Home of the FREE weekly email Update

Reviewed May 20
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
A visually intriguing acting out of Dostoyevsky's novel
Click here to buy the book

Storyline: In St. Petersburg in 1866 a poor young man, enraged over the paltry sum he is offered for his watch, kills the pawnbroker. Fyodor Dosteyevsky's novel follows the young man's descent into insanity under the twin pressures of guilt and fear of discovery.

This streamlined presentation of the five hundred plus page novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is labeled "a tragic comedy" by Malaev-Babel and his co-adaptor Xavier A. Bonilla. It is a telling subtitle, for it describes the aspects the authors try to extract from the psychological study that is its source. They treat Dostoyevsky with a lack of reverence that is refreshing. Certainly, in the streamlining, they have learned the lesson of the company's overly long, overly detailed transcription of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov which ran well over three hours. This abridgement offers the bare outlines of the story. A quick primer on the plot might well help those who can't recall much about the novel they probably had to read in high school. This abridgement jumps from key event to key event without providing much information on who these people are and why they are doing what they are doing. As a result, the pieces don't seem to go together to tell its story clearly, making the experience more an exercise than a pleasure.

"These people" are portrayed by a cast of merely seven, but there are over two dozen characters in the play. Even Ian Blackwell Rogers, whose striking appearance makes the central character, Raskolnikov, a compelling figure in each scene has to double up at one point. As Raskolnikov, he displays a touch of desperation that is entirely appropriate for the young man enraged by his own crime and haunted by his inevitable punishment. His intense eyes, long hair and a satisfying magnetism work particularly well in such a small, intimate space as this black box theater. Matching him in the magnetism department is Christine Reinhardt as, among others, Sonya who falls in love with Raskolnikov. Strong individual performances come as well from Erick Chavarría as Sonya's father and Sasha Olinick in four different roles.

Long time Stanislavsky Theater Studio designer Konstantin Tikhonov brings to the black box space in Takoma an aesthetic that is reminiscent of their earlier work in other venues. Spare design elements include a number of cloth drapes that seem to form the theater curtain but are pulled down and used as props and costume pieces. Strongly focused pools of light set off separate playing areas and just a few stools and chairs create locations. Strangely, there is no credit for sound design for this show that is deeply dependent on recorded music to set and change moods.

Written by Andrei Malaev-Babel and Xavier A. Bonilla. Adapted from the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Directed by Andrei Malaev-Babel. Choreographed by Vladimir Angelov. Design: Konstantin Tikhonov (set and lights) Alisa Mandel (costumes) Stan Barouh (photography) Richard Robinson (stage manager). Cast: Jeanine Bonilla, Xavier A. Bonilla, Erick Chavarría, Elena Mrozowski, Sasha Olinick, Christine Reinhardt, Ian Blackwell Rogers.

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

Reviewed May 16
Running time 1 hour 45 minutes

Storyline: In a small Spanish village a shoemaker of the grand old age of 56 is happy with his life, his business and his marriage to his 18 year old wife of six months. She, on the other hand, is frustrated, unhappy and exhibiting - at least in her worse moments - all the signs of becoming a shrew. As the town gossips revel in rumor about his wife's continued un-pregnant state and flirtations with the men of the village, he disappears and she converts his shop into a tavern. When a masked puppeteer entertains in the tavern all, including the wife, are enchanted. The puppeteer is, of course, the thinly disguised shoemaker.

Federico Carcía Lorca's 1930 comedy is unlike his well known tragedies Blood Wedding or The House of Bernarda Alba. Written as a rejection of the prevailing form of the day, realism, the piece studiously avoids anything smacking of that form. Instead, he blends some of the concepts of classic farce, romantic comedy, puppetry and the comedia a fantasía approach of Spain's Torres Naharro. This can result in a very mixed bag with no central form giving coherence to the play, but Director Scott Fielding manages to keep things from flying too far off the handle.

Fielding has a cast composed of professionals and students from STS' training program. The entire cast numbers just thirteen so he can't afford to leave any performer sitting on the sidelines unutilized. Instead, every one of the performers has a few moments in the limelight and the town they are creating on the open stage of the playhouse on Clark Street seems well populated indeed.

Jessica Wade has designed a setting that catches the non-realistic feel of the piece delightfully. The back wall of the shoe shop/tavern is represented only by its windows, leaving the back wall of the theater exposed with the cast members who aren't involved in a particular scene sitting on chairs and benches listening intently, just as the population of a small town always seems to be overhearing anyone's business.

Written by Federico García Lorca. Adapted and Directed by Scott Fielding. Choreographed by Vladimir Angelov. Design: Jessica Wade (set) Melanie Dale (costumes) Jessie Anne Touart (make-up) Valentina Kartashova (puppet master) Colin Bills (lights). Cast: Michael Abenshein, Anthony Aloise, Sara Barker, Jacqueline Chase, Tiffany Givens, Eliza Lay, Joe Mills, Keiko Miura, Anja Podgornik, Ratja Telcs, Jessie Anne Touart, John Tweel, Ali Zaghari.

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

Reviewed March 25
Running time 3 hours 10 minutes

Storyline: Ivan Turgenev's 1861 novel portrayed the turmoil of the Russian psyche in the period leading up to the freeing of the serfs which ultimately led to the collapse of the Romanov regime. It is centered on the story of the return of two university students to the country estates of their fathers during the summer break. One, a mysteriously withdrawn, disaffected youth exerts a strong influence on the other and together they shake up the lives of multiple generations of their family and friends.

Anastasia Simes contributed both the sumptuously detailed period costumes and the gossamer-like scenic design. The deep stage of the Church Street Playhouse is decked out with diaphanous draperies which can be moved from side to side and gathered or spread out to signal change of location and catch the light in different ways. Nothing in the design is solid. Even substantial furniture pieces which intrude on the nearly-transparent feel of the scene are kept to a minimum.  Substance is to be provided by the actors (and by the un-credited but distinctive selection of music with the full sound of Russian Romanticism.)

Each of the actors in this case provides a strong characterization of a major part, while most are also asked to double in a second, incidental role. The two students are played by Sasha Olinick and Ian Blackwell Rogers. Rogers' take on the deeply dissatisfied proto-revolutionary is surprisingly devoid of either anger or passion. He seems almost uninvolved which makes the other student's fascination with his philosophy of nihilism seem simply a passing fad. In this they miss the driving force that should propel the story.

Visiting Irish artists Gordon Fulton and  Richard Orr give very strong and satisfying portrayals of the retired doctor who is the discontented student's father and the retired guardsman who is a guest at the other student's home. STS company members Sarah Kane and Joe Mills stand out in the cast: Kane is especially notable as a hefty presence as "Princess Olga" while Mills gives a lilt that seems slightly Irish to the role of the Russian father of the impressionable student.

Written by Brian Friel based on the novel by Ivan Turgenev. Directed by Andrei Malaev-Babel. Design: Anastasia Simes (set and costumes) Colin Bills (lights) Stan Barouh (photography) Anya Podgornik (stage manager). Cast: Gordon Fulton, Tiffany Givens, Kate Hundley, Sarah Kane, Eliza Lay, Ratja Telcs, Joe Mills, Chris Moss, Sasha Olinick, Richard Orr, Ian Blackwell Rogers.

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

Reviewed January 29
Running time 2 hours 15 minutes

Storyline: Six of the short stories Russian writer Isaac Babel wrote in the 1920s and 30s are delivered as monologues by his grandson Andrei Malaev-Babel. They detail daily life in his home city of Odessa and reveal the bitter-sweetness of life for Jews in a highly anti-Semitic society. Just as they were written in the first person, so Malaev-Babel delivers them directly to the audience in a conversational narration with touches of movement and brief reenactments of events to bring the world of Russia under Lenin and Stalin into sharp focus.

Malaev-Babel is credited not only with performing in this solo-performance show, but with conceiving the project in the first place and translating the material from the original Russian. But he was not alone in the project. Long time colleague and writer-in-residence at Stanislavsky, Roland Reed, adapted the material for the stage. Reed served the same function for Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov) Bulgakov (Dead Souls) Goethe (Faust) and Chekhov (The Seagul) among others and, so, is no stranger to the task of finding ways to create the atmosphere of locales his audience is not familiar with while keeping the plot clear. That fundamental function has been well done here.

The set is simple and yet dramatically visual. The backdrop of red, orange and white with black slashes can be interpreted as a dawn or a sunset, or even a blazing sky at high noon or it can be completely abstract creating mood and space but not specifying time or place. With a single step ladder to one side and a number of nesting boxes, the smaller ones inside the larger, Malaev-Babel is able to change the layout just as he switches stories. We will leave it to more analytical reviewers to interpret the saddle suspended from ropes at center stage.

As stylish as the visual imagery is, any solo-performer show rises or falls on the ability of the single actor to cast a spell over the audience. Maaev-Babel may simply be too close to the soul of this material (he was denied the ability to know his grandfather because he was executed in the infamous Lybyanka Prison in 1940). Or it just may be that the connections between the six stories are too slender to sustain a full evening’s interest. Whatever the case, there are only flashes of fascination during the evening.

Conceived for the stage, translated and performed by Andrei Malaev-Babel from the stories of Isaac Babel. Adapted by Roland Reed. Directed by Sarah Kane. Design (Alexander Okun (set and costumes) Jessica Wade (design interpretations) Colin K. Bills (lights) Mick Hanafin (stage manager).

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

Reviewed November 29
Running time 3 hours 10 minutes

Storyline: Dostoyevsky’s 1880 story of the relationship between a father and his three sons, his murder by one of them and the search for the truth through a constrained legal system is retained in this stage adaptation consisting of sixteen scenes by Roland Reed and Andrei Malaev-Babel.  

While this is structurally a murder mystery, do not expect an episode of “Law and Order.” The impact of the father in the development of the personalities of Dmitri, Ivan and Alexi and their three very different views of the world is much more important than whodunit and why. The key events of the script are words spoken or words left unspoken. That places a heavy burden on the adaptor to pick and chose the moments to place on the stage with care and Reed and Malaev-Babel have apparently chosen with care. As a result, the entire piece makes sense rather than spinning off into three different stories with only paternity in common. But they only had one evening to tell their stories and had to sacrifice any diversions in order to get it all in.

The long list of characters requires cast members to double, triple and even quadruple duty. David Gaines is striking as the father, Fyodor Karamozov, the police captain investigating his murder and the Presiding Magistrate at the trial of his son for his murder (follow that?). Joe Mills, Steve Wilhite and Justin Benoit capture the different personalities of the three brothers. Benoit is particularly captivating with a haunted manner that matches his lean look. The nine women in the cast serve up a great deal of background information in Greek chorus form with most of them splitting off occasionally to assume one or more character role in the events of the evening.

As audiences have come to expect of the Stanislavsky Theater Studio, the design elements are precise, dramatic, visually striking and effective. Jessica Wade’s set design features eight see-through panels that are alternately walls, dividers, screens or frames through which the chorus can be seen. Stark lighting and strongly atmospheric music enhance the sense of theatricality. Movement is every bit as important as visual and sound designs in an STS production. Vladimir Angelov is credited with choreography and David Gaines with movement. Where one stops and the other starts is never clear, which is quite an accomplishment.

Adapted by Roland Reed and from the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Directed by Andrei Malaev-Babel. Movement designed by David Gaines. Choreography by Vladimir Angelov. Design: Jessica Wade (set) Evgeniya Lushina-Salazar (costumes) Colin K. Bills (lights). Cast: Sara Barker, Justin Benoit, Joanna Edie, David Gaines, Tiffany Givens, Maggie Glauber, Anna Kepe, Lisa Lias, Joe Mills, Marissa Molnar, Chris Moss, Madeline Muravchik, Candida Rose, Olga Simonova, Steve Wilhite. 

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

Reviewed June 22
Running time: One hour five minutes
Price $25

Storyline: Gertrude Stein, the avant-garde wordsmith (she didn’t think of herself as a “poet”) who so dominated the arts community in Paris during the first half of the twentieth century, considers her world, her experiences and her future in ruminations drawn from her writings.

Sarah Kane, who is the solo performer portraying Gertrude Stein delivers the snippets of Stein with a clarity of enunciation and a deliberateness that imbues them with a sense of seriousness of purpose and importance. The approach is earnest to the extent that it obscures some of Stein’s sharp humor. There were knowing chuckles during the performance we attended but no guffaws which is in keeping with the tone of the show, but surprising when you consider Stein’s deep sense of humor, appreciation for the absurd and ability to put an observation into a pithy phrase.

Stein was capable of a turn of phrase that sounded brisk and almost flippant but included a great deal of wisdom and was worthy of taking time to ponder. Consider this construction: “In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.” That alone is worth stopping to contemplate. But her retorts could bring an end to conversation just as briskly. She once replied to the question “Why don’t you write the way you talk?” with the counter “Why don’t you read the way I write?” It becomes clear in this short show that Kane speaks the way Stein writes.

The affinity of Kane for the material is obvious. She helped develop the show and carries co-credit with Scott Fielding who directed the performance. Between them, they developed not only a script that sounds “Stein-ish” but a visual vocabulary to match, with Kane performing repeated gestures that are the equivalent of poetic repetition. Fielding even has her delivering entire speeches facing the wings and not the audience, while clocks in the set Jessica Wade designed to Fielding’s concept go slow and fast and backwards and hold still. Strangely, there is no credit for the extremely effective sound design for this environment where time and space aren’t necessarily what they seem.

Developed for the stage by Scott Fielding and Sarah Kane. Directed by Scott Fielding. Design: Scott Fielding (set conception) Jessica Wade (set and costume design) Anke von Loewensprung (paintings) Stan Barouh (photography) Colin K. Bills (lights). Cast: Sarah Kane.

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

March 13 - May 25, 2003
Salomé

Reviewed March 27
Running time 1 hour 50 minutes
A Synetic Theater presentation

Storyline: The Biblical villain King Herod has married his brother’s widow and developed an eye for his new stepdaughter, Salomé, while she has developed an eye for John the Baptist (Jokanaan in the old style) who is held captive in her stepfather’s prison. She makes advances toward the prisoner but he rebuffs her. Herod, driven by lust for Salomé, offers her anything she asks in exchange for seeing her dance. Salomé performs the dance of the seven veils and then asks for, and receives, the head of Jokanaan so she can finally kiss his mouth.

Director Paata Tsikurishvili brings his usual eye for detail and his distinctive performance style to the play, adding layer upon layer of meaning and import to the rather simple text that Wilde originally wrote in French, and which his lover Lord Alfred Douglas translated into English. Choreographer Irina Tsikurishvili uses equally stylized movement to create a world of sinuous physicality in Herod’s court. Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili joins the team to provide set and costume designs that match what audiences have come to expect at Church Street: bold, inventive and striking visuals.

Casting is both a strength and a problem in this production. Jonathan Leveck is nothing short of mesmerizing as Jokanaan, strung up by his wrists, dangling from the ceiling and resisting with superhuman determination the forces of both gravity and worldly lust.  Greg Marzullo delivers the kind of sharply defined stylized performance the director draws from so many talented actors, but he seems way too young to be an old letch. Conversely, the choreographer Irina Tsikurishvili performs in the title role and seems too old to be the girlish temptress Wilde’s imagination conjured out of myths surrounding the very sketchy material actually in the Bible. The mismatch harms the effect.

Wilde’s play builds to a peak with the Dance of the Seven Veils and then tops it with the horror of the kiss of the disembodied mouth of the prophet. Tsikurishvili’s production, however, uses up most of the intriguing effects and dance spectacular in the early going making the famous dance less vibrant, less colorful, less seductive by comparison. It is a let down after such a fine start.

Written by Oscar Wilde. Translated by Lord Alfred Douglas. Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili. Choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili. Design: Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili (set and costumes) Colin Bills (lights) Irakli Kavsadze (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Jeffrey Ridlington (stage manager). Cast: Jonathan Leveck, Greg Marzullo, Irina Tsikurishvili, Catherine Gasta, John Milosich, Matthew Conner, Irina Koval, Nathan Weinberger, Nicholas Allen, Michael Paolantonio, Phillip Fletcher, Katherine Miles.

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

Reviewed January 26
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes

Chekhov’s play is a difficult thing to pull off. It is a tragic comedy. It is a humorous tragedy. Not much happens and it has very little plot but what does happen is intricately intertwined. It is an atmosphere piece. It is a character piece. How to reconcile all these characteristics? Very carefully! It takes extreme artistry to make anything at all out of The Seagull and the Stanislavsky Theater Studio should be the company to pull it off. Not only is it a home for extreme artistry, it is rich in the traditions of their namesake’s approach to the theater which brought success to this play in the first place. In this attempt, probably the best The Seagull we are likely to see for quite a while, they almost pull it off.

Storyline: A young Russian would-be-playwright puts on a show for his mother’s guests at her country house. It stars a neighbor girl with whom he is hopelessly in love. She, on the other hand, is infatuated with his mother’s lover while the daughter of the family steward, who is actually in love with the would-be-playwright, marries the local schoolmaster out of spite. While all the young people are thus misbehaving, their elders are doing no better conducting their lives.

For a company devoted to the art of acting it is no surprise that the performances are the strength of the production. Jonathan Leveck is the very image of the insecure aspiring artisan, Jim Zidar brings presence to a role that through his performance seems to become the reverse image of Leveck’s, Irina Koval captures the physical attributes of melancholy and Caroline McGee nails the aspect of an actress of that age. Through it all Andrei Malaev-Babel’s postures, gestures and moments of hesitation are fascinating to watch. Together, these and other performers present a master class in classical acting.

But the Stanislavsky is also known for its attention to visual design. In his first design effort for this company, internationally renowned Russian designer Alexander Okun handles both set and costume duties. He gets the costume part right but there is something about his set design that is much too plebian and routine for this house which has seen visual wonders created out of minimal resources. His is a “realistic” setting while the most successful STS designs have engaged the audience’s imagination. It is a jarring departure from the treatments that have worked so well in this space before. Also, it doesn’t work on its own terms. Perhaps that is because it doesn’t go far enough toward realism with its partial rooms and the section of the theater's rear brick wall left visible above a hint of the lake that has such symbolic importance.

Director Andrei Malaev-Babel – yes, the same Malaev-Babel whose performance is such a treat – has drawn fine performances from many of the cast, built a number of superb stage pictures and elicited a few sound design effects from somewhere (there is no sound design credit in the program) but the truth is that it all failed to establish the compelling intensity that can capture a casual observer. Anyone entering the theater on Church Street already primed for Chekhov’s classic will have a marvelous evening. Anyone attending without a prior fascination for the Russian master may find it interesting but less than compelling.

Written by Anton Chekhov. Adapted by Roland Reed. Directed by Andrei Malaev-Babel. Design: Alexander Okun (set and costumes) Colin K. Bills (lights). Cast: Jonathan Leveck, Jim Zidar, Irina Koval, Caroline McGee, Andrei Malaev-Babel,  Anne Bowles, Steve Wilhite, Lisa Lias, Joe Mills, Nathan Weinberger, Dmytri Shakhov.

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

Reviewed November 21
Running time 1 hour 10 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Written by Roland Reed based on the poem by Vazha Pshavela. Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili. Choreographed by Irina Tsikurshivili. Music composed by Vato Kakhidze. Design: Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili (set and costumes) Colin Bills (lights) Paata Tsikurishvili (sound). Cast: Paata Tsikurishvili, Irina Tsikurishvili, Irakli Kavsadze, Kakhi Kavsadze, Jonathan Leveck, Armand Sindoni, Catherine Gasta, Greg Murzulo, Phillip Fletcher, Cynthia Lin, Katherine Miles, John Milosich, Brad Minus.

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

Reviewed April 6
Running time 1 hour 25 minutes

Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili. Choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili. Design: Georgi Alexi-Meshkhivhvili (set and costumes) Colin K. Bills (lights.) Music selections from Giya Kancheli. Cast: Paata Tsikurishvili, Irina Tsikurishvili, Irakli Kavsadze, Catherine Gasta, Jonathan Laveck, Greg Marzullo, Erik Moellering, Irina Koval, Nathan Weinberger, Rachel Jett, John Milosich.

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

Reviewed January 18
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes

Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Adapted by Roland Reed and Andrei Malaev-Babel. Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili and Andrei Malaev-Babel. Design: Irina Tsikurishvili. Konstantin Tikhonov (sets, lights, character costumes) Colin Bills (lighting adaptation) Evgeniya Luzhina-Salazar (ensemble costumes.) Cast: Paata Tsikurishvili, Andrei Malaev-Babel, Irina Tsikurishvili, William Graham, Jessica Cerullo, Irakli Kavsadze, Rachel Jett, Catherine Dosta, Jonathan Leveck, Irina Koval, Eric Moellering, Greg Maruzullo, Boris Kazinets, Katarina Benuskova

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

Reviewed December 8
Running Time 2 hours 30 minutes

Adapted by Roland Reed and Andrei Malaev-Babel from Mikhail Bulgakov’s play based on the novel by Nikolai Gogol. Directed by Andrei Malaev-Babel. Choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili. Design: Jessica Wade (set) Evgeniya Luzhia-Salazar (costumes) Colin K. Bills (lights.) Cast: Jonathan Levek, Greg Marzullo, Chris Batchelder, Irina Koval, Katarina Benuskova, Nathan Weinberger, Irakli Kavsadze, Boris Kazinets, Jaime Carrillo, Jessica Cerullo, Catherine Gasta, Erik Moellering, John Milosich, Rachel Jett, Catherine Gasta.