t A Potomac Stages Pick for a pair of unique theatrical experiences

Running time 1:15 - no intermission
A cerebral, lovely evening of connected vignettes
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a pair of unique theatrical experiences

Storyline: Connected small vignettes about long lost ephemeral memories and moments of family life in an old-style, museum-type atmosphere.

Lyford and Sobelle worked with playwright Andrew Dawson to develop this memory play that places the audience in the midst of an old-style carnival type atmosphere. The production was first staged at the Philadelphia Live Arts festival in 2006. It begins with a barker using a megaphone to entice the audience to open their minds to what they may see over the course of the evening. Vignettes are connected by the sense that memory is continually lost and that adults are unaware of the coming losses. A number of the vignettes include silent body and transformative facial movements that leave the audience in awe. Others are the more dumb-and-dumber comic type. Several are poignant, such as a boy finding a dying bird, or a grandmother in the final phase of her of life, or a husband and wife distanced by the Vietnam War. The script has a sweet feel for the human condition rather than a shrieking, cracking-up, making fun of human fragilities. Director Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel has a mime background as well as experience and education in physical-centered theater that it is noticeable throughout the production. His direction allows the actors to take center stage together and separately. His work seems invisible and that is a complement.

Lyford and Sobelle are performers with strong voices, rubber faces and elastic bodies and limbs and a clear and easy presence on stage. Both deliver their lines in a straight-up manner. Lyford is the one with a rubber face and Sobelle the one with the elastic body. Together they work seamlessly to lull the audience into a calm place from which to take them to a never-land of family narratives. There is no hyper kinetic energy with them, but rather a slow-motion type of movement and language so that nothing can be missed. Each of the actors has the opportunity to showcase his comic skills both silently and otherwise. And each gets to play very poignant scenes. Lyford’s work as a father separated from his wife by the Vietnam war and listening to voices on a reel-to-reel tape recorder is of the highest quality. Sobelle’s work as a grandmother (as depicted by just one arm) slowly losing her mind is also of high quality. In Amnesia Curiosa Lyford and Sobelle take the audience along with them until they have circled around and returned to the opening scene once again, but with each having changed places from the top of the show. With this first-rate work the audience leaves the performance perfectly satiated.

The Studio’s Mead Theatre set is a wonder from first walking through a museum-like set-up to the uses of placed objects and curios which are showcased, for the most part in dark heavy wooden cabinets with glass doors or under plastic boxes. The set will bring either a smile or a quizzical look. Over the course of the performance, the objects all find a place and connection to what is seen and experienced, whether a plain old ball of string or a small bird’s nest or a miniature reel-to-reel tape recorder. As the stage is set at floor level and in a thrust attitude, the audience is almost on top of the performers and inside the museum. For this reviewer, one who was stationed in the Far East from 1970-1972 during the dust-up called the Vietnam War, there is one especially heart-tugging and recurring short sequence of connected vignettes of a family trying to stay in touch through the distances caused by Vietnam wartime service that brought back way too many personal memories.

Written by Andrew Dawson, Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle. Directed by Andrew Dawson. Design: Lucian Stecconi (set) Geoff Sobelle (projections) Christal Weatherly (costumes) Randy “Igleu” Glickman (lights) James Sugg (sound) Lance Hayden Kump (photography) Michelle Blair (stage manager). Cast: Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle.

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Running time 1:25 - no intermission
A stylish serving of slapstick and shtick
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a pair of unique theatrical experiences

Storyline:   +    +   +     = 

Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle make a superb comic duo, with each reacting cleanly and clearly to the bits of the other. They build on each others' conceits as each creates a distinct character. Think of Laurel and Hardy. Each was unique. Oliver Hardy remained Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel was always Stan Laurel, even though they were Laurel&Hardy. They may have blended into a comedy team but neither lost his identity. So Lyford and Sobelle are different from each other even as they become Lyford&Sobelle.

Sobelle is the heavy - not just in terms of girth, but in the way he takes command and demands obedience - even from audience members who have the pleasure, or misfortune (depending on their predilections) to be drafted into the events of the evening. (One female audience member will become a feature in a memorable effect taking the junction of cinema and theater to a higher plane). Lyford is the innocent, naive one who is - a la Stan Laurel - just a bit mischievous as well. Together, they make the audience laugh constantly for 85 ever so full minutes.

Created by Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle. Directed by Aleksandra Wolska. Film by Michael Glass. Film composer Michael Friedman. Design: Ed Haynes (set) Tara Webb (costumes) Randy "Igleu" Glickman (lights) James Sugg (sound) JJ Tizou (photography) Michelle Blair (stage manager). Cast: Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle.

 
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Running time 1:35 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a polished performance of a highly polished, very theatrical three-character play
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for January

Storyline: In a small town near the Bayou in Louisiana, hard working Ogun Size tries to get his younger brother, Oshoosi Size to work with him at his auto repair garage and resist the temptations that had him in the prison from which he has just been released on probation. Oshoosi not only resents the effort to run his life but is rife for the temptations that Elegba, whom he knew in prison, continues to put in his path.

McCraney's play is theatrical in the way that Thornton Wilder's Our Town is theatrical: it never lets you forget that you are watching a play, while, at the same time, drawing you inexorably into the world it creates. With Wilder it was a pair of ladders for a balcony scene and a stage manager as narrator. With McCraney it is a circle of sand on the floor defining the space, and characters voicing their own stage directions. ("Oshoosi enters, breathing heavily" says Brian Tyree Henry at the edge of the stage before entering and breathing heavily.) Such self-conscious theatrical devices can be disastrous in the hands of less skilled authors, but Wilder created a classic when he did it in his mature years. (He was 41 when the play debuted.) McCraney hasn't matured to that level yet, but this effort shows evidence of polishing that is surprising for a twenty-six year old at the start of his career.

Director Tea Alagic stages McCraney's script with clarity and a sense of direct honesty that takes full advantage of its theatrical features, filling the hour and a half with strong visual images but without seeming to stage anything that isn't directly related to the concept as dictated by the author. Her sure touch makes the "work song" bucket dance sequence a virile ballet while the image of the three member cast - each buff torso exposed above simple blue, black or red work pants - kneeling in prayer before they begin the play lasts just long enough to capture the imagination of the audience.

