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A tale of longing in a coldly brutal world
Running Time 1:45 - one intermission
v Adult situations and nudity
Tickets $30
 

Storyline:  A world in the not-too-distant future where the sun no longer shines, birds fall from the sky, the air is toxic, the water impure and the maternal instinct seemingly stripped away. In this world there are those trying as best they can to not be alone.

In the program notes, the Guggenheim fellowship award winning 40 year old playwright, Victor Lodato, speaks of his love for making people cry along with providing a balancing with humor. He gravitates toward “writing where children are central to the story … writing from a place of innocence.” The Bread of Winter has received a number of awards and has had stage readings along with notice in a June 2004 New York Times article entitled “Workshopped to Death.” It moves briskly into difficult territory and hinges upon the audience wanting to stick with it as the scenes unfold in three distinct households. His play writing is assured and the characters well developed, but there is something almost academically dry about the threats to the characters. The characters do not come home into the heart. And while the playwright speaks of humor in the program notes, the humor is subtle and gives little lift to the sodden proceedings the audience watches. Neumann has her cast often muted and controlled, almost holding back in the harsh world they inhabit. The dreads the characters have are not for the most part brought forth in loud angry demonic cries, but are more subtly acknowledged as if everyone is just so worn down. While the over sensibility is not persuasive there are several stunning scenes. In one a mother is unable and unwilling to hold her own daughter and pushes her away with such revulsion that justifiable murmurs were heard from the audience. In another, one that could have been played for just topless titillation, Neumann creates such sweet open vulnerability … an inability for a man to surrender to a woman’s warm real touch, and settle for a fetish instead. McWilliams is a pure topless angel trying to give herself and cannot understand why a man would reject soft warmth for the taste of cloth.

Rosemary Regan, as McWilliams’s mother, brays against the dark and the cold, warming herself with liquor and emotionally abusing her daughter by withholding love and attention. Ben Kingsland, as the older brother to Beech, is menacing with hooded eyes as well as desperately falling into despairing shouts for someone, anyone to be there so he is not alone. Richard Pelzman is a lonely and troubled bear of man, unable to think himself worthy of much beyond finding a whore and the desire to have a home cooked meal. His work depicting a desperate man seeking attention is well accomplished.

The dusty, tired two-tiered set, second-hand in appearance with hand-me-downs, mismatched furniture is without any comfort in muted beige colors. There are several outlying set pieces including a swing hanging from a long metal chain and a pay phone that gives added distance among the characters. The costumes are also evocative of the worn down essence of the characters. Lighting provides for needed spotlighting, but the more spiritual features that the lighting attempts to project seem washed out.

Written by Victor Lodato. Directed by Dorothy Neumann. Design: Klyph Sanford (set and lights) Tessa Grippaudo (costumes) Veronika Vorel (sound) Jim Zidar (fight choreography) Bruce Robey (photography) Juely Siegel (stage manager). Cast: William Beech, Ben Kingsland, Amy McWilliams, Richard Pelzman, Rosemary Regan.

 
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Running time 2:00 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for pure storytelling magic

Storyline: The text of the Gospel of St. Mark in the St. James version is delivered in its entirety.

This work goes back a long way - no, not to Biblical times. I mean the concept of treating this gospel as a performance piece. It was the inspiration of the classical actor Alec McCowan thirty-something years ago. He performed it around England, internationally and even in that big White House some 30 blocks to the west of Theater Alliance's H Street home. It earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play in 1979. When he decided to leave the show, a young actor then performing at the Folger here on Capitol Hill won the part. His name: Michael Tolaydo. He performed it on London's West End, around the US and internationally. Once the tour was complete, he went on to other things (including many notable productions here in the Potomac Region).

Returning to the work three decades later, Tolaydo begins by taking the audience into his confidence with some introductory banter. This includes the story of how he worked on memorizing the entire text while walking around Lincoln Park half way between his home on Capitol Hill and the theater where he now performs. That performance is unaided by special effects, extravagant costumes, elaborate sets or high-tech sound effects. Nothing is placed in between actor and audience as he takes up his venerable text. He works on a bare stage with one table, one chair, one bottle of water, one glass and - just in case - a copy of the gospel.

Few documents in history have been dissected, analyzed, proselytized and expounded upon as thoroughly as have the gospels, including this one which concentrates specifically on the teaching of Jesus Christ, especially the parables through which he is reported to have delivered much of his message. Often that analysis and delivery is given through a concentration on a single parable, a particular phrase or even an individual word as sermons are preached on "the reading" of a small fragment of the gospel. To hear it delivered in its entirety, with its dramatic arc and the cumulative effect of its graceful language (delivered, Tolaydo informs us, in the Elizabethan pronunciation) is to discover it anew.

Text of the Gospel of St. Mark. Directed by Paul Takacs. Design: Leon Wiebers (costume) Nicholas John (lights) Bruce Robey (photography). Cast: Michael Tolaydo.

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Running time 2:05 - one intermission
An energetic blues cabaret

Storyline: None -  just five very talented blues performers putting their own touch on some twenty-five songs ranging from well known ("Ain't Nobody's Business") to obscure ("Your Husband is Cheatin' on Us").

The five performers are Yvette Manson - who can sell a mean wail, Kimberly Spencer-McLeod - who can make a Dinah Washington standard seem somehow fresh, Stephawn Stevens - whose voice seems almost too well trained for the blues, and Andy Torres - whose Broadway credits lead you to expect good things and who then delivers exactly that -- and, on piano, Ralph Herndon - who lays down a mean tempo and handles vocal duties as well. The first third of the program is a well balanced collection of blues numbers. Then, just before intermission, the format changes to segments on specific themes: "Remembering Dinah Washington," "My Man, Your Man," "Remembering (Flournoy) Miller & (Aubrey) Lyles," "Me and Caldonia." Whether songs are grouped by theme or just strung together, the beat keeps thumping.

Three performances stand out in this high-energy evening. There's the down 'n dirty grinding out of double entendres that the swivel hipped Andy Torres delivers on such material as "Chicken Shack Boogie" and "Hoochie Coochie Man." He also leads a swinging company rendition of "Saturday Night Fishfry." There's the commanding presence of Ralph Alan Herndon delivering the best blues performance of the evening with "Ain't Nobody's Business (if I do)" from behind the upright piano. But, most of all, there is Yvette Manson building songs beyond all expectations on "Ernestine" and "Right Key, Wrong Keyhole."

There's not a microphone to be seen all evening long - and no need for one either! These performers shout out the good times so that everyone in the hall can hear every note and every word. Nothing gets between artist and audience. That's the way it should be for this kind of show.

Conceived and directed by James Foster Jr. Design: Erin Nugent (dresses) Nicholas John (lights and photography) Adele Robey (stage manager). Cast: Yvette Manson, Kimberly Spencer-McLeod, Stephawn P. Stephens, Andy Torres and Ralph Alan Herndon on the piano.

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Running time 2:20 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an artistic triumph hiding a play's flaws
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Three generations and share a determination to better themselves by moving constantly and ever westward. The generations move from turn-of-the 20^th Century Croatia to 1940s Wyoming, to 1980s Japan and then, at the final curtain, back to Croatia. The pushes and pulls of parents toward their children within the backdrop of cultural norms and religious upbringing permeate the saga and each move made.

The former Artistic Director of Theater Alliance, Jeremy Skidmore, directs with a magical hand. Under Skidmore’s vision, Ambition Facing West is a production alive with grace and smooth movement, hiding the script’s weaknesses as it reaches the final fadeout. It leaves with a sniffle rather than a loud cry. The great 20^th Century issues that could have been more thoroughly raised -- whether religion, culture, xenophobia or war -- are sniffed at and then left time and time again; as the playwright just piles on too many issues. The seven actor ensemble is splendid. Each has a scene to stand and deliver, but each also has the opportunity to silently and affectively become a background prop to the main action. There are several scenes of such aching intimacy that a hug between husband and wife is beyond doubt felt to the back of the risers. A first hesitant kiss between gawky young adolescents is startling real in its purity and innocence. There are scenes in which a mother’s suffering and renunciations are allowed to be revealing rather than played with a wailing of tears.

The cast plays multiply roles across time and place. In 1910 Croatia, a young man (Joe Isenberg) wants to leave the closed off confines of his small village and his religion for America and the life of adventure as presented to him by both a man (Brian Hemmingsen) who guides the young to America and the books he is learning to read under the tutelage of the conflicted village Catholic priest (Eric Messner). But his culturally and place-bound mother (Amy McWilliams) sees adventure and learning as detrimental to her and the ancient way of life, (“How can you go? You are the future!”), but off he goes. By 1940 the young and now secular man is a Union organizer in Wyoming (Brian Hemmingsen once again) who is married to the love of his life, a passionate and physically disabled woman (Jennifer Mendenahall). They rear a smart daughter (Maggie Glauber) and together push her to leave the closed world of Wyoming and to become educated and worldly. By the 1980s the daughter is now a mother herself (Miss McWilliams again) but more importantly to her, she is a high-powered business woman working in Japan who has a son (Brandon McCoy) on his own life’s adventure from a closed world to that of Zen Buddhism. There are a number of standouts in the ensemble. Jennifer Mendenhall and Brian Hemmingsen play the 1940’s couple with great passion. Their scenes as loving husband and wife are as lusty as one get with clothes on. When the invisible Mendenhall speaks off stage to support or argue with her husband, her presence is right there in front of you by her voice alone. When Mendenhall calls her husband “a very bad man” it is delivered in a way that sex drips on the stage. McWilliams, in her roles as the 1910 mother and the 1980 mother, provides unmistakable sense of who these two vastly different women are. One from 1910 is tightly bound by her faith; the other from 1980 is tightly bound by her work life. Each mother is a causal factor, along with an absent father, on the one she raises leaving her and home. Hemmingsen is the translucent and physical strong male presence throughout this production in both his roles. His voice alone is of unmistakable authority.

The technical work shines. Walking into the H Street Playhouse black box one is offered a set that is open and expansive with the limitless horizon before you, lit to a pinkish tone. Later the lighting provides the feel of the expanse of the ocean or the dark of cramped spaces. The set is multi-levels of natural wooden forms atop smooth gravel. Over the course of the production the gravel is everything from water to dirt to a Zen garden. The attractive sound work by Ryan Runnery starts from the pre show when the audience enters and hears water lapping at boats and gulls screeching in the air. Erin Nugent has clothed the actors so that the audience instantly knows the decades being witnessed.

Written by Anthony Clarvoe. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Erin Nugent, (costumes) Nick John (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound).  Cast: Maggie Glauber, Brian Hemmingsen, Joe Isenberg, Brandon McCoy, Amy McWiliams, Jennifer Mendenhall and Eric Messner.

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Running time 1:20 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for the premiere of a
 comedy/drama of family ties and mortality

Storyline: In an apartment in Brooklyn, the father, brother and lover of a long-time HIV survivor gather to help him cope with a crisis of the spirit. Each generation has a burden to bear in this family's experience, but they share a common familial connection.

Ward is something of a specialist in short-form theater pieces. His credits include a one act play and a batch of ten minute plays as well as a solo show. This one-act play doesn't feel like a short-form piece, however. It is a fully formed, multi-character evening that takes its time developing the rather theatrical gimick with which it resolves the issues it has raised at its leisure. There isn't an intermission to interrupt the flow and Michnewicz wisely moves things along briskly so the passage of time never seems to be an issue.

Michael Kramer plays the HIV survivor-to-date (the title "Lazarus Syndrome" refers to, among other things, HIV patients who have survived beyond the clinical expectations based on the experiences of the AIDS epidemic). As the character who is in need of support, his humor is more exasperatedly petulent than that of the supportive trio who are there to help. As a result, he's a bit stiff. Jim Jorgensen, Bill Hamlin and Kevin Boggs, on the other hand, have the brighter, sharper and more sympathetic material and each makes the most of it in his own way. Boggs comes across as a bit cute, but Hamlin is rock-solid as the supportive father who swallows his dissapointments over his offspring in order to concentrate on the positives, and Jorgensen is a bundle of energy that sparks each of his scenes.

Dan Conway has created a Brooklyn appartment in H Street Playhouse's black box that looks like people actually live there. From the framed Dream Girls window card to the architectually correct support plank that holds the bar in the closet, the locale is right on. Dan Covey does some nice lighting of the space, but takes a plot point of the building of a high rise outside the appartment's windows a bit too literally, making it difficult to determine time of the action from the appearance outside. Still, when mood is at issue, the feel is solid.

Written by Bruce Ward. Directed by Paul Douglas Michnewicz. Design: Dan Conway (set) Debra Kim Sivigny (costumes) Marisa "Za" Johns (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound) Nick John (photography) Jenn Carlson (stage manager). Cast: Kevin Boggs, Bill Hamlin, Jim Jorgensen, Michael Kramer.

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Running time 2:30 - one intermission
Two doctors battle over the treatment of a schizophrenic patient
Playing in repertory
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: On the twenty-seventh day of the twenty-eight day involuntary observation hospitalization of a young black man suffering from schizophrenia, his young white doctor believes he requires a longer period of mandatory treatment, while the head of the psychiatry department opposes keeping him as an inpatient using up one of the beds the over-stressed department needs for patients with more serious disorders.

At its core, Englishman Joe Penhall's play is two plays. One is the story of the patient and his need for treatment. In this respect this is a play about schizophrenia just as Margaret Edson's Wit is a play about cancer or Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie is a play about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Since the word schizophrenia became an often overused and even misused term with a misguidedly pejorative connotation, the play has to spend some time in defining the condition, laying out the seriousness of its consequences and putting a human face on the plight of its sufferers. Penhall's interest goes beyond the disease, to the system of medical care that responds to the needs of sufferers. Here his focus is on the British model, and Blue/Orange becomes a play about bureaucracy. In this, Penhall seems to think he has an easy target - I mean, who doesn't hate bureaucracy? But in the nation's capitol - perhaps the world capital of bureaucracy - there still are a few who see the complexity of setting up a system to handle the needs of millions as a challenge and appreciate the struggle between well intentioned, intelligent people with sincere differences of opinion on important, complex and difficult questions. None of this emerges from Penhalls pretty cheap shots at the institution and it gets masked a bit by the additional layer of racial attitudes between two generations of white doctors battling over the treatment of a black patient.

Cedric Mays, fresh from his high-energy performance as the time-traveling history student in Insurrection: Holding History on this stage, gives another highly charged performance as the patient. We never learn much about his world outside the institution or the course of his condition, but we see his current state of anxiety mixed with overexcitement. Aubrey Deeker, whose image from Mary's Wedding still somehow lingers in this hall, allows the frustrations over the intercession of his superior into the handling of the care of his patient to emerge at a very natural pace, neither telegraphing the difficulties too early nor holding back too much. It is a nicely nuanced piece of work by an actor who has done some superb work in this same space.

The performance that really impresses, however, is that of Michael Tolaydo who is making his Theater Alliance debut after so many notable appearances at theaters throughout the Potomac Region and, before that, on Broadway. He brings humor to the role as well as a slightly smarmy manipulativeness. His ability to display the inner workings of his character's mind in scenes calling for affability, concern, barely disguised petulance and a touch of imperious superiority all within an overriding intelligence is impressive, and his collaborative approach to dialogue scenes is a pleasure to watch. Somehow, a line delivered by another actor is more telling when Tolaydo is listening to it.

Written by Joe Penhall. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Design: Erin Nugent (costumes) Suzanne Malloney (properties) Andrew Cissna (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound) Nick John (photography) Jessie Gallogly (stage manager). Cast: Aubrey Deeker, Cedric Mays, Michael Tolaydo.

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Running time 1:20 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a superb ensemble of two in an intriguing
 one-act play within a play
Playing in repertory
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: On a bare stage, a pair of men work on creating a play which will tell the story of a terminally ill man stuck in a failing marriage. They take turns contributing to each of the characters in the play-within-a-play, adding, cutting and revising to find a way to tell their story.  In the process, the pair reveals as much about their own partnership as they do about the characters they are creating.

MacIvor is one of the most successful of the current crop of playwrights working in Canada. An actor as well as a writer, he has a feel for what an actor needs in a role. He's also known as a director, and his feel for the staging possibilities in his plays is clear. His You Are Here was a Potomac Stages Pick last season at Theatre Alliance, and there is no reason at all that those who enjoyed that show should hesitate to troop back to the H Street Playhouse for this latest sampling of his talents.

Lott and Stiles' task isn't so much to blend into indistinguishable, generic "actors" as it is to create two distinct characters creating one story. Thus, Stiles' sharper sense of humor and Lott's slight sense of reserve blend not into each other but into a separate whole. It isn't as simple as Jason + Jason = Jasons. Lott's swish of a hip to create the role of "This One" creating the role of a wife informing her husband about her affair is notable for being just feminine enough to get the sexuality of the situation across without becoming a parody, while Stiles' sweeping dance to "Sunshine Lollipops & Rainbows" is both a joyous release and a challenge to his partner. Neither could do the bit of the other - that's why they make such an effective two-person ensemble.

For a play requiring no set at all and having just one costume requirement, it seems a bit churlish to complain that the stripe on the jacket isn't distinct enough to keep from pulling your focus away from the action when the characters mention that it is a pin stripe jacket, but what is a reviewer to do when faced with such simplicity? Andrew Cissna's somewhat more complex lighting design never pulls focus away from the action and gives the audience a number of important visual clues as to who is who at what point. Mark K. Anduss' sound design provides the two-member cast the greatest assist in casting their magic spell. From recordings of Maria Callas and Lesley Gore to the subtlest buzzing of bugs or thumping of a heartbeat and precise sound of an imagined baseball hitting a mimed glove, the design hits the right tone time and time again. Credit must go as well to the sound board operator - either Betsy Haibel or Andrew Nelson - who timed the baseball effects so precisely.

Written by Daniel MacIvor. Directed by Colin Hovde. Design: Erin Nugent (costumes) Suzanne Malloney (properties) Andrew Cissna (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound) Colin Hovde (photography) Lisa Blythe (stage manager). Cast: Jason Lott, Jason Stiles.

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Running time 2:30 - one intermission
A high-energy, multi-style, time travel play
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A doctoral candidate doing his thesis on the famous 1831 slave revolt led by Nat Turner is also the great-great grandson of a 189 year old former slave who is still alive . . . barely. Before he dies, he wants to take his great-great grandson back with him in time to the Virginia farm where he was a slave along with Turner so he can truly understand the history he is studying.

It is hard to imagine a cast giving more to a play than this group of spirited actors give to Robert O'Hara's play under Timothy Douglas' fast paced direction. Frank Britton and Cedric Mays form the time-traveling team. Britton seems very much a man of his time and he retains a twenty-first century, educated persona as he slips from the present to a past so foreign from current value systems as to be practically unbelievable. Britton conveys a sense of being able to comprehend that other world intellectually, but an inability to absorb it emotionally. In this he helps the audience deal with its own desperate reactions. Mays has the task of bringing the script's fantastical transformation to life and he does a fine job of jumping from a 189 year old semi-comatose old man to a virile young man of action.

The trip to the past features a chance to get to see and know Nat Turner, the vision-seeing, religion-preaching, insurrection-leading slave who inspired the blacks of his day, horrified the whites and has fascinated historians and novelists alike for nearly two centuries. KenYatta Rogers brings this icon to life with a flair that makes his influence on his fellow slaves believable and his rage palpable. MaConnia Chesser is a hovering presence as she voices the aged former-slave's thoughts.

The bifurcation that so permeates the show is dramatically demonstrated by Tony Cisek's two-fence set. A wooden structure of beams forms one fence in the foreground on the right, but passing through and then behind a chain-link structure, which is in the foreground on the left. Their intersection forms that spot where history breaks through time. Characters come and go through openings in the two fences and disappear into the distance in the rear. Kate Turner-Walker's costumes are similarly of two times, and then some. The contemporary clothes and the raggedy outfits for the slave population of 1831 are both simply authentic, but the outfits for the creatures of the mind - the remnants of the Gone With The Wind image of the antebellum south that emerge in the shtick-ier portions of the play, are as fanciful as are the characters portrayed by the likes of Aakhu Freeman and Jessica Frances Dukes.

Written by Robert O'Hara. Directed by Timothy Douglas. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Adam Metallo (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Vincent Olivieri (sound) Colin Hovde (photography) Vivian Woodland (stage manager). Cast: Frank Britton, Jeremy Brown, MaConnia Chesser, Jessica Frances Dukes, Aakhu TuahNera Freeman, Cleo House, Cedric Mays, Maya Lynne Robinson, KenYatta Rogers.

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Running time 1:45 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a striking and compelling adaptation of the novel
v Contains disturbing scenes of violence and rape
Click here to buy the novel

Storyline: Toni Morrison's novel told the story of a young African American girl in World War II-era middle America whose entire family has been cursed with the certainty of their own ugliness. As her pregnancy caused by a rape by her father progresses, she wishes ever harder that she could become invisible. But her brown eyes never fade away no how much she wishes. So she prays for the bluest eyes possible.

Toni Morrison's entry into the literary scene came in 1970 when she was teaching at Howard University, just a bit to the west of the Theater Alliance's H Street Playhouse. This short novel subsequently become an Oprah Book Club selection. But it really wasn't until seven years later with Song of Solomon that she burst into prominence. In 1987 it was Beloved that drew even greater attention, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for her body of work. In this stage adaptation of that first novel, Diamond retains Morrison's approach in using sequential flashbacks to tell her story with multiple narrative voices. The script is spare, efficient, affecting and extremely poetic, using language to create visual images and connect thought lines with both grace and clarity.

Muse has assembled a cast of uncommon quality. Carleen Troy's performance as the tormented child is sensitive, touching and never excessive. That is impressive given the elements of the character of a pre-adolescent who idolizes Shirley Temple which could quickly go over the top. Jessica Frances Dukes and Erika Rose, who create the pair of sisters who bond with her, are superb in both the appearance of childhood and in the delivery of the observations about the world of these children at the end of the great depression with eloquent simplicity. The adults are nearly as good, especially Aakhu Freeman and Lynn Chavis who make the two maternal roles memorable.

There are design choices of note, all of which help set and maintain the mood. Some are subtle like Reggie Ray's three identical dresses for the three gossiping biddies. Some are dramatically impressive. Tony Cisek's spare but tremendously affecting set seems only a space for the performers to enact the action until it unveils its final, fabulous effect. Suffice it to say that the title "The Bluest Eye" will retain a visual impact in your memory long after the particulars of plot or even character fade. Of course, that may well be many years in the future, for this experience will stay with you for a long, long time.

Adapted for the stage by Lydia Diamond from the novel by Toni Morrison. Directed by David Muse. Musical direction by Tracy Lynn Olivera. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Tracie Duncan (properties) John Burkland (lights)  Ryan Rumery (sound) Jenn Carlson (stage manager). Cast: Lynn Chavis, Jessica Frances Dukes, Aakhu TuahNera Freeman, Alfred Kemp, Lia LaCour, Erika Rose, Carleen Troy, Jeorge Watson.

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Running time 1:20 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a charming memory play
v Very brief partial nudity
Winner of the Ushers Favorite Show award for August

Storyline: A gentle memory play of an unlikely friendship between a free-thinking hippie from the "Joy To The World" era and a less adventurous, more intellectual but no less questioning high school student who become friends and trade life experiences on the roof top of the hippy's parents' house.

Playwright Phoebe Rusch received the Kennedy Center/VSA Playwright Discovery Award for this play and it was given one performance at the Kennedy Center last year. As produced here it is a well polished piece that takes a pair of interesting characters and reveals the impact each had on the life of the other. Unlike many one act memory plays, this one takes its time revealing details but never seems to be intentionally holding anything back for later revelation. Oh, there are a few slips along the way - the hippy's cough comes out of the blue as an announcement of a plot development - but the gradual deepening of the relationship between these two friends and the meaning behind the rather enigmatic title emerge with a sense of naturalness that is the product of careful craft.

Marybeth Fritzky and Nora Woolley create two very different teens who may be attracted at first by their differences but who grow together, each a catalyst for the other's development. Woolley is the hippy Vivian of the title, a free spirit who views the world through questioning eyes, challenging assumptions and rejecting simple orthodoxy. Woolley gets the body-language of hippiedom right without exaggeration and has a nice touch with the irreverent humor her Vivian uses as a combination life style statement and defense mechanism. Fritzky is the initially up-tight teen whose world is opened up by her friendship. She goes through a series of subtle shifts in her evolution from repressed to what Stephen Sondheim called "Sorry-Grateful" as she guides us through her memory of her time with Vivian.

Two years ago, almost to the day, Jeremy Skidmore's company opened another one-act, two character magical memory play in this space and got region-wide attention. While the soul mates here are two girls and the bond is not romantic love, Rusch approaches the same area of sweet memory tinged by tragedy that Stephen Massicotte explored in Mary's Wedding. While it doesn't quite rise to the exquisite level that the earlier play did, it should make another August visit to H Street a must for those who have a warm memory of Mary's Wedding.

Written by Phoebe Rusch. Directed by Paul-Douglas Michnewicz. Design: Dan Conway (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Taryn Colberg (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound) Colin Hovde (photography) Lindsay Miller (stage manager). Cast: Marybeth Fritzky, Nora Woolley. 

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Running time 1:20 - No intermission
t A Potomac Stages pick as a searing exploration of the brutality of war crimes
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: In an unnamed Eastern European country wracked by genocidal war, a lowly private in the defeated army has been convicted of dozens of rapes and murders. Just prior to his execution, he's offered a reprieve, but not release, by a woman who puts him to hard labor and even harder mistreatment for reasons of her own.

This is the US premiere of Canadian playwright Colleen Wagner's oft-times excruciatingly brutal look at the impact of war crimes on both the victim and the perpetrator. That the location seems somewhat Eastern European (think Bosnia) doesn't negate the fact that the playwright is working on a universal level here. She puts the case from the victim's perspective into the hands of the mother of a victim of rape as an act of genocidal war, but she's first and foremost a mother and her pain is unrelated to the "cause" which unleashed the violence. The fascinating thing in the author's construct, however, is the portrait of the raper/killer, which shows him too to be a victim of forces not only beyond his control but beyond his comprehension. The troop soldiers of genocidal war are just pawns in an overwhelming struggle and the removal of restraints releases impulses that have terrible consequences.

Alexander Strain and Jennifer Mendenhall are the man and woman whose battle is played out on Nick Vaughan's grimy steel mesh and dirt set. Mendenhall comes after Strain with a vengeance - a suitable approach given the circumstances. She not only berates him verbally, she yokes him like an oxen working the fields, shackles him like a dog and smashes him repeatedly with a shovel. Her release of anger and frustration is frightening to behold. Strain absorbs it all while making his own voyage from resignation to recognition - but not to remorse. Both performances are compelling releases of pure emotion which, under John Vreeke's taught direction, avoids looking like an actors artifice. The emotions may be amplified by the immediacy of the black box environment but they feel very real.

There seems to be an unaccountable trend afoot in the local theater community to leave non-speaking members of the cast uncredited. First Studio Theatre Secondstage left Shawn Helm, who was the non-speaking but very much present guard throughout key scenes of Frozen off the cast list. Now we have an omni-present and even more central presence hovering in the background and occasionally taking center stage in this play which is not identified either by character's name or by performer's. Whoever she is, she does a very nice job and deserves a bit of recognition.

Written by Colleen Wagner. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: Nick Vaughan (set) Deb Sivigny (costumes) Suzanne Maloney (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound) Colin Hovde (photography) Jack Rizzotti (stage manager). Cast: Jennifer Mendenhall, Alexander Strain.

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Reviewed April 30
Running time 2:05 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages pick for a searing emotional experience 
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Shackled, blindfolded and tethered by a rope, an American sits in a room in Beirut where he spends years as a prisoner of some faction or other in Lebanon's civil war. A world away, back in America, his wife sits in the room that was his in-home office trying to control her panic and decide how to force any action from the Government or world opinion that might result in his release. He spends much of his time composing letters to her in his head, for he has been denied either pen and paper or even the opportunity to see. She spends her time alternately feeling his presence and dealing with a State Department official who seems to have been assigned to keep her from taking any action that might complicate the government's position, and a reporter who wants her to speak out to force some action.

Blessing's play is more than an exploration of a couple's bond under extreme pressure, although it certainly is that. It is also an exploration of the motivations behind hostage taking and other tactics in today's world of struggles that span the globe. Blessing uses the intensely personal aspect of the story as a lens through which to examine issues that seem so much bigger than individual concerns, but which are only important because of their impact on individuals. He is rigorously even-handed in his treatment of the motivation of those who would capture and imprison for political purposes, and his view of the reporter is complex, introducing both personal loyalties and professional interests into the behavior of the reporter who establishes a rapport with the hostage's wife. However, he is less multi-faceted and even handed in the view of the government official who attempts to manipulate the wife purely for policy purposes. Kerri Rambow manages to insert a glimmer of conscience and humanity into her portrayal of the otherwise mechanically bureaucratic character.

Coons is a master of creating an image of an emotion. To see her curled into a semi-fetal position in the only warm spot in the room, a spot of light from the window, is to understand her character's agony of the moment and treasured memory of the way it had once been. No words explain. No words are needed. But when the scene shifts and words come tumbling out in frustration or hope or despair, they are compelling. Johnson has his moments of body-language over spoken words, especially in the minutes while the audience settles into their seats. Still, his part is more word-dependent because his character is clinging to hope and humanity precisely through the manipulation of words. Language is about the only aspect of humanity left to him in his isolation. It is a part that could tempt a lesser actor -- or an actor working for a lesser director than Shirley Serotsky -- to the mistake of overacting. A certain self-consciousness has to be eliminated for these inner monologues to be effective. Johnson gets that right, and as a result, creates a portrait of an essentially decent, intellectually honest man coping with extreme pressure.

The play is going to run in a repertory schedule with The Monument which opens in late May, and Nick Vaugn's set is designed to serve both productions. It is hard to believe that any compromise has been required, for his structure works beautifully for this drama. Plain wooden flooring defines "the room" with Klyph Stanford's lighting indicating a window in the right wall when that room is the wife's refuge, but no such opening to an outer world for the husband's prison. It is backed by a collection of storage racks of boxes, one of which sits slightly off center on a concrete and soil structure that could be a  crawl space. An inexplicable decision has slides projected onto those boxes, making them practically undecipherable, while a perfectly usable screen is visible just slightly stage right. The government official uses the screen later for her lecture on the situation in the middle east. Debora Kim Sivigny's costumes for those back home -- Coons, Rambow and Stiles -- reach a bit to represent time and status. (But, oh, the tie bar is a gem!) However, her stained, stretched and stressed rags for Johnson are, like much of the rest of the piece, painfully right.

Written by Lee Blessing. Directed by Shirley Serotsky. Design: Nick Vaugn (set) Debora Kim Sivigny (costumes) Suzanne Maloney (props) Klyph Stanford (lights) Chris Bane (sound) Jesse Terrill (music) Bruce Robey (photography) Jessie Galloway (stage manager). Cast: Kathleen Coons, David Johnson, Kerri Rambow, Jason Stiles.

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March 2 - April 2, 2006
Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Reviewed March 10
Running time 2:25 - one intermission
Fables strung together to make a point
Click here to buy the novel

Storyline: Haroun silences his father who loves to tell stories only to learn the value of storytelling and the truths that can only be revealed through tall tales, many of which are enacted as he struggles to understand the consequences of his actions and reverse the silencing.  He comes to understand "the use of stories that aren't even true.

With local audiences unfamiliar with the context of Rushdie's work, it behooved director Kelly Parsley to provide a very clear presentation of the central storyline in this collection of short stories. Parsley comes to this hall with credits that earn him a respectful hearing. As choreographer for Mary's Wedding he worked magic, and for the Theater Alliance's inaugural production here in the H Street Playhouse, Tales from Ovid, which was also an assemblage of stories, he displayed a sure eye for the contribution of movement to narrative. Both of those efforts, however, were under the guidance of a director, Jerry Skidmore, who saw to the essentials of storytelling. On his own, Parsley looses the narrative in a swirl of movement.

A very capable cast comes up with a number of unique and enjoyable individual characterizations. Ian LeValley, who seems to specialize in strongly idiosyncratic portrayals (the title character in Fifteen Rounds with Jackson Pollock, the total sleaze in Curse of the Starving Class and the strange would-be-auctioneer in [sic] here at the Theater Alliance) is fascinating as the "ocean of notion" or, alternatively, "the shah of blah" - the storyteller. Strongest of all, however, is Scott McCormick whose turn as "the walrus" in one story is the memorable image of the evening. Both Adele Robey and Deb Gottesman create strong impressions in different stories and Danny Ladmirault provides some of the much needed continuity between stories.

The colorful floor between the two ranks of seats serves as a set, while the costumes add to the festive feel of the production. It isn't enough, however, to create a unified whole out of the disparate parts that are the stories that form the bulk of the evening.

Written by Tim Supple based on the novel by Salman Rushdie. Directed by Kelly Parsley. Design: Matt Soule (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Suzen Mason (properties) Kathy Couch (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound) Bruce Robey (photography) Roy A. Gross (stage manager). Cast: Carlos Bustamante, Erica Chamblee, Jonathon Church, Mikal Evans, Maggie Glauber, Deb Gottesman, Danny Ladmirault, Ian LeValley, Scott McCormick, Alex Perez, Adele Robey, Anu Yadav.

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Reviewed October 15
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for excellent performances in an intriguingly theatrical piece
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A woman who has been a celebrity profile writer, a gossip reporter, a movie producer and a failure at marriage recounts the story of her adult life in what appears to be a monologue. But, as she tells it, the people in her story come to life and she steps into her own memory, re-living key moments.

The fact that the play feels like an expanded monologue is not surprising given that it was written by an actor/playwright, Daniel MacIvor, who made his mark in the Canadian theater world as a monologist. He has written a number of solo shows and a few two-or-three performer pieces. Here, MacIvor works with a cast of nine bringing a dozen characters out of the mind of the storyteller. It is clear that he has learned the craft of constructing discourse, so it sounds completely conversational while revealing just the right amount of information to carry the listener along. Here he uses that skill superbly, giving the principal characters marvelously revealing snippets of dialogue. The story he is telling isn't half as satisfying as the method of telling it, however, for he rarely provides insight into just why the leading lady made as many bad decisions in the life she's relating as she did. Still, watching her reveal and relive that life is an intensely theatrical pleasure.

As enjoyable as watching these performances is, it would have been absolutely fascinating to watch these performers in rehearsal as Jennifer Mendenhall, Kathleen Coons, Tim Carlin, Brian Hemmingsen, Michael Russotto and others explored the myriad hints and tiny bits of evidence about their characters' histories and interests contained in the often cryptic dialogue MacIvor has written. Under the guidance of director Gregg Henry, each of the principals has settled on a consistent set of details to make their characters interesting, fully rounded individuals. Mendenhall creates a conflicted and ofttimes confused but consistently interesting central character. Tim Carlin, in the best work he has done here at least since Thief River, makes his psychiatrist/screenwriter/husband role come alive. Kathleen Coons takes what could have been a cartoon of a starlet role and gives it both a brain and a heart. Both Brian Hemmingsen and Michael Russotto fill in mannerisms and personality touches to make their potentially perfunctory parts a pleasure to watch. Only Alexander Strain seems to go too far, making his pair of smaller parts seem too quirky.

The marvelous theatricality of the evening is enhanced by a set design from Tony Cizek that looks like no set at all, but, under John Burkland's sharp lighting becomes many different locales with ease. The entire design staff brings a unity of feel to the project. Each element - costumes, properties, sound, lighting effects - seems in balance, which establishes a solid but never weighty feel for the evening.

Written by Daniel MacIvor. Directed by Gregg Henry. Design: Tony Cizek (set) Catherine F. Norgren (costumes) Suzen Mason (properties) John Burkland (lights) Kevin Hill (sound) Bruce Robey (photography) Shawn Helm (stage manager). Cast: Tim Carlin, Kathleen Coons, Brian Hemmingsen, Annie Houston, Daniel Ladmirault, Jennifer Mendenhall, Michael Russotto, Casie Platt, Alexander Strain.

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Reviewed August 20
Running time 2:45 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for dramatic staging and strong performances
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Using published memoirs, contemporary news accounts and transcripts, the trial of Oscar Wilde's charge of defamation of character against the father of his lover, and the following two trials of Wilde himself on charges of gross indecency, are recreated with an emphasis on the decisions Wilde made which eventually led to his imprisonment and premature death.

Skidmore keeps his "Oscar Wilde" from the North Carolina production, Cooper D'Ambrose. He manages to look a good deal like a young Oscar Wilde in his longish brown locks and his slouchy posture. Unfortunately for the effectiveness of his performance, it wasn't the young Oscar Wilde that was on trial. Wilde was in his forties when he was charged with the gross indecency of sodomy with the twenty-one year old son of the Marquis of Queensberry. Still, D'Ambrose does capture the air of presumed superiority that made Wilde's attitude so objectionable to his critics during the tabloid-style scandal chronicled here. 

Scott McCormick's work as the Marquis of Queensberry, whose public accusation that Wilde was corrupting his son was the event that triggered Wilde's doom is impressive. He manages to give just a hint of the personal pain that the dictates of propriety among the nobility of Victorian England required be kept hidden. Andrew Pastides gives the Marquis' son, Wilde's lover Alfred ("Bosie") Douglas, a disturbing combination of shallowness and devotion as he led Wilde down his ultimately self destructive road. Of course, the ambiguity here simply heightens the case concerning the homophobia of the "respectable society" of London at the end of Victoria's reign.

Kauffman's script requires a lot of doubling and even tripling up on roles among the cast of eleven, and Skidmore has brought together some fine actors to handle the tasks, most notably Chris Davenport, Jason Lott, Dan Via and Grady Weatherford. Together these four perform eleven different roles, but they and their director find ways to keep personality and identity clear while moving the production on at a fast clip. 

Written by Moisés Kaufman. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Design: Jacob Muehlhausen (set) Erin Nugent (costumes)  Suzen Mason (properties)  Andrew Cissna (lights) Bryan Z. Richards (sound) Bruce Robey (photography) E. Brooke Marshall (stage manager). Cast: Kevin Boggs, Chance Carroll, Cooper D'Ambrose, Chris Davenport, Jason Lott, Eric Messner, Scott McCormick, Andrew Pastides, Alexander Strain, Dan Via, Grady Weatherford.

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Reviewed June 2
Running time 2:00
A highly entertaining romp through a hardly entertaining portion of human history
Nudity

Storyline: At the height of the French Revolution, as "Madame Guillotine" rules the nation, the government is in need of all the trained executioners it can get. A provincial executioner is transferred to Paris where, as a bumpkin from the sticks, he falls victim to all the scams and dangers of the big city, loosing his money, his job and his passport. His only way to get his life back on track is to earn enough money by being an official observer for an experiment involving one of the executions to bribe the operator of a balloon to fly him home.

This is the American premiere of this play by a young Hungarian playwright, Kornel Hamvai, who studied at Oxford and participated in a writer's program in the US. The text has been translated by David Robert Evans of Oxford. The text is bright and often breezy, without the stinted formality sometimes used to simulate historical authenticity, and the storytelling structure works quite well. Indeed, it is almost a textbook definition of the genre called "picaresque" in which a roguish hero has a series of adventures in a simple plot divided into separate episodes. The inclusion of a philosophical point concerning the location of consciousness in the body ("Does the head of a victim of the guillotine know it has been cut off?") distracts from the ultimate challenge of the executioner's escape, but it surely provides Conrad Feininger (who plays the head) with a superb stage moment.

While the cast numbers thirteen, the number of characters listed amounts to thirty two and the original announcement of the production said there were fifty-two. Whatever the count, twelve of these thirteen scurry about bringing colorful characters to brief life as the executioner goes from adventure to adventure. With an ensemble working this well together it is difficult to isolate a few standouts but Sherrie Edelen, Carlos Bustamante and Tara Giordano make strong impressions.  James O. Dunn creates a host of intriguing characters (including a brief appearance by a young Napoleon Bonaparte) as does Jesse Terrill, whose distracted confessor is a brief delight in two scenes. The single performer with a single role is a newcomer to the area, Brian Osborne, who is manages the not insignificant challenge of being the energetic motor of the evening without either overshadowing others of the ensemble in their individual scenes or wearing out his welcome with an audience that is asked to follow this quick-paced story.

Cisek's rough hewn wooden platforms combine and connect in different ways with one section a bed for one scene, a table for the next and a bridge after that. He has a platform sporting the new (at the time) French flag at one end of the hall and the guillotine at the other. Dan Covey's lighting is dramatic and effective with a number of marvels including the effect which converts that guillotine to a confessional. The soundscape, costumes and properties all combine as well to create the the underworld of revolutionary Paris with enough grit and presence to feel alive rather than some sort of museum recreation.

Written by Kornel Hamvai. Translated by David Robert Evens. Directed by Aaron Posner. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Suzen Mason (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Chaz Marsh (sound) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: James Beard, Carlos Bustamante, Tim Carlin, Saskia de Vries, James O. Dunn, Sherri Edelen, Conrad Feininger, Marybeth Fritzky, Tara Giordano, Jason Lot, Aniko Olah, Brian Osborne, Jesse Terrill.

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Reviewed March 12
Running time 2:15 - one intermission
Price range $25 - $30
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: A young woman just getting out of prison travels to the scenic Gilead, Wisconsin she has dreamed about after seeing of a photo spread on the town in a magazine. She finds it is almost a ghost town having hit hard times when the local quarry closed down. The sheriff, to whom she is to report, gets her a job in the nearly bankrupt Spitfire Grill, where she brings new spirit and life to the community.  The crotchety owner of the grill has not been able to sell the property, so the newcomer suggests she hold a raffle or contest to select a winner.

James Valcq who also wrote the book, music and lyrics for the off-Broadway Zombies from Beyond, and the late Fred Alley who was a founder of the American Folklore Theatre in Wisconsin, adapted Lee David Zlotoff's screenplay for the stage. Their approach is straight forward, letting the events in the story play out in linear fashion with background information provided in dialogue or lyrics when needed, but without trying to make the story more than it was in the movie. Their songs have a country music sound that demonstrates how true country music, as opposed to the more commercially popular country/western sound found on radio stations identifying themselves as "country's best music," is closer to Irish pub songs and fiddle festival dance music than to standard American pop songs. Indeed, the twang of these songs sound more smoky-mountain/blue ridge than north-woods.

Tony Rae Brotons is earnest and strong voiced as the outsider who brings hope and pride back to the town. She's not the only strong voice, however. Judy Simmons, as the diner's owner, and Rob McQuay, as her son who has tried but failed to sell off the diner, add greatly to the vocal richness of the piece.  Joanne Schmoll impresses more with her portrayal of her character, the initially mousy housewife who finds strength and identity helping out at the diner, than with her vocals. Her voice is clear but her volume is no match for Simmons and McQuay or even Brotons.

Director Paul-Douglas Michnewicz doesn't let many details in the story slip by unnoticed. True, the script is linear and simple, so there isn't a lot of competition for attention as one plot point or character detail after another is revealed. But Michnewicz places each point or detail at the center of attention at the point of revelation. The immediacy raised an interesting problem, however. Here is a play set in a diner where people are constantly cooking, serving and eating and the audience is too close to the action not to notice what is on the plates and in the pots. Michnewicz chooses not to actually have the cast cook and not to use fake-looking stage food. It takes a bit of getting used to the cast cracking non-existing eggs, spreading non-existing butter on non-existing toast and pouring non-existing coffee.

Music, lyrics and book by James Valcq and Fred Alley based on the screenplay by Lee David Zlotoff. Directed by Paul-Douglas Michnewicz. Music direction by Jeffery Watson. Design: Thomas F. Donahue (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Suzen Mason (props) Klyph Stanford (lights) Bryan Miller (sound) Bruce Robey (photography) Adele Robey (stage manager). Cast: J. McAndrew Breen, Toni Rae Brotons, Anthony Gallagher,  Rebecca Herron, Rob McQuay, Joanne Schmoll, Judy Simmons. Musicians: Doug Poplin, Steve Smith, Jeffery Watson. 

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Reviewed January 15
Running Time 2:10 - One Intermission
t Potomac Stages Pick for consistently diverting entertainment

Storyline: A collection of the theatrical equivalent of short stories explore such subjects as social strata in a fish bowl, genetic competition, couples who can and who can't communicate, various views of the importance of a kiss, teenage relationships and the role of personal ads in the social relations of people no longer in their teens.

As in previous years, each playlet is intriguing enough to capture your imagination and developed enough to be satisfying but none is stretched out beyond its natural limits. Each ends just when it should, and then you move on to the next delectable morsel. A new feature this year is the inclusion of musicals. Three mini-musicals are rotating in rep along with each night's performance of the seven non-musicals. The performance we attended, thus, did not include the musical "(Breakfast with) Phoebe." Other than that, below is a snippet about each, presented in the hope that they will be enough to whet your appetite.

• In Patrick Gabridge's Christmas Breaks, smarmy Grady Weatherford gives the mistress he's tired of, the still-smitten Samantha Merrick, a new lover for Christmas - one he found by running a personal ad written as if it was from her. It works well, as she actually is attracted to the respondent, John Horn, and he to her.
• Andrew Akre and John Francis Bauer are competing sperm vying for a date at a uterine wall with an ovum played with an intriguing constantly floating motion by Niki Jacobsen in Adam Lehman's Fertile Ground.
• Kathleen Warnock's The Story of Bub finds a marvelous Peter Pereyra loosing his status as "The Big Guy" in a small fish tank when Daniel Mont as the larger title character is added to his world and attracts Linda Gabriel, the only "babe" in the bowl.
• Joel Angel Babb and Bryn Thorsson are funny indeed as a couple who have lost the ability to communicate in Matt Casarino's Something Went Wrong, but it is Charles Phaneuf who may be most memorable as the dead clown on their living room carpet. He hasn't a line,  he's dead after all, but his presence is the engine on which this disturbingly insightful portrait of communication is based.
• Josh Lefkowitz delivers his comic solo monologue on his First Kiss as he dons his tuxedo for the 8th Grade Religious Youth Group Dinner Dance.
• Mark Harvey Levin's The Kiss builds to the logical conclusion from the opening concept of a teenage boy asking a girl who has been a friend of long standing to give him an unbiased assessment of his kissing. Katie Mazzola is particularly good with the discomfort and embarrassment of a girl in this unorthodox situation.
• The only dramatic entry in this year's collection features the best acting, perhaps because the characters have the most to work with. Tony Simione and Michelle T. Rice really sink their teeth into Barbara Lindsay's Holy Hell, the story of a man who causes a traffic accident in which a woman looses her two children. She lives with the loss. He lives with the secret.
• The mini-musicals include Damian Hess's off beat comedy of the relationship between the humans and the rats occupying the same apartment, Dinner is Served (music by Gaby Alter), and Shawn Northrip's Lunch, a jaunty take on sexual relations among the students of the "Michael John LaChiusa Middle School" a la 90210. Both feature strong performances by Andrew Honecut, Leo Goodman and Casie Platt but with Lunch you also get Jewel Greenberg's belting vocal style and her infectious laugh.

Written by Matt Casarino, Nathan Christenson and Scott Murphy, Patrick Gabridge, Damien Hess and Gaby Alter, Josh Lefkowitz, Adam Lehman, Mark Harvey Levine, Barbara Lindsay, Shawn Northrip, Kathleen Warnock. Directed by Debbi Arseneaux, Monique Holt, Paul-Douglas Michnewicz, Shirley Serotsky, Jeremy Skidmore, David Snider, Scott Stanley, Dave Swim. Musical Direction by Amandia Daigneault. Design: Kathryn Gage and Andrew Pritchard (set) Jennifer Jones (costumes) Gary Raymond Fry, Jr. (lights) Isaac Liu (sound) Susanna Liu (photography) Kate Hundley (stage manager). Cast: Andrew Akre, Joe Angel Babb, John Francis Bauer, Linda Gabriel, Jewel Greenberg, Leo Goodman, Andrew Honeycutt, John Horn, Niki Jacobsen, Josh Lefkowitz, Katie Mazzola, Samantha Merrick, Daniel Mont, Peter Pereyra, Charles Phaneuf, Casie Platt, Michael Propster, Michelle T. Rice, Tony Simione, Bryn Thorsson, Grady Weatherford.

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Reviewed August 9
Running time 1:30 - no intermission
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for August, 2004
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a war-torn love story beautifully rendered
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: It is the night before Mary's wedding. Charlie, the love of Mary's life, tells the audience: "It is just a dream.  I ask you to remember that.  It begins at the end and ends at the beginning.  There are sad parts.  Don’t let that stop you from dreaming it too.” It is her dream and she walks the audience through it, slipping in and out of chronological order to tell the story of how she and Charlie met and fell in love on the prairie of Canada, but how World War I interrupted their courtship.

Massicotte blends a war story that could well be a two-act action play, and the story of two lovers intriguing enough to be a two-act conventional romance, into a one-act tightly constructed play, but never seems to be slighting either story. It is intriguing to note that the war story portion is entirely consistent with the history of Canadian participation in World War I, including the fate of a character in the dream with the true but oh-so-apropos name of G. M. Flowerdew, who really did die in the charge of C Squadron of the unit known as Lord Strathcona's Horse at the battle of Moreuil Wood, when horse mounted men with sabers went against machine guns. Massicotte gets a bit wordy at times, especially when making points by having the lovers spouting Tennyson on both romance (The Lady of Shallott) and warfare (The Charge of the Light Brigade), so the casting of actors with the ability to carry scenes past pitfalls is important.

Cast in the role of the shy young man who falls in love but also answers the perceived call of duty is Audrey Deeker, who proves as engaging when free to move energetically as he was when limping through scenes as the tuberculin Cripple of Inishman at Studio Theatre this spring. He has a youthful innocence which even the ravages of the battle scenes seem unable to shake. The task set for Kathleen Coons is even more challenging, for she must create both the very feminine title character and the World War I soldier who appears in her dream, the ill-fated Flowerdew. Coons has created very different characters for Potomac Region Audiences in the recent past, most notably Alice in Painted Alice here at H Street, and the wife who dropped her drawers in The Underpants at The Washington Stage Guild, but rarely has she had to switch between them so rapidly and repeatedly as here. Her body language communicates gender so clearly without seeming to be artificial, that the switch from dewy-eyed girl to steely-eyed soldier and back again is accomplished subtly, without drawing undue attention.

Massicotte's play is extremely theatrical in its use of techniques such as flash back, narration, dream sequences and mixed timelines, but it never seems tricky or gimmicky as it never attempts to hide its techniques. No efforts at dramatic sleight of hand. Instead, as Aubrey Deeker's opening lines about a dream make clear, the elements of atmospheric storytelling are to be displayed honestly. This puts such a premium on the entire production team to succeed in each of those elements. Succeed they do. Tony Cizek provides a simple set built out of a few beams, a few bags and a partially open backdrop. It becomes the playground for Dan Covey's lighting within the mist of the theatrical fog machine which allows Kathleen Coons to make a magical first appearance in the dream wearing Frank Labovitz' gown which can easily be taken for a wedding dress one moment, and a nightgown the next. Mark K. Anduss' soundscape may consist of individual sound effects mandated by the script (thunder, rain, gