Shakespeare Theatre Company leads the charge with The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Wild Duck, and a freshly mounted Guys and Dolls, a trio that underscores why STC still sets the bar for classical and modern reinvention. Woolly Mammoth continues to push boundaries with time-bending dramas and audience-driven experiments, while Theater J stakes its ground with provocative premieres that blur the line between history, satire, and survival.
If you want spectacle with edge, Broadway at the National delivers high-gloss imports from Stereophonic to Some Like It Hot. Keegan continues its fearless streak with punk-rock carnage in Lizzie the Musical and raw new work like John Doe. GALA Hispanic Theatre reasserts itself as one of D.C.'s most vital cultural players with El Beso de la Mujer Araña and La Casa de Bernarda Alba, reminding us that Spanish-language theater isn't niche, it's essential.
A cute, warm-hearted adaptation, Jocelyn Bioh's Merry Wives grabs Shakespeare by the breeches and bum-rushes him into the 21st century and the boisterous mix of Harlem's West African community. Although the Bard's play is certainly here (the program notes tell us Bioh has kept more than 90 percent of the language), there is such a strong sense of the African performance tradition that it feels quite a bit more like the lively telling of a traditional fable. There is a certain charm to this concept and execution, but it also brings a few challenges.
Right out of the box, one of the biggest is the accents. There is no question that this apparently American-born-and-bred cast does a stellar job with them, but there is also no question that it's often hard to catch some of the language Bioh has so painstakingly preserved. It may bring a pleasing authenticity, but it was up to director Taylor Reynolds to test-drive it for clarity. It isn't bad enough to get in the way of the conversational gist per se, but for those hoping to be transported on flights of aural precision, this blurring of the edges may cause some heartburn.
Not often (ever) do I weep at the theater, and laugh, reflect, hold my breath in suspense, laugh some more, and weep again all in the same show, with a leisurely lunch sandwiched between emotional catharses.
But Round House's exquisite production of Matthew Lopez's sweeping gay opus The Inheritance, directed by Tom Story, elicits such strong emotions. Also, the play, split into two separate parts, each over three hours, has plenty of time to work its magic.
Winner of the Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk, Critics' Circle, Evening Standard, and Drama League Awards for Best Play, The Inheritance encapsulates a rich, half-century slice of gay American history into its six-hour-plus running time.
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