Home of the FREE weekly email Update

Running time 1:30 - no intermission
t Potomac Stages Pick for superb ensemble work on an entertaining and intellectually challenging play
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Three men who have been good friends for years begin to argue over one’s purchase of a piece of modern art – a painting consisting of white lines on a white background – but the argument shifts to the nature of their friendship as well as the nature of art itself.

The 1998 Tony Award winning “Best Play” was written in French by Yasmina Reza and translated by Christopher Hampton (who goes strangely uncredited in this production). It had a highly successful national tour and has been drawing praise in productions at professional regional theaters, such as the Olney Theatre Center, and in community theaters like the Little Theatre of Alexandria. The text is so well constructed that it provides great material for each of the three member cast and plenty of ideas worth exploring further after the lights come up. It is a play for actors to stretch their skills and then for theatergoers to extend the discussion on their way home or at a nearby restaurant or bar.

Kippola is the sophisticate who sets events in motion by purchasing, at a very high price, a work of modern art which to him presents subtleties and satisfactions worth the price. From the start, he establishes an image of cultured assurance which could be insufferable, but which is softened by both an intellectual curiosity and a genuine concern for the opinions of his friends. Block is incisive as the friend who challenges his acquisition, apparently as insulted by the fact that his friend didn’t consult with him before making such a major purchase as at his own low opinion of the painting itself. In this well balanced three-part piece, it is Nelson who is the standout among equals as the third friend with problems of his own. He's already about to explode under the stress of his impending marriage and then reacts to the additional pressure of his two friends’ demands that he take sides in their debate. His stream-of-consciousness tirade approaching break-down is manic and drop-dead funny.

Dan Conway's white-on-white set allows the action to flow easily between the homes of two of the three friends. It is as modern an architectural construct as the painting at issue is modern visual art. He dispenses with a technique used in other productions: the switching of paintings to signal switches in locale. This maintains a near monochrome feel that is echoed in Kathleen Geldard's costumes. It isn't an entirely white world, there are dark leather chairs on the set and a touch of subdued pastels in both Block's gold-toned shirt and Nelson's blue-ish jeans. But color doesn't really intrude. Even Jay Herzog's lighting scheme maintains a colorlessness except for the interpolated monologue sequences when cast members turn to the audience to comment - then the lights turn warm and Chas Marsh sneaks in a bit of music or sound effect to change the feel.

Written by Yasmina Reza. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Design: Dan Conway (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Liza Davies (properties) Lewis Shaw (fight choreography) Jay A. Herzog (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Richard Anderson (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Chris Block, Karl Kippola, Bruce R. Nelson.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Running time 2:20 - one intermission
Donald Margulies' dramatic exploration of the nature of art
 and the role of an artist
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Just after the death of his father in New York and just before the opening of an exhibit of his work in London, an artist so successful that his paintings sell sight unseen visits his former lover and her husband in their farmhouse in rural England in search of some connection with his past and with what the years have brought.

Margulies writes the kind of sharp, character revealing dialogue that an actor can sink his teeth into. In this early play he exhibits a felicity for structure as well, with scenes played out in something other than chronological order but with the time and place of each easily understood by the audience. It sounds complicated, but with a helpful assist from Daniel Ettinger's sets to keep place clear, and the text which makes time clear, there's simply no difficulty following along as the story jumps back and forth between past and present.

With the same actor and actress playing the artist and his former lover, the twenty-two year time span does pose a challenge. Morella handles that challenge without difficulty, but without seeming to adopt much in the way of different, more youthful mannerisms when his character steps back nearly half a lifetime. His is an earnest, intellectually stimulating, charming and genuinely human portrayal, just as he delivered in Brooklyn Boy. This is only partially because Morella's own stage persona is earnest, stimulating, charming and human. It is also that Margulies wrote both parts with the same attributes. The former lover is played with an appealing touch by Deborah Hazlett who makes a more complex, more conflicted character out of her part. She also makes more of the twenty-two year time span, giving her youthful moments a looser, less mature set of postures and gestures. As a result, it is easier to see her as the girl who grew up to be the grownup we meet in the farmhouse. The two establish a chemistry that makes the attraction between them feel real.

The other two members of the cast have something less to work with in this script. Karen Novack does nicely with a mono-toned part of an art journalist interviewing the artist on the occasion of a major exhibit, but, as written, the part is simply a mouthpiece for some of Margulies' points. Bob Rogerson is both entertaining and fascinating as the husband of the former lover, but the very strengths of his performance highlight some of the problems in Margulies' early writing. Here's a character who is practically tongue tied in the first few minutes of the play, a condition explained by the claim that he is "painfully shy." Just minutes later, however, he is verbally clever with a biting wit in conversation with the artist whom he never met before, and a few hours of elapsed time later he is revealing intimate details that he's probably never shared with another soul. Oh, but it is fun watching Rogerson deliver those lines with such aplomb.

Written by Donald Margulies. Directed by Daniel De Raey. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Yvette M. Ryan (costumes) Liza Davies (properties) Jay Herzog (lights) Amy Wedel (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Deborah Hazlett, Karen Novack, Paul Morella, Bob Rogerson.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Runnin time 1:30 - No intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for clarity and intensity
 of the performances
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Nine short scenes zigzag backward in chronology to reveal the history of an extramarital affair and its impact on a marriage and on the husband, the wife and the wife’s lover who has been the husband’s best friend. Starting with the breakup and ending at the party where the first pass was made, the retrogression is fascinating even if the lack of a "tag" at what should be the ending but is actually the beginning, means it ends with a whimper, not a bang.

Pinter is certainly not the first playwright to attempt a reverse order play. The concept has fascinated writers practically since the dawn of drama. Think of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in which the king's history is slowly revealed. The old standby, flash back, is a kind of reverse order technique. More rigorous time reversals can also be found. More recently, consider Kaufman and Hart's Merrily We Roll Along which George Furth and Stephen Sondheim turned into a musical that starts at the end and works back to the beginning. There has even been a forward/backward cris-cross play, Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years which tracks a marriage as viewed in normal chronology by the husband in interspersed scenes of the marriage in reverse chronology as viewed by the wife.

Hazlett, James and Laurence do not create people you would want to add to your inner circle of good friends, but each of these imperfect characters comes to life in fascinating, believable performances which are a pleasure to watch from afar. Laurence gives his character of the best friend carrying on the long term affair a touch of optimistic cluelessness that is intriguing, avoiding any touch of a know-it-all who has careful control over his situation. It sets up James' more manipulative cynical take nicely. A key to the way the triangle rings true is Hazlett's attraction to and affection for each of these men in her life.

Daniel Ettinger's set is more a creation of the sleek urban world of the trio than of a representation of any single location. The bed which dominates the lovers' flat is also a bedroom of the married couple's home, the dining room table of which is also the restaurant where the men meet for lunch. It all has a gleaming polish to it with reflective surfaces in which you catch a glimpse of a face, and glass partitions through which you see approaches and exits. There's an openness to it that matches Pinter's attempt to expose emotions. As each scene begins, signs stating the location and the time ("Flat" "2005") are revealed within the structure to help keep the audience oriented.

Written by Harold Pinter. Directed by Donald Hicken. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Yvette M. Ryan (costumes) Jen Hoopes (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Deborah Hazlett, Timmy Ray James, Whalen J. Laurence, Jason Strunk.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Running time 1:50 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a riveting two-actress drama
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: The mother of a dictator from an African "empire" travels to St. Ives near London to seek treatment for a medical condition from a specialist. The specialist is a woman who asks her help for four doctors imprisoned by her son. The woman asks, in return, for poison she can use to kill her son in order to bring and end to his evil dictatorship.

This is the Potomac Region premiere of Lee Blessing's other two-character play. He's best known, of course, for the two-actor A Walk In The Woods which brought him nominations for both the Pulitzer and the Tony (and which earned Robert Prosky his Tony Award). Here it is a two-actress play, a confrontation between the mother of an African dictator and a British doctor. It treats subjects as serious as that other two-character play and is as well constructed, but doesn't feel at all like an attempt to imitate or repeat. Instead, it has its own identity and delivers its own pleasures.

Two actress plays can only be as good as two actresses are. In Lynn Chavis and Kimerly Schraf, Everyman has two actresses capable of making the play every bit as good as Blessing's script allows. Each creates a distinct and highly textured portrait of a distinctive and highly fascinating woman. Each would be fascinating to know outside of the confines of the events of the play. Together, they establish a rapport based on respect for the other's intelligence and seriousness of purpose even as they contemplate positions each would find impossible to conceive prior to their interaction.

Daniel Ettinger's contribution to the overall feel of the piece is substantial. His seemingly simple, realistic set of the sitting room in the doctor's home in England says a great deal about the character of the doctor even before Schraf makes her entrance. Then, in the second act, the location switches to the garden terrace of Chavis' character's home in Africa. The proportions of the space remain the same, just as the worlds of the two women have somehow assumed the same proportions. Sound design can help a play work some of this magic. Before the show begins and throughout intermission sound designer Neil McFadden fills the theater with music of a distinctly British feel (Elgar, perhaps? Or Bantock?) As the lights begin to fade for the second act, the music shifts to drums. "Oh, we're in Africa now" the woman to my right said to her companion. Instantly, they knew the story had shifted hundreds or thousands of miles to a different world. Such is the power of music.

Written by Lee Blessing. Directed by Juanita Rockwell. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Liza Davies (properties) Jay Herzog (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Lynn Chavis, Kimberly Schraf.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Running time 1:35 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for enormous intelligence in exploring the art of making music
A Potomac Region premiere
Click here to buy the CD of Opus 131

Storyline: Three members of a successful string quartet have dismissed the other member of the group and are auditioning candidates for the post. Simultaneously, they are preparing for a performance at the White House which will be telecast to the largest audience they have ever reached. They find a replacement and select Beethoven's String Quartet No.14, Opus 131, one of the most challenging masterpieces in the cannon of chamber music. As they rehearse for the performance, the characters of the five - the three continuing members of the quartet plus the replacement and the replaced - are tested by professional and artistic stresses.

Mr. Hollinger is a classically trained violist who traded playwriting for music making, and is best known for An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf which was a Potomac Stages Pick when it was produced at the Washington Stage Guild earlier this year. That bright and literate comedy/fantasy shares the strengths of storyline and precise language with this newer piece. This script, although it pursues a much more serious theme, is not devoid of humor. Indeed, it is the sharp exchange of barbs and the occasional ironic aside that gives this examination of serious subjects such vigor, vitality and a sense of personal truth. These are intelligent, determined people dealing with issues that are of supreme importance to them, sometimes through humor but more often through honest and impassioned argument. Not only do they face major artistic and professional challenges, each faces a personal crisis. It is a tribute to Mr. Hollinger's skill at play structuring that these crises seem the natural state of affairs for five mature, successful artists rather than mere convenience for the playwright. In the process, he gives us a very rare insight into the process of artistic creation. Anyone who has ever marveled at the unity a group can achieve when the performance of a complex work is at its best will find incidents, comments and revelations that resonate beautifully in this work. Hollinger avoids any hint of a lecture on musical appreciation, however. This is pure entertainment. He does make a small slip when he has one musician praise the acoustics of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam saying "play a chord there and it goes on forever." Such a long delay time might help a symphony orchestra but would pose a frustrating problem for the precise interchanges of a string quartet.

Everyman's cast is superb, each establishing and then developing a distinct personality, and each reacting to the others in a complex, multi-layered display of dramatic styles. Peter Wray gives the lead violinist a brittle metallic veneer which plays against the sharper, hurt and defensive posture that Karl Kippola uses as the dismissed violinist who shares more than a professional history with him. Kyle Prue lends a more earthy and world-wise sense to the member whose divorce is a result of his yielding to the temptations of the one-night stops of lengthy world tours, while Stephen Patrick Martin slowly builds his role in the ensemble from supportive foil to major mover in measured steps. McKenzie Bowling mixes up the all-male group with her arrival both as an actress among actors and as the female violinist who wins the open slot in the quartet. Wray has one moment that sums up the passion musicians seek in performance when he reacts to Bowling's statement that she'd never played the Beethoven work before. The look on his face before he delivers the line "How I envy you!" says it all.

It seems almost pre-ordained that this play about a quartet should be staged on a square performing space with the audience on all sides. It is a four-sided battle of wills with one side shifting between the dismissed Kippola and the newly hired Bowling. There are times when James Kronzer's elegant wood flooring set seems most like a boxing ring and others when it seems most like a concert hall. He adds touches that enhance the image at key points including suspended ceiling frames that expand the visage, and recessed fixtures in the floor to accommodate some of lighting designer Jay Herzog's effective touches. Properties designer Liza Davies had the unenviable duty to come up with not only some lovely looking musical instruments which would be handled with loving care during the performance but one that would have to suffer an indignity which will not be disclosed here. She acquitted herself admirably. More than light, set or costume design, however, this play is most vulnerable to any deficiencies in sound design. It is a good thing, then, that Everyman has as its resident sound designer Chas Marsh, and a sound system that could reproduce the performances of the real-life Vertigo String Quartet recorded for the play's world premiere at the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia. The result was nearly flawless.

Written by Michael Hollinger. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: James Kronzer (set) Yvette M. Ryan (costumes) Liza Davies (properties) Jay Herzog (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Mall (stage manager). Cast: McKenzie Bowling, Karl Kippola, Stephen Patrick Martin, Kyle Prue, Peter Wray. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed April 5
Running time: 1:00 - no intermission
An absorbing short play raising contemporary questions
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A young man discovers that he is, in fact, but one of a number of clones created out of the genetic material of his father's first son, who died at an early age. The father, however, claims to have been unaware that more than one copy was created, and neither father nor son are quite sure which "son" is even the original clone.