The cast who worked for her when she first staged the play at the Public Theatre of the New York Shakespeare Festival is still together here. Gilbert Owuor is strong and sure as the older brother Ogun, while Brian Tyree Henry is a bit softer and a bit looser but no less intense as the younger brother Oshoosi. Elliot Villar is sinuous and slightly slinky as the tempter Elegba. The names are one more way that McCraney reaches for universal messages, for they are the names of deities from the culture of the Yoruba peoples of western Africa. Dramaturg Danielle Mages Amato's notes in the program attributes these traits to the names: Ogun is "the spirit of iron," Oshoosi is "the wanderer" and Elegba "the trickster."

Written by Terell Alvin McCraney. Directed by Tea Alagic. Design: Peter Ksander (set) Zane Philstrom (costumes) Burke Brown (lights) Jonathan Melville Pratt (composer) Michal Daniel (photography) Barbara Reo (stage manager). Cast: Brian Tyree Henry, Gilbert Owuor, Elliot Villar. Musician: Shaun Kelly.

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Running time 1:45 - no intermission
A therapist has more problems than his patient, a widower who is seeing his wife's ghost
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Storyline: A former priest, who left the priesthood to marry, is struggling to establish a practice as a therapist. He has a new patient, a man who has begun to see the ghost of his late wife. With each layer of the patient's story comes an accompanying complication in the therapist's life. He feels he has to break up with the girlfriend whose pregnancy may have been the cause of his leaving the church. Once free of that encumbrance with the opposite sex, he has a further complication with a prostitute of his own gender. Through it all, however, patient and therapist develop a closeness that helps each deal with his problems.

Conor McPherson is a great story teller. He doesn't just dump the whole thing out and let you sort through it to your heart's content. He takes you by the hand (or the scruff of the neck, as the case may be) and directs your attention precisely where he wants it, forcing you to follow his train of thought. When that train is on track, as it was in The Weir, the result is absorbing, compelling and thoroughly satisfying. In this, his latest work to be presented in the Potomac Region, the train is never derailed, but there are times when he leads you off on a siding - a detour that may be fascinating or it may be intriguing, but it isn't precisely directed toward the final resolution.

Carrier's portrayal of the conflicted former priest is well modulated, adding complexities and mannerisms as the script adds details. His performance heats up as the play progresses. Gero, on the other hand, comes on strong from his first moment. His character, after all, is the one already driven to distraction and to seeking therapy. He lets it all out in the first moments, stringing together McPherson's series of false starts, incomplete sentences and more "you knows" per page than any play we've reviewed in a long - you know - time. The strength of Gero's performance and, for that matter, the strength of Gero's character, draws a attention away from Carrier's therapist, leaving the feeling - at least in the early going - that this is Gero's show. But then comes an explosion of emotion from Sexton and an interlude of introspection with Genebach and you realize you have been watching a play about a therapist, not a play about a patient who has a problem with his late wife's ghost.

The high ceiling of the Metheny Theater in Studio's four-theater complex is put to good use with the soaring window-wall of the set providing a view of a painted backdrop of the Dublin skyline at dusk which establishes an atmosphere that is most effective for the ghost-story elements of the story. The contemporary feel is established by the furnishings of the therapist's office and re-enforced by Gil Thompson's sound design featuring guitar-led soft pop music.

Written by Conor McPherson. Directed by Joy Zinoman. Design: Russell Metheny (set) Helen Q. Huang (costumes) Michael Giannitti (lights) Gil Thompson (sound) Carol Pratt (photography). Cast: Donald Carrier, Chris Genebach, Edward Gero, Laoisa Sexton.

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Running time 2:20 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a searing performance by a tremendous cast of three in a uniquely powerful play
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for September and October
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: As resistance to apartheid in South Africa begins to escalate in the 1980s, a teacher in a school for Bantu children sees in one of his students the promise of a better future through talent, education and the power of words. However, that student, a well spoken young man with the skill of a debater, sees only one way toward an acceptable future for his people: resistance to the forced separation of the races that has been the law in his country for thirty years. When a debate contest pits that Bantu student against a white student from a neighboring high school, an equally intelligent young woman, a friendship begins.

History plays have a way of seeming to offer a glimpse of an important moment in the past through a safe lens of time - we can look back and marvel at the challenges of the moment and the responses of individuals while feeling a bit safe and secure on our perch in the future. What, then of a play written not about an historical event long past but written at the time of the event with all the immediacy and uncertainty that great moments in history share? Athol Fugard, a white Afrikaaner, stared history in the face in real time. He wrote this explication of the conflict between two courses of action at the moment that his society was facing that choice. It could have been a diatribe in favor of one or the other. Instead, it is a painfully emotional capturing of the human costs of each and it is delivered with a profound respect for both views.

James Brown-Orleans combines the passion of a teacher for his student's future with his deep commitment to the power of words, of precise and careful communication, and his appreciation of his continent's heritage. Viewing the two students through his eyes feels like a privilege. Veronica del Cerro is charming, chipper and ultimately devastating as the white student whose difficulty comprehending the scope and impact of the forces of society and history which buffet her country helps the audience feel the intensity of those forces. The centerpiece of the play, however, and also the focal point of the cast is Yaegel T. Welch as the young man in whom his teacher sees the promise of the future. As individuals, each is superb. As an ensemble, they are spectacular.

Special note should be made of the impact of the dialect on the experience of this play. It will come as a surprise to many after hearing this play that none of the three members of the cast come from South Africa. Look at their educational listings: University of Maryland, Virginia Tech and Morehouse College/Brandeis University. Dialect coach BettyAnn Leeseberg-Lange may be responsible for the fact that all three speak in a distinctive and distinguishable manner, each just foreign enough to local ears to demand of the audience careful listening but not impenetrable enough to constitute a bar to understanding. It is a fine line which is straddled completely and consistently here which serves the play beautifully. 

Written by Athol Fugard. Directed by Serge Seiden. Design: Debra Booth (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Harold F. Burgess II (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) Jenna Henderson (stage manager). Cast: James Brown-Orleans, Veronica del Cerro, Yaegel T. Welch.

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Running time 1:55 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an unforgettable evening with a vocalist of no talent but a healthy sense of self worth
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for July 
Click here to buy the script
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: From 1912 to 1944, Florence Foster Jenkins, who had no singing ability whatever (no control of pitch, no sense of rhythm) gave vocal recitals which, in the late thirties became social events in New York, culminating at age 76 in a famous recital at Carnegie Hall which was sold out weeks in advance.

Playwright Stephen Temperley found just the right approach to tell this amazing story. He tells it through the memories of Jenkins' long-time accompanist, a man with the unlikely name of Cosme McMoon. By beginning at their first meeting and following through rehearsals and recitals, he allows us to see McMoon's reactions to the incredible lack of talent he is witnessing first hand. By having McMoon act as storyteller, he lets us experience the development of affection and respect that forms the basis for their long-time association. It isn't, of course, that McMoon begins to think "Madame Flo" really can sing. It is that he comes to admire her indomitable spirit and positive approach to life. We, like McMoon, come to genuinely like this batty lady even as we are convulsed with laughter at her expense. (Just to prove to you that we are not making this up, we've included a link to order the CD of Florence Foster Jenkins' recordings in a package aptly titled "The Glory (????) of the Human Voice.")

What might have turned into a guilty pleasure, a voyeuristic exercise in watching someone make a total fool of herself, is converted into an affectionate and ultimately touching experience through the talents of Robinette. She makes no pretense to musical ability. (Indeed, for the final moment of the play when we are offered a glimpse into Jenkins' own view of her performance, it is a recording of a real vocalist with a beautiful voice.)  Robinette uses her considerable ability to draw the affection of an audience and she makes Jenkins not so much an object of ridicule as a person of admirable character. Shiffman's skill is quite a match for hers and the chemistry between the two performers is a pleasure to behold.

All the design elements are notable in this production. There is a lovely setting that doubles as rehearsal room and recital hall, a succession of delightfully ditsy costumes for Robinette/Jenkins and a lighting design that smoothly signals the differences between the incredible public events, the back-stage rehearsal time and the digressions into McMoon's own memory. What is more, sound designer Gil Thompson adds the sounds of the audience reactions to Jenkins' excesses so subtly that it feels as if you are, in fact, in Carnegie Hall trying with all your might to contain yourself while others are bursting out in laughter. Thompson approaches the line between recreation of the event the play is about - the concert at Carnegie Hall - and the sweetening of audience reactions to the performance of this play itself. I can't say whether he crosses that line because I was laughing too hard to tell.

Written by Stephen Temperley. Directed by Serge Seiden. Vocal consultant: Micaele Sparacino. Design: Luciana Stecconi (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) John Burkland (lights) Gil Thompson (sound) Jess W. Speaker III (stage manager). Cast: Nancy Robinette, J. Fred Shiffman.

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Running time 2:20 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an enormously entertaining, intellectually challenging comedy
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Two minor players in the drama of Hamlet spend most of their time offstage wondering just what all the fuss is about. They while away the time with word games and coin tossing but the dark prince and the other characters in Shakespeare's play keep shaking up their world in ways that, while completely consistent with what Shakespeare wrote, make little sense to them with their restricted view of that reality.

Stoppard was a brash twenty-something when his first effort to capture the thoughts of these two minor characters in a major Shakespeare psycho-drama saw the light of day in a workshop for promising new playwrights. He was not yet thirty when the full length version was put up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which gave it the exposure that resulted in a production at Sir Laurence Olivier's Old Vic, and his career was under way. That career has, to date, included such marvels as Indian Ink and The Invention of Love which have been produced here at Studio, the trilogy Coast of Utopia (which premiered as a package on Broadway this year as is now one of the nominees for the Tony Award for Best Play, and films such as Shakespeare in Love. (We won't get involved in the controversy over rumors that he also wrote the screenplay for Star Wars: Episode III.)

"It was merely competent" says "The Player" played at a level so far above merely competent as to make the comment laughable, even if it weren't so in context in Stoppard's script. This player is none other than Floyd King, who hasn't stooped to the level of mere competence in many a year. With his tattered smoking jacket, his pencil thin moustache and a sense of unmatchable insouciance, he lifts the production with each entrance. His "troupe" is a marvelously choreographed moving entity with only one of the members actually establishing a personality of his own: Miles Butler as the ever changeable prize "Alfredo." Major players from the world of Shakespeare's play who pass through this off-stage are more distinctly drawn by Dan Mannning (the usurping King Claudius) Maura McGinn (his wife Gertrude) and most specifically Marshall Elliot as a dashing Prince Hamlet himself.

Daniel Conway's slate-grey forced perspective set makes Elsinore's ramparts resemble a condo - which fits with Alex Jaeger's slightly British twentieth century costuming that highlights the Laurel and Hardiness of the title pair with bowler hats and trench coats. The performance is in the Mead where the front of the playing surface is the floor of the audience, allowing the boundary between audience and performance to be blurred at times and broken at others. When Bokhour's Guildenstern walks up the aisle and pronounces the view from the audience to be particularly unimpressive, he's wrong. He just didn't stay long enough to discover the joys of a truly entertaining, intellectually satisfying production. 

Written by Tom Stoppard. Directed by Kirk Jackson. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Alex Jaeger (costumes) Michael Philippi (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) John Keith Hall (stage manager). Cast: McKenzie Bowling, Raymond Bokhour, Miles Butler, Marshall Elliot, Liam Craig, Theo Hadjimichael, Dan Istrate, Floyd King, Tim Lueke, Dan Manning, Maura McGinn, Kevin Sockwell, Nick Stevens.

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Running time 2:35 - one intermission
A harrowing descent into simultaneous horror and humor
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: In a totalitarian police state, a young man who writes horror stories is taken into custody and interrogated by policemen who seem to be investigating cases of crimes that resemble his stories. Has he been acting his own stories out? Has someone else been doing it? Complicating things for the young man is his fear that they may have also arrested his brother, a slightly retarded young man who may or may not have something to do with the case(s).

The dramaturg's program notes tell us that Martin McDonagh wrote these stories as just that - stories. They were not conceived as part of a play. The play came later. Its structure is essentially that of a revue with stories instead of sketches and songs. Like many great revues of the past, there is an over-arching theme tying them together in a story of its own. In most revue's however, it is the songs, sketches and scenes that are the strength. Here, it is that central story that is the strength. The ten stories which are either played out, read or alluded to during the evening are of less consequence than the fate of the writer and his brother at the hands of a good cop/bad cop team. Indeed, the few stories that are played out behind the main set are unnecessary distractions. They have a Stephen King-ish fascination all their own, but they don't add a great deal more to the central story than those stories which are read or described within the confines of the police station. It's the story in the station that really matters.

Tom Story plays the writer with a fine feel for both the dread his character experiences under interrogation and the humor he tries to use to manage his dire situation. Aaron Muñoz is touching and often refreshing as the brother who relies on him for, well, everything. The two of them bond deliciously. They are but one of two really impressive teams. Denis Arndt and Hugh Nees are every bit as effective as the cops. Arndt's "good" cop uses a peculiarly hard-boiled brand of humor as an interrogation technique. Nees' "bad" cop is much deeper a character than it seems at first, and his big speech in the second act is a joy to watch for those who have enjoyed his growth as an actor in recent years. As if this were some kind of demented challenge dance, Arndt then has an equally impressive big speech in act two. Just who tops whom is debatable.

Debra Booth's main set is the interior of the police station and it is an imposing, troubling presence with its resonance reinforced by Gil Thompson's sound effect of resounding echoes that accompanies each slamming of the single steel door that may be the opening to freedom or perhaps the pathway to execution. The music by Michael Gallant (not to be confused with the fictional character on ER) is as distinctive as was the music he composed for Studio's Far Away. Indeed, it seems to transition from an almost Disney movie score mode into something more like a Maurice Jarre suspense soundtrack.

Written by Martin McDonagh. Directed by Joy Zinoman. Design: Debra Booth (set) Helen Huang (costumes) Michael Giannitti (lights) Gil Thompson (sound) Michael Gallant (music) Danielle Mages Amato (dramaturg) Carol Pratt (photography) Serge Seiden (stage manager). Cast: Denis Arndt, Zachary Fadler, Meghan Fay, Julie Garner, Aaron Muñoz, Hugh Nees, Tom Story, Aaron Tone.

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Running time 1:50 - no intermission
A glib examination of honesty with three bright performances

Storyline:  Lypsinka (also known as John Epperson) returns in this one hour look at the powerful life of Joan Crawford.

True to form, Lypsinka, now in her 25^th year of performances, has fully developed the presence of the fabled Crawford. To appreciate this achievement, it must be remembered that Joan started as a dancer, became famous in silent pictures, survived into talkies and went on to surpass Betty Davis as the most famous starlet of her time. Taking on this role, as with the role of any powerful figure, can set up expectations that run higher than ability can support. Fortunately this is not the case with The Passion of the Crawford. Add in the complexity that Lypsinka herself is a creation, played by a man, and the achievement of presence that Epperson exudes is truly phenomenal.

Still, this is a trying show. Joan Crawford died in 1977. Many of the younger crowd in the audience seemed to be out of touch with the performance they were seeing. One remark after it was over summed up the situation well, “If I knew anything about Joan Crawford I probably would have liked that much more.” Epperson as Lypsinka as Joan does well, but the premise of the show - little snippets of her life that could be culled from various recordings - is not meant for the uninformed or non-Joan Crawford fan. Choices of cuts from interview to flashback throughout the show also throw off any learning that might occur/ They drag the viewer along for the ride, often leaving the departure and the destination as unknown places. It would be interesting to see a full biographical play set around Joan’s life with Lypsinka in the role, if only to fully appreciate the depth of understanding John Epperson has for his mark.

Steve Cuiffo plays the interviewer and announcer throughout the show. Just like Epperson, he "merely" lip syncs to the prerecorded voice. But he is just as engaging and convincing as is she/he. The interviewer’s obvious infatuation with Crawford and the effect of her presence on him come across throughout the show. Thank goodness for the laughs this provides to what could otherwise have felt like an hour in the twilight zone for those who no longer have the interest or patience to sit through an interview that is three decades old. Finally, the costume work of Ramona Pence is impeccable, perfectly capturing the glamour that was the Queen of Hollywood.

Created by John Epperson. Directed by Kevin Maloney. Design: Luciana Steccona (set), Catherine Eliot (lights), Gil Thompson (sound) Ramona Pence (costumes), Cassandra Domser (stage manager). Cast: John Epperson, Steve Cuiffo.

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Running time 1:50 - no intermission
A glib examination of honesty with three bright performances
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: An "unreliable narrator" relates the tale of his return to the town where he attended high school, and his developing re-involvement in the lives of two of his classmates who advanced from bi-racial high school sweethearts to married parents. In telling the tale, he takes various excursions and digressions, introducing complications, retracting inconvenient details and even revising events after they have been played out before our eyes.

LaBute's trademark glib sense of humor serves him and his audience well, especially in the early portions of the play. As Eric Feldman takes the stage to narrate/participate in his version of events, he addresses the audience directly, telling us right up front that he may stretch or alter the truth from time to time and that he only has access to one side of a multi-sided situation. Feldman is an extremely attractive presence, which is a good thing since he soon has to share the stage with a very attractive couple.

Anne Bowles, who was so gorgeous as the girl friend with the slender sexy body who couldn't believe she was being dumped in favor of a super-sized rival in LaBute's Fat Pig, again brightens the stage while struggling with some of LaBute's lines that impose worn out "Valley Girl" mannerisms on this mid-western young wife and mother. (He has fun with over-use of "you know" just one or two times too often). Benton Greene makes a notable Potomac Region debut as her husband, the former high school jock now a successful businessman, who is described as "rich and black and different." All three hold the stage in the intimate Mead Theater with assurance. There is a fourth member of the cast who goes uncredited (the same thing happened last year at this same theater when Shawn Helm went uncredited as the guard in Frozen just because it was a part with no lines. If Synetic Theater didn't credit parts with no words, sometimes there'd be no credits at all!) This time it is a woman who makes multiple passes across the stage as a waitress ignoring the party who want to order their meal. She may not contribute a word but she could well kill the scene if she didn't do her part with assurance. She deserves credit.

Director Paul Mullins, who handled Fat Pig with such a sure hand, returns to Studio and to the work of LaBute, and again makes the most of the material. It isn't his fault that the text itself hasn't got the impact of the earlier effort. He gives it every chance to succeed and his casting choices and selection of a design team certainly gave him all the tools he needed. The elegantly bare set is brought to life with some marvelous projections. The lighting manages to create different feelings for different environments (warmth for a backyard barbecue, utilitarian brightness for an indoor mall) while not bleeding over to wash out the projections. The costumes are spot on for middle-America, upper-middle-class chic, and there is a subtle but somewhat overused effect in the sound design when Feldman switches from being the narrator to being a character in scenes with the rest of the cast - the sound of the noises in the mall or the birds chirping in the trees either begins or ends with a swoosh as if it were on a tape starting or stopping, as the case may be.

Written by Neil LaBute. Directed by Paul Mullins. Design: Debra Booth (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Michael Chybowski (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Rebecca Berlin (stage manager). Cast: Anne Bowles, Eric Feldman, Benton Greene.

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Running time 1:35 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a unique
 theatrical experience
v Sexual themes treated frankly
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A flare-up among the adults in the front seat of the family car marks the lives of the children in the backseat on one cold ride to visit to their grandparents' house at Christmas. The event and its ramifications are viewed by the adults those children grew up to be, as one - the son who died of AIDS - returns to earth to re-visit his earthly past and his family - and to take one more breath of life.

Author Paula Vogel may well draw from many sources for this short but intense piece, but it bears a striking similarity to more than just Thornton Wilder and Noh and Bunruku. It bears a similarity to her own best known piece, her Pulitzer Prize winning How I Learned to Drive. That play too begins with such a wholesome, positive feel, uses humor and the accumulation of tiny details to bring its characters to life, and only then reveals its troubling aspects after the audience has come to care about each of the people in the story. Here the theatricality of the presentation style adds to the richness. That theatricality could well overwhelm the slender thread of the story, however, were it not for Seiden's success at keeping the elements in balance.

Kevin Bergen is captivating as the son whose story this really is. Both Kate Debelack and Tonya Beckman Ross imbue the sisters with individuality. The puppets of Aaron Cromie are manipulated by a team of black clad puppeteers along with Bergen, Debelack and Ross, each doing the principal handling of the puppet of their character in childhood. The grownups, mother Laura Giannarelli and father Paul L. Nolan, are exceptionally strong even though neither has a puppet-self which would amplify their traits. Bobby Smith, however, has the problem that he must double up on roles (he plays a preacher in the "Rockville Universalist Unitarian Church" who shares his slides of Japanese woodblock art with his congregation, as well as a dancer in the gay world of San Francisco). He tries a bit too hard to draw distinctions between the characters.

Daniel Conway has provided a great set for the space in the new Methany Theatre. Or is it that the new Methany Theater is a great space for this set? There's a fine blend between the two with the spare, geometric ambiance of the theater and the even sparer assembly of geometric shapes that Conway places on the stage - an oval platform before a grid with paper panels under a roofline reminiscent of a Japanese woodcut of a winter shelter. Behind it all, a ramp slopes down from either side, completing the geometric balance of simple, interlocking spaces.

Written by Paula Vogel. Directed by Serge Seiden. Original music composed and performed by Sumie Kaneko. Choreographed by Dana Tai Soon Burgess. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Devon Painter (costumes) Aaron Cromie (puppets) Michael Giannitti (lights) Erik Trester (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) David Elias (stage manager). Cast: Kevin Bergen, Kate Debelack, Laura Giannarelli, Paul L. Nolan, Tonya Beckman Ross, Bobby Smith; and puppeteers Emmy Bean, Courtney Bell, Lucas Maloney, Betsy Rosen, Ben Russo and Michael C. Wilson.

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Running time 2:40 - one intermission
A strong performance in the lead role of a disturbing play
v Includes nudity and violent and sexual activity 
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Storyline: An introverted would-be playwright and an extroverted publisher who were best buddies in college share a hostel room in Amsterdam during a European vacation. The publisher buys the services of a prostitute for his introverted friend, perhaps in part to make amends for having taken his girlfriend from him years ago. The introvert falls for the prostitute but she falls for his friend. A year later the prostitute shows up in the playwright's apartment in New York looking for his friend. The strange triangle gets even stranger when a strain of HIV is added to the mix.

Fleitz gives an impressive performance as the introvert. It is a subtle mixture of mannerisms and movements, but the thing that makes the performance as compelling as it is is his ability to establish eye contact with his fellow actors and to focus his attention on their words in between his own lines. Regina Aquino has some fine moments as the trans-Atlantic prostitute. Her part is so broad in scope but so shallow in development that it sort of defeats her efforts to bring it to life. William Peden is suitably detestable as the extrovert, who, by his own admission, is "not a nice person." Just why the introvert would be traveling with such a self-centered supposed "friend" who not only has done in wrong in the past but continues to belittle him in the present is never quite clear. You won't like him, but your not supposed to.

Kater Turner-Walker's costumes, her red dress for Aquino, stretched-out undershirt and battered jeans for Fleitz and more costly but still "with it" youth attire for Peden are spot-on for each of the three characters. Debra Booth's attractive set violates a key rule of a thrust stage such as Studio has in the Mead. With the audience on three sides, the sightlines are obscured for those on the extreme house left. They can't see the window through which Aquino takes her final, plot-important action. Readers may want to spend the extra five to nine dollars that seats in the center section and orchestra cost for this show.

A note about notes: Studio Theater has a tradition of providing helpful information in the programs which are passed out to the audience members as they arrive. These programs have not been limited to credits and bio blurbs on cast and creative team members. Often, when the play calls for it, the programs provide information on the period in which the play is set, the references which might otherwise be obscure and even some appreciative background on the playwright. It would be good if they did more of this. In this program, for the first play of the new season, the appreciative backgrounder on the playwright, while a bit like a press release, is fairly informative as to Mr. Rapp's career to date and the dramaturg's notes seem more an evaluation of the play than an aide to getting the most out of the experience. There's no information on Amsterdam and its drug policies and red light district nor of Manhattan's East Village for those less familiar with the milieu of the play. Perhaps the rest of the programs for the season will revert to the more informative, helpful format of years past.

Written by Adam Rapp. Directed by Joy Zinoman. Design: Debra Booth (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Jeavon Greenwood (properties) Michael Giannitti (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Keri Schultz (stage manager). Cast: Regina Aquino, Jason Fleitz, William Peden.

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Reviewed May 21
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
Potomac Region premiere of the 2004 musical
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Storyline: The black housekeeper in a white Louisiana home in 1963 has troubles of her own with one son away in Vietnam, a rebellious teenage daughter and two younger boys who are not above a bit of mischief. She spends most of her day not at home with her family, but in the basement of her employer washing their clothes, listening to the popular rhythm and blues on the radio and enjoying the one cigarette she allows herself each day. Things aren't without problems for the family of the house either. The father has recently been widowed and has remarried but he's still hurt and withdrawn. The in-laws are squabbling, his son isn't taking to his new stepmother and she, fresh from northern climes, wants the maid to call her by her first name. Her approach to discipline for the son is to tell Caroline she can keep whatever change she finds in the boy's pockets in the wash.

In its debut production in New York the reaction was split. There were raves from some reviewers and many Tony nominations driven by initial buzz (it opened just prior to the Tony Award eligibility cut off). There were also some dissenters (including Potomac Stages - click here to read our review of the Broadway production, but be aware that the opinion found there is practically identical to the one found here). Ultimately, it was a financial loss after a short run of just 136 performances. Expectations had been sky high for the first musical by Tony Kushner with music by Jeanine Tesori, fresh from her success with Thoroughly Modern Millie. And, devotees of Angels in America knew just how skillfully Kushner can weave multiple storylines together. There certainly are enough storylines here to keep him hopping, with two families full of humanly imperfect people. So who needed the washing machine to break into song?  But ultimately it wasn't just the potential silliness of some of the flights of fancy wrapped as symbols, it was the shallowness of some of  the characterizations. Despite the fact that they represent people caught up in a complex time of social upheaval, as written the people in this house are as one dimensional as the singing machines.

On Broadway some of that shallowness was disguised by a searing performance in the role of Caroline that is not really matched here at Studio. Julia Nixon starts off strong with a great sense of soul-drained weariness as the maid with a world of problems of her own. Her sense of fatigue and lost hope is palpable and carries the performance all the way to the final aria when, inexplicably, she seems to sing the music marvelously but miss the drama that the show has been building to for over two hours. Rockville sixth grader Max Talisman makes his professional debut as the young man who can never seem to remember to remove the change from his pockets. He sings clearly and is un-self-conscious on stage. There are fine performances from Trisha Jeffrey as Caroline's teenage daughter, Bobby Smith as the clarinet playing father of the house and most particularly from Elmore James whose deep blues bass fills the Methany Theatre with glorious sound without the aid of artificial amplification.

That decision to go without amplification is to be applauded and it is a joy to hear much of the nearly-sung-through score delivered acoustically. (As "The Moon" Allison Blackwell is mic'd but it is clearly for the purpose of adding reverberation to give the moon an ethereal sound, not to amplify her hall-filling voice.) An off stage orchestra handles the effective orchestrations, reduced significantly from the original to simply six including two keyboards. The cello of Aaron Rider is called upon to provide the richness that four string players brought to Broadway. The placement of the players off stage, and whatever baffles have been installed in their space, works very well to strike the balance needed between instruments and vocalists. What is more, without the sound coming from speakers you can actually follow a voice from one side of the stage to the other - something that seems to always be missing in musicals on the "Great White Way" these days.

Book and lyrics by Tony Kushner. Music by Jeanine Tesori. Directed by Greg Ganakas. Music direction by Howard Breitbart. Design: Debra Booth (set) Alex Jaeger (costumes) Kirk Bookman (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Karen Storms (stage manager). Cast: Allison Blackwell, Zachary Carson Blumenstein, Kearstin Piper Brown, Ilona Dulaski, Elmore James, Trisha Jeffrey, Kameron Lamar, Otts Laupus, Julie Nixon, Omoro Omoighe, Monique Paulwell, Kelly J. Rucker, Jim Scopeletis, Bobby Smith, Tia Speros, Max Talisman.

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Reviewed March 12
Running time 2:25 - one intermission
A strong enactment of the famous novel
v Includes brief nudity
Click here to buy the novel
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: In the early 1930s a Scottish school teacher dedicated to her students tries to mold them in her own concept of enlightened womanhood. Her version of art, truth and beauty is not universally accepted, however, and her dalliance with the school's art and music teachers get her into trouble. Her refusal to compromise her values deepen the trouble.

Everyone who ever attended school has a memory of one particular teacher who had more impact on him or her than all the others. This is the essence of the relationship of Marshall's Miss Jean Brodie to the students in her charge. She's that special, one-of-a-kind teacher. She's a free thinker who values curiosity, individuality and intellectual discipline. In the early 1930s, long before the revelations of the excesses of fascism, she is enamored with the rule of Italy's Benito Mussolini. She takes sides in the Spanish civil war, and can't hold her tongue when it comes to opinions of the Roman Catholic Church. Her era was one of transition from a stilted past to what today would be called more liberated. In her day, women who pursued a career in teaching had to sacrifice the right to marriage - if they did marry, they were required by law to resign. The stress between professional and personal satisfaction as a teacher and the temptation to form close adult relationships with men their own age is at the crux of the play.

Zinoman's production is elegant in its set, costumes, lighting and sound. Erik Trester provides projections which turn the set into a number of different locales through a design that is admirable for its restraint. Rarely does he succumb to the temptation to use an unnecessary projection just because the equipment is available. Actor Richard Stirling, who plays the music teacher, is uncredited as musical director for the production, but he is said to have worked closely with Zinoman to select just the right pieces in what turns out to be a highly musical show with the student's music lessons and singing in church setting a lovely tone. Both Stirling and David Adkins, as the school's art teacher, provide a touch of male presence in an otherwise powerfully feminine cast. Catherine Flye is sharp as the easy-to-despise headmistress and Sarah Grace Wilson, Elizabeth Chomko and the other students create distinct individuals.

As strong as the script is, and as impressive as is the staging, there are moments in the play that make you wonder just what Zinoman is doing. With a play requiring the cast to speak in a brogue foreign to the ears of the local audience, she chooses to complicate the task of those listening intently by introducing a strange reverberation in the sound system for a key scene. She blocks a number of scenes in such a way that significant portions of the audience can't see key events. Two portraits play an important part in the drama. From the right side of the house, both portraits are visible to the audience. From the left side, however, neither portrait can be seen. One director might chose to let the audience see the portraits and another might chose to keep them hidden. It is hard to understand, however, just why half of the audience should see them and half not.

Written by Jay Presson Allen based on the novel by Muriel Spark. Directed by Joy Zinoman. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Alex Jaeger (costumes) Erik Trester (projections) Gil Thompson (sound) Elizabeth van den Berg (dialect coach) Scott Suchman (photography) Susie Pamudji (stage manager). Cast: David Adkins, Fiona Blackshaw, Elizabeth Chomko, Mary C. Davis, Meghan Fay, Sarah Fischer, Catherine Flye, Talisa Friedman, Caroline Gotschall, Simone Grossman, Rose McConnell, Sarah Marshall, Mackenzie Jo Pardi, Darcy Pommerening, Elizabeth H. Richards, Richard Stirling, Ellen Warner, Sarah Grace Wilson.

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Reviewed January 8
Running time1:40 - no intermission
A touching exploration of attitudes about body image
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for January
Click here to buy the script

The play poses a major challenge to a casting director. Where to find an actress with the talent to pull off such a complex role who has the physical proportions to make it work. A fat suit isn't an option as LaBute, perhaps for that very reason, writes the climax in a beach scene requiring maximum exposure. Studio solves the problem with a local actress of impressive skills, Kate Debelack, who has previously been seen here both in full Studio productions and in the developmental/experimental Secondstage as well as Cherry Red, MetroStage and Project Y. The piece is obviously an opportunity for her to dominate, and while she does a fine job of bringing the hefty Helen to life, hers is not the strongest performance. That distinction goes to Tyler Pierce as the slender, trendy yuppie who falls in love with her. His final confrontation with his own limitations is the crux of the play and he soars in its delivery.

LaBute writes fabulously deliverable dialogue with the pace and pattern of the patter of intelligent, educated people who are comfortable with the spoken word, yet each character has a distinct voice of his or her own. Many of the sharpest lines in this play belong to the two friends whose reactions to the affair are at the crux of the matter. Jason Odell Williams knocks off one liners with aplomb, but is really at his best when he reveals just a touch of inner angst as his character discusses his relationship with his overweight mother. Anne Bowels throws a few blows of her own, including one memorable upper cut.

Once again, the team of set, lights and sound designers who created the slick, believable and striking world in which LaBute's The Shape of Things transpired here three years ago manage to give a play with multiple locales a unified look. From office to apartment to restaurant, this is the world of young professionals in today's business scene. Only in the final locale, a beach scene, does the visual aspect falter for a bit. With characters reclining on beach towels laid out on the carpet, the audience squirms to adjust their sight lines between the heads in front of them in this shallowly raked house. The final, crucial moments of the play bring that squirming to an end, however, as the tears in the eyes of both performers capture and hold the audience's attention in the collective experience that only the best of live theatre can provide.

Written by Neil LaBute. Directed by Paul Mullins. Design: Debra Booth (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Michael Giannitti (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) Rebecca Berlin (stage manager). Cast: Anne Bowles, Kate Debelack, Tyler Pierce, Jason Odell Williams.

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Reviewed November 6
Running time 2:05 - one intermission
A troubling look at the fate of four detainees
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Constructed from letters, interviews and the public record, the stories of four British residents, apprehended in various countries in the wake of 9/11 and incarcerated at Guantanamo, are told without any real defense of the position of the government that has held them for over two years and continues to hold one without charge.

What is the dividing line between exposé and propaganda? Is it in the eye of the beholder who asks "is this in service of a cause I agree with?" Or is it in the work itself which satisfies the test "does this reveal a reality previously unexamined?" The program notes for this production liken this play to The Laramie Project, which explored a heinous hate crime. Unlike that balanced presentation, however, which sought to understand not only what happened but how it could happen, this one-sided look at an on-going situation stakes out its position and sticks with it. If you are looking for a balanced examination of all sides of this contemporary issue, look elsewhere.

Harsh Nayyar's portrayal of the pain of the father of a prisoner held without charge, Andrew Stewart-Jones personification of the pride of Jamal al-Harith, and Omar Koury's depiction of the plight of a prisoner released without his brother who is still at Guantanamo, bring the despair of the prisoner/detainees and their families into vibrant clarity. What is missing is any intellectually defensible portrayal of those who perpetrate these acts in the name of national security. For a moment it appears that the authors will deal with the complexity of the issues when the brother of a victim of the attack on the World Trade Center takes the stage, but he ends up rejecting the policy which allows these incarcerations. Then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - as performed by Leo Erickson - takes the microphone. But, unlike The Laramie Project, which sought and presented the views of both sides, this slice of administration policy is selected from particularly incoherent responses at a press conference, and not from any clear statement justifying the policy.

Gil Thompson pulls a nifty effect on the sound quality for the opening announcement by Lord Johan van Zyl Styn (Leo Erickson, again) of the policy of Her Majesty's government supporting the incarceration. It is delivered in a flat, obviously amplified PA system feel. Later, the position of family members is given soft, full-spectrum sonic richness. Giorgos Tsappas provides a chain link and bare bunk environment which may be more sterile than reality, but no less troubling. This isn't a place where you would want to spend years, which is, after all, the authors' entire point.

Written by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo. Directed by Serge Seiden. Design: Giorgos Tsappas (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Michael Giannitti (lights) Gil Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Susie Pamudji (stage manager). Cast: Leo Erickson, Yvonne Erickson, Kaveh Haerian,  Nafees Hamid, David Bryan Jackson, Omar Koury, John-Michael MacDonald, Ramiz Monsef, Harsh Nayyar, Andrew Stewart-Jones, Dikran Tulaine.

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Reviewed October 9
Running time 1:30 - no intermission
A stylish mounting of a disappointing play
 on an intriguing issue
Click here to buy the script
(in a different translation)

Storyline: A wealthy woman wants to own a servant - not simply employ one. Her need for control and submission is complete and she manages to destroy her new maid's life in order to remove any competition for complete loyalty: home, husband, children.

As written, the inappropriate, unacceptable and excessive position of the homeowner who wants to become a servant owner is plain from the opening scene rather than becoming clear little by little over the course of the evening. What is more, that should be as clear to the maid's husband as it is to the audience and yet he seems inexplicably powerless to just say no. We never actually see the woman she has decided to obtain. All the negotiations over the terms of "employment," which are laden with layers of manipulation, are with the poor maid's husband. How he could have agreed to some of the demands and how his wife could have consented to abide by his capitulation is never made either clear or believable.

Still, there is an enjoyable performance here in the work of Ellen Karas as the employer/owner/manipulator/controller. She's cool and calculating, but, as with many forms of evil, it is hard to take your eyes off her. Michael Earle has the unenviable task of trying to make the husband of the maid  human, and, while he can't quite make his decisions understandable, he makes his pain over their consequences palpable. He has one moment staring over the audience's heads to see his no-longer-available wife that is memorably intense.

Stylish is the term for the visual impact of the production. Donald Eastman designed a stark all-white set dominated by a staircase coming down from the flies without banister or carpet runner - a pure geometric construct. The white rear wall is a cloth drop rather than a solid surface, however, and distractingly ripples whenever an actor walks near it. Nancy Schertler's lights and shadows signal that different scenes take place in different locations and David F. Draper's costumes give Karas a chromatic dominance to match her characters' emotional dominance. David Lang takes the few lines in the dialogue about mechanical music box dolls as the cue for a tinkling musical score.

Written by Marie Ndiaye. Translated by Erika Rundle. Directed by Carey Perloff. Design: Donald Eastman (set) David F. Draper (costumes) Nancy Schertler (lights) David Lang (original music) Carol Pratt (photography) Karen Storms (stage manager). Cast: Brandy Burre, Michael Earle, Ellen Karas. 

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Reviewed September 11
Running time 1 Hour - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for twin fabulous performances in a fascinating short play
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.

Joy Zinoman directed Ted van Griethuysen and Tom Story, in The Invention of Love, and all three of them came away with Helen Hayes Award nominations in 2002. Here they sink their considerable dramatic teeth into a piece that seems even shorter than its less than one hour duration, for the time flies by at a tremendous clip. It engages the audience in questions, then moves on without answering them, for most of the questions are just beginning to emerge out of the world of genetic science. Churchill identifies rather than resolves the quandaries and van Griethuysen and Story put human faces on them.

It is hard to assess which is the more challenging role. Story has to convincingly create a half-dozen different characters. All look the same and have the same genetic make up. Each, however, is the product of a different set of childhood experiences and circumstances. Van Griethuysen, however, remains the same person but is revealed in more and more depth and in different lights as more and more of the truth of the situation is unveiled. Neither actor makes a single noticeable misstep in the fast paced performance.

Zinoman avoids the trap of letting the design elements become distracting even as each makes a striking contribution to the whole. Debra Booth's spare set seems at first just a square of carpet and a chair. Only as the events unfold do you become aware of screens for the projections of Erik Trester. Brandee Mathies provides costumes that can make the entire journey of the play without anyone taking a moment for a change, even during the periodic dousing of Michael Lincoln's surgically precise lighting. Gil Thompson uses some judicious editing and sampling to create a score out of the Lennon, McCarntey White Album staple "Birthday."

Written by Caryl Churchill. Directed by Joy Zinoman. Design: Debra Booth (set) Brandee Mathies (costumes) Michael Lincoln (lights) Erik Trester (projections) Gil Thompson (sound) Karen Storms (stage manager). Cast: Tom Story, Ted van Griethuysen.

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Reviewed May 22
Running time 2:10 - one intermission
 * Mature themes/nudity
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award
for both May and June
t A Potomac Stages Pick for the exhilaration that comes from a superb production of a fine play
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A baseball star causes a public furor when he publicly acknowledges his homosexuality. He causes less discomfort in the locker room and showers than might be expected until the team hits a slump and brings up a new player from the minor leagues. The new arrival is just what the team needed on the field, but has a streak of bigotry that emerges in a press conference, tearing asunder the worlds of the newly outed star, the entire team and baseball itself. 

That Greenberg can write fascinating scripts comes as no surprise to those who attended Rep Stage's production of The Dazzle in 2003. The strengths of Greenberg's scripts are are considerable: nimble plotting, marvelous dialogue, very well constructed characters and a lot of seemingly quotable lines that flit past you so quickly you feel you would rather read the script than watch the show so you can linger over the pithy observations. But if you did read, instead of watch, you would miss the fun of watching just what director Jackson and the standouts in his cast do with the material. Solution? Go see the show, then buy the script to savor the wordplay.

The sports icon who takes himself out, revealing his homosexuality almost casually, expecting no adverse consequences because bad things don't happen to him - others yes, but not him - is smoothly played by M.D. Walton who played that role under the original director, Joe Mantello, in post-Broadway productions. Tug Coker does a fine job as well as his narrating best friend. Both are making their Studio debuts. The Potomac Region debut that is breathtaking, however, comes from Jake Suffian as the apparently homophobic, nearly inarticulate player whose arrival from the minor leagues shakes up the team. He is riveting in his ability to communicate to the audience through the emotion of voice and gesture just what his character can't communicate to his teammates. At the other end of the communication scale is the character of the gay financial adviser who discovers the wonders of baseball late in a life that has been, till then, quite empty. It is a role that earned the Tony Award for Denis O'Hare on Broadway. Here it is a role that is owned by Rick Foucheux. Having seen both perform it, our preference is for Foucheaux.

The design here is sort of a miniature of the way it was on Broadway, with the ball park's lights facing the audience, the baseball diamond represented in a playing space in front of the movable locker-room lockers and the exposed (in more ways than one) shower. The matter of fact nudity is, if anything, a bit more intense because the audience is much closer to it. The nudity is in no way gratuitous or superfluous. As the script points out, a consequence of the announcement of homosexuality is the loss of innocence in the club house ... "we now know we are naked." It would be awfully hard to deliver that line wearing a towel.  The afternoon we saw this production there was an audible groan from one member of the audience when the first naked ball player walked into the locker room, but the audience soon became too absorbed in the text, plot, characters, humor and language to spend too much of its energy concentrating on nudity.

Written by Richard Greenberg. Directed by Kirk Jackson. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties) Michael Lincoln (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Susie Pamudji (stage manager). Cast: Tug Coker, Matthew Deiss, Rick Foucheux, Anthony Gallagher, Joel Reuben Ganz, Cesar A. Guadamuz, Ikuma Isaac, Tom Quinn, Jake Suffian, M.D. Walton, Jeorge Bennett Watson.

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