Playwright Caryl Churchill, author of Cloud Nine, Far Away and Top Girls, seems to specialize in plays that start out with fabulous concepts digging into intriguing questions. The longer they last, however, the less captivating they seem to become. In this play, she seems to attempt to solve that problem by keeping it short, building it so that it doesn't last long enough to become unfocused or predictable. She has an impeccable ear for the tendency of many to drop the ends of their sentences, halting either when they think they have said enough to start the thought or when interrupted by another thought - their own or someone else's. That may well be a way to make dialogue sound authentic, but it forces the author to make sure she gets enough of each thought into the early part of the sentence to give the audience a clue as to what the full thought might be.

High voltage is the tool this cast uses to connect all those incomplete thoughts together. It gives the entire hour a feeling of minds rushing on from one thought to the next. No sooner has an idea surfaced than its ramifications spark reconsideration or the next logical step. For the actors, without very many complete sentences to deliver, something of a shotgun approach is required to keep the piece moving. If one doesn't interrupt the other, the incomplete sentences become dangling participles, but a well timed interruption turns the same few words into an emphatic exclamation, interjecting a thought into a heated environment. Hamlin and Prue work with and not against each other to accomplish this. Their collaboration is fascinating to watch.

As intriguing and successful as is the design of the set, especially under the extremely effective lighting of Colin Bills, a single choice by costume designer Kathleen Geldard throws a wrench into the visual success of the show. Prue's multiple characters are signaled by different costumes - at least above the waist. First he's in a sweatshirt, then he's in a leather jacket, finally he's in a sport shirt. So far, so good. But the sweatshirt has a distinctive pattern at the neck which is visible even when he's wearing the jacket, giving the audience a false clue. Has the son in the first scene simply put on a jacket or is this a different son? With a play this short and this full of challenges to the audience to figure out what has happened, a false clue is the last thing they need.

Written by Caryl Churchill. Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Colin K. Bills (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: Bill Hamlin, Kyle Prue.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed November 11
Running time 2:15 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a thoughtful view of human resiliency in captivity
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Three men are imprisoned in the Middle-East, chained to the wall of a basement in Lebanon with no real understanding of why, or what will become of them. One is English, one Irish and one American. They each react differently to the terror of their situation and come to know and rely on one another - until one is killed by their captors and another released.

The inspiration for the play was the case of Brian Keenan, taken hostage in 1986 in Lebanon where he taught at the American University of Beirut, and not released until 1990. While McGuinness changes the names of the prisoners, much of the set up to the story is true to history. It isn't history that concerns McGuinness so much, however, as it is the question of how the human spirit handles such terror and deprivation. That is at the heart of McGuinness' script as these three men search their psyches for coping mechanisms that will work for them. Do they trust each other or avoid further disaster through silence and secrecy? How, then, can the bond that is inevitably forged survive separation either through release or death?

Three superb performances by strong actors mark this production. Richard Pilcher is the Englishman whose stiff upper lip trembles with both fear and rage. His Irish counterpart is Aubrey Deeker, who struggles visibly to understand what is happening to him as an intellectual puzzle, while at the same time, trying to find the strength to survive. Jefferson A. Russell is the most physical of the trio, an American who is bound and determined to rise above it all through his own faith in his own strength.

Milagros Ponce de León constructs a striking set that serves the production well. Her one-room basement is a rust stained, cracked plaster and broken tile hell to which the prisoners have been condemned in the scraggly wardrobe well represented by Kathleen Geldard's costumes. Indeed, the lighting and sound designs also impress as the entire package feels just right. That is why it is so startling that properties designer Jen Hoopes provides modern-looking ribbed plastic water bottles (with labels that include nutrition information, no less) when Brian Keenan's own statements included the fact that he was allowed once a day to fill his battered water bottle.

Written by Frank McGuinness. Directed by Juanita Rockwell. Design: Milagros Ponce de León (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Jen Hoopes (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: Aubery Deeker, Richard Pilcher, Jefferson A. Russell.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed May 20
Running time 2:05 - one intermission
Nudity and Intimate Situations
t A Potomac Stages Pick for two memorable performances in a superbly written play
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: After their first date, a waitress and a short order cook have returned to her apartment and gone to bed together. After making love, she is ready to have him leave so she can have her privacy back. On the other hand, he thinks he knows a good thing when he sees it, has fallen in love, and has no intention of leaving. 

The movie had a much more attractive pair (Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer) than the original Off-Broadway presentation (Kathy Bates and Kenneth Welsh). Here, with Zachary Knower and Deborah Hazlett, Everyman follows the attractive couple approach. It also provides a set which makes the waitress' one room "walk-up tenement" in New York's "Hells Kitchen" seem rather more spacious and well appointed than might actually have been the case at 53rd and 10th in 1987. Director Vincent M. Lancisi focuses the play on the present, on the almost real-time presentation of those few hours that Frankie and Johnny came under the spell of the moonlight (and of the music of French composer Debussy which he titled  "clair de lune" - French for "moonlight"). Lancasi could have focused on the pain of their past - its all there in the text about his failed marriage and criminal record and her abusive former lover. He could have focused on the promise of the future Johnny believes in and finally gets Frankie to see. That is all in the text too. Instead, he balances the two, with the discussions of the past carrying the same weight as the visions of the future, and for that matter, of discussions of how to make a "western down." Just as the smell of the actual cooking of that western permeates the theater, getting the digestive juices flowing for those who didn't eat before the show, so the talk of prison and wounds and marriage and kids get the imaginative juices flowing, adding spice and richness to those moments under the moonlight

As Frankie, Hazlett is quite effective at being slowly convinced not only that Johnny is serious in his protestations of what might in more polite society be his "honorable intentions," but that he actually offers an escape from a meaningless existence. (She has the fabulous line about wanting a life that would keep her birth from being as meaningless as her death.) She also manages the not insignificant trick of playing the opening scene in the completely exposed nude but being able to make her modesty once she dons her robe seem completely natural and unforced.

As the born romantic, Johnny, Knower has the somewhat more difficult part in that it is clear from the moment the lights come up that he has already fallen in love and determined that this Frankie is the woman with whom he wants to share the rest of his life. While Hazlett's character undergoes a transformation, his just keeps on pitching until he wins. The persistence is the key. (His fabulous line is the one about people getting "only one chance, not two, not three . . . and this is it.") He finds just the right balance between determination and understanding to keep the part from becoming pushy. Together, they make a couple you want to see get and stay together under the moonlight and into the light of day.

Written by Terrence McNally. Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi. Design: Robin Stapley (set) Debra Kim Sivigny (costumes) Jen Hoopes (properties) Jay A. Herzog (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Deborah Hazlett, Zachary Knower.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed April 13
Running time 2:15 - One Intermssion
General Admission Seating
t A Potomac Stages Pick for unique subject matter and emotional impact
 Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Alma and Eugene were two black kids growing up together in the Carolinas. She was raised to consider her dark blackness and thick features a mark of ugliness and ungainliness inherited from her mother. He was raised in a home where his father was jealous of his lighter skin color and delicate features. Their affection for each other grew from friendship in childhood to romantic attachment in young adulthood in part because each represented for the other the only person who saw beneath skin color and valued them for inner qualities.

The virtues of Orlandersmith's play begin with an intriguing subject that is rarely addressed, proceed to the highly intelligent structuring of the storytelling, and culminate in the human qualities of the characters she creates. As if that isn't enough, add a poetic expressiveness given unique voice by her selection of locale, and you have quite a package for the cast of two to sink their teeth into. Most of the action takes place on the sea islands of South Carolina where the Gullah patois, a blend of pidgin English and West African words, lends a richness to the dialogue. Orlandersmith's ear for how the remnants of that language affects the speaking style of her many characters is keen, and she uses it to enhance the picture of life on these isolated islands.

Paul Nicholas is the Yellowman of this production, or more precisely, the high-yellow man. His progress from youngster at play in an elementary school yard to young adult dealing with the desire for escape from stifling expectations is an impressive piece of performance art. Dawn Ursula is the darker, bigger, more ungainly girl/woman he grows to love. She obviously treasures the poetic elements of her role, delivering some of Orlandersmith's most descriptive observations with a deep sense of respect. She builds her character well but does suffer just a bit from the fact that she, Ursula, happens to be smaller, finer and more attractive in the fashion of the time than her character is supposed to be. Still, she overcomes the burden of beauty on the surface by demonstrating the beauty beneath.

Regge Life's staging is simplicity itself. A set composed of wood planking, and the minimal costume changes called for in the script. Of course, in theater, simplicity is sometimes the most difficult thing to pull off. Here, the world of the characters in South Carolina and in their sojourn to New York is built from subtle changes in lighting and the eloquent projections subtlely displayed on a wood siding panel over the performers' heads. The physical production supports the two performers without creating distractions. The result is a production that feels just right for a script that deserves no less.

Written by Dael Orlandersmith. Directed by Regge Life. Design: Can Conway (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Jay A. Herzog (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: Paul Nicholas, Dawn Ursula.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed December 11
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for
an absorbing story well told
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A young actor with no experience on a farm comes to live and work with two farmers in Canada’s Ontario Province as research for a play. The farmers have been together since their youth when one was injured, loosing short term memory but retaining an extraordinary intelligence. The other has acted as his protector for all of their adult life. The actor’s probing questions begin to reveal truths behind the farmers’ history that one has tried to keep from the other.

The extraordinarily absorbing script by Canadian actor/writer Michael Healey is filled with gentle humor, touching humanity and revealing details which deepen the portrait of the two farmers as the evening progresses. The naïveté of the young actor gives rise to very funny segments as the experienced farmer delights in misleading him and giving him absurd assignments in a kind of hazing that is in no way mean-spirited. The relationship between the farmers, friends since childhood and partners since the accident, emerges slowly but honestly with no apparently artificial detours in the simple storytelling style of the author.

The two farmers are portrayed with an honest generosity by Everyman regulars Bruce R. Nelson and Frederick Strother. Nelson adopts a habit of staring off into space from time to time as his character's mind wanders which is very effective. Both allow their characters to develop over the course of the evening, never pushing too hard on a point too early. Theirs are measured, thoughtful portrayals that work very well indeed. The visiting actor is played by Evan Casey, a visiting actor at Everyman. He takes a broader approach to the comedy of the part than his colleagues, but works well with them in scene after scene.

The world of these farmers in Ontario in 1982 is nicely recreated with Daniel Ettingers' farm house set occupying less than the full width of the stage. This concentrates the attention center stage which helps in a small-cast piece like this. Ettinger provides the audience on the extreme sides of the house with views of the outside walls of the central structure. Since there is no closed curtain to hide the set as the audience enters, this also helps establish a sense of reality for those who look over the setting as they enter the hall. This sense is enhanced by little details such as the aging copy of a Farmer's Almanac on the table in the sitting area, the choice of desert boots for the young actor who has no idea of what life on a farm is like, and the cows bellowing in stereo in Sarah Washburn's sound design.

Written by Michael Healey. Directed by Nick Olcott. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Barbara Kahl (costumes) Jen Hoopes (props) Michael D. Klima (lights) Sarah Washburn (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Che Wernsman (stage manager). Cast: Evan Casey, Bruce R. Nelson, Frederick Strother.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed May 21
Running time 2 hours 5 minutes
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: Rather than a storyline running the course of the evening, this is a collection of nearly thirty songs, each of which has a strong storyline of its own. What they have in common is their authorship and the fact that they nearly are all about people's need for love - that oh-so-Parisian subject. They are all by Brel, a Belgian who moved to Paris in 1952 and learned the tricks of the cabaret trade that he used to write and perform songs that made him a recording star from the mid 50s to the late 60s.

One of Brel's talents was the distillation of a storyline into a poem that could be set to music. Each has a plot featuring a beginning, a middle and an end. Each has a specific setting and one or more characters who are human, complex and recognizable. That is one reason his songs fit so well on a theater stage and why they benefit from being staged rather than just sung. Musically, Brel's songs use a formula familiar to anyone who has ever listened to a Parisian love song, but he uses the formula with different tempos and rhythms. The formula is the application of a simple melodic theme repeated at different steps on a scale. In this way, the listener identifies the pattern of the theme early in the song and can concentrate on the lyrics while the changing pitch keeps things from becoming repetitious and boring.  It is a formula that people as diverse as Charles Aznavour, Cole Porter, Rod McKuen and Frank Wildhorn have all used to craft a song intended to feel Parisian.

Everyman has assembled a cast with a great deal of talent and given the directing assignment to Donald Hicken whose impressive biography is heavy on dramas but lists few, if any, musicals. That's not a bad thing, for the strength of this production is the treatment of the songs as scenes. They are fully staged with appropriate interaction between the performers which provides visual and dramatic variety. Christopher Bloch may be the best of the bunch with his winning assortment of character traits. Sally Martin has a fine way with a torch song and Amanda Johnson is at her best on the more light hearted material. Dan Manning overplays a few bits but puts moves into the song "Jackie" that makes one think the song is about Jackie Gleason.

The musical direction of James R. Fitzpatrick who leads an on-stage quartet is sensitive and precise. He gets clean, clear enunciation from all four of the singers and fine support from the instrumentalists, most particularly Greg Herron who leaves his percussionist position on a few numbers to embellish them with his sonorous marimba playing.  Fitzpatrick's own piano work is tasteful as well. However, all of this marvelous music is delivered to the audience through an amplification system that makes almost all of the notes come across as being at the same volume. The efforts of the vocalists and instrumentalists to shade the dynamics of their numbers is defeated by the system. The program credits set, lighting and costume designers but lists no sound designer -- apparently they didn't have one. It is an unfortunate absence.

Music and Lyrics by Jacques Brel. Production conception, English lyrics and additional material by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman. Directed by Donald Hicken. Musical direction by James R. Fitzpatrick. Design: Wally Coberg (set) Debra K. Sivigny (costumes) Jay A. Herzog (lights) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Christopher Bloch, Amanda Johnson, Dan Manning, Sally Martin. Musicians: James R. Fitzpatrick, Ed Goldstein, Greg Herron, Chas Marsh.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed February 18
Running time 2 hours 15 minutes
t A Potomac Stages Pick for intellectually stimulating
 and emotionally satisfying fare

Storyline: The twenty-five year old daughter of a famous mathematician has spent five years caring for her father as mental illness progressively incapacitated him. On the eve of his funeral she has to cope not only with his death, but with the concern of her sister, the attention of one of her father’s graduate students and the lingering presence of her father in their Chicago home. She may have inherited some of her father’s genius but she fears she may have also inherited his "tendency to instability."

The role of the daughter is the centerpiece of the play. In Megan Anderson, Everyman's production has a superb actress at the evening's core.  Her light touch with a flippantry, deeply felt pauses over her character's self doubts, incendiary flashes of temper and frustration and her ability to match Robert McClure in creating a real sense of sexual attraction based on both intellectual and physical compatibility is marvelous to watch. The contrast between her informal, youthful body language and the precise and controlled posture of Deborah Hazlett as her sister in their first scene together is an example of collaboration at its finest. Anderson also manages to create great familial chemistry with Carl Schurr as the father of her memories.

As fabulous as the cast is, they happen to be working with a script that creates four well-defined people with dreams, fears, histories and opinions, whose dealings with each other are the natural results of their personalities and circumstances. It is all there in the text. This is no easy task as any playwright will attest, and Auburn gets it right in his very first major play. He also comes up with one of the great first-act curtain lines of recent memory.

With a mathematical "proof" at the center of the story, Auburn turns his title into a double entandré. There is little actual discussion of higher mathematics, so the audience need not even know what a prime number might be in order to follow the discussions. There is never a sense that the author is "talking down" to the audience or artificially keeping the discussion non-technical. A welcome improvement to the original text in this production is the elimination of the one awkward effort to avoid technical details, a fairly clumsy "lets go for a walk and you can tell me what this means" moment which proves to be superfluous. The play is the better for its absence.

Written by David Auburn. Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) LeVonne Lindsay (costumes) Sarah Washburn (properties) Jay A. Herzog (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Megan Anderson, Deborah Hazlett, Robert McClure, Carl Schurr.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed September 5
Running time 2 hours 35 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: Christiania (now Oslo) Norway, 1890. Returning from her honeymoon with her scholarly husband , the former Hedda Gabler tries to take up residence in the oh-so-bland world of her new husband. Her past won’t be ignored, however. Her former lover has written a book which may threaten her new husband’s career prospects and another man from her past wants to re-establish his claim on her. She thinks she has found a way to ensure her husband’s success and protect her reputation at the same time when the only copy of the manuscript of the threatening book falls into her hand. 

Those who had the inestimable pleasure of watching Judith Light assay the role of Ibsen’s Gabler at the Shakespeare Theatre two years ago under Michael Kahn’s direction will find this production a revelation. Kahn’s institutionally impressive staging constantly reminded you that you were watching a masterpiece of modern theater. Here, on the other hand, director Vincent M. Lancisi puts aside any theatrical excess to create a reality fascinating to watch but at times so intense you want to look away. The language of this translation falls easily on modern ears although it briefly feels as if it has switched into a soap opera mode for about ten minutes after intermission, as a great deal of plot information is presented in a very brief span. 

Deborah Hazlett’s Hedda is a trapped animal - but the animal is of a very human variety. She’s a scheming, plotting creature. The challenge for any actress, aided of course by Ibsen’s text, is to make her human enough that the audience doesn’t reject her out of hand. Ibsen gives clues in that text but it takes an actress of skill and not a little subtlety to turn those clues into visible guideposts that let the audience understand just how different the life Hedda is facing is from the life she believed she had every reason to expect. Hazlett has the skills and uses them to create a memorable portrait.

Director Vincent Lancisi goes for atmosphere in a big way, but does it with subtlety. The wordless first scene, the blackouts leaving just the light of a real oil lamp, Jay Herzog’s  near-moonlight silver light streaming through the window between scenes, Chas Marsh’s touch of reverberation on the keyboard rendition of classical piano chamber music, and Gail Beach’s restrained palette in the costumes to match the ash grays of Conway’s set all combine in a world the fine cast inhabits. And the cast is very good indeed, especially a subtly smarmy John Lescault, Vivienne Shub who brings a touch of wit to the part of Hedda’s husband's old aunt, and Maia DeSanti who travels the widest range of emotions of them all. Her slight loss of balance as she delivers the line “I have no idea what I’ll do - it’s all blackness and shadows” as she discovers the tragedy which has befallen her is a beautiful touch.

Written by Henrik Ibsen. Adapted by Jon Robin Baitz. Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi. Design: Dan Conway (set) Gail Beach (costumes) Tim Jones (properties) Jay Herzog (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Amanda M. Hall (stage manager). Cast: Marianne Angelella, Maia DeSanti, Deborah Hazlett, John Lescault, Bruce R. Nelson, Jefferson A. Russell, Vivienne Shub. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed February 1
Running time 2 hours 25 minutes

Hart’s characters are broadly drawn and some can be quite a challenge for a performer either to rise above the stereotype or to resolve conflicting elements. This cast is up to that challenge. Kimberly Schraf shows some humanity as The Star, revealing the internal insecurity that drives some of her character’s excesses. What is more, she moves like the star she is. Her courtesy is a thing of beauty. Matthew Pauli has the most to overcome in the writing of his part, that of The Writer, because he is the victim of both Hart’s moralizing and his wish fulfillment. The part begins as a shy young man who speaks in single syllables and ends with lengthy speeches about the importance of theater while he takes control of the entire project. It would be one thing if Hart wrote the part as if The Writer was maturing and changing through the experiences of the evening. Instead, he simply gives his alter-ego character the lines he obviously wishes he had said himself in similar situations. Still, Pauli pulls it off most of the time.

Some of the secondary roles benefit from being simple comic creations without such inconsistencies. Rosemary Knower and Stan Weiman use energy and sharp comic timing to keep their roles as The Producer and The Producer’s Wife from bogging down. Conrad Feininger disguises the overly preachy nature of his part as The Visiting Playwright by investing it with gestures and postures that turn exposition into wry humor.  Christopher Bloch is consistently hysterical as The Director of the play within this play.

Lighting designer Michael Klima’s subtle effect of the light coming through the window in the non-existent wall through which the audience is viewing the action is a touch of class which matches Daniel Ettinger’s marvelously detailed set of Suite 1021 in Boston’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Reggie Ray’s costumes are all as detailed and opulent as the set which is just right for these movers and shakers of the theater world at that time in history. The play itself may be a bit dated, but this production makes you feel you are witnessing just what it must have been like when it was new and fresh and, well, lighting up Broadway’s sky in 1948.

Written by Moss Hart. Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Michael D. Klima (lights) Reggie Ray (costumes) Jenifer Alonzo (props) Chas Marsh (sound) Stan Barouh (photography). Cast: Kimberly Schraf, Conrad Feininger, Matthew Pauli, Rosemary Knower, Stan Weiman, Christopher Bloch, Dawn Ursula, Diana Sowle, Steven Cupo, James Denvil, Karl Kippola, Kevin Donnelly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed September 25
Running time 2 hours 10 minutes

Written by Ronald Harwood. Directed by Grover Gardner. Design: Lewis Folde (set) Jay Herzog (lights) Reggie Ray (costumes) Neil McFadden (sound) Sarah Washburn (properties). Cast: Kyle Prue, Stan Weiman, Megan Anderson, Marianne Angelella, Steven Cupo, John Michael MacDonald.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed March 27
Running time 1 hour 55 minutes

Written by Morris Panych. Directed by Vincent Lancisi. Fight choreography by Lewis Shaw. Design: Dan Conway (set and lights) Melissa Webb (costumes) Chas Marsh (sound) Amy Youmatz (props) Paul Kelm (contraptions.) Cast: R. Scott Williams, Diana Sowle.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 

Reviewed January 16
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes

Written by August Wilson. Directed by Jennifer L. Nelson. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Jay Herzog (lights) Reggie Ray (costumes) David Wilson (sound.) Cast: Frederick Strother, S. Robert Morgan, Aakhu Freeman, Kevin Jiggetts, Keith N. Johnson, Lance Williams, Mercedez Mitchell or Remi Nicole Winston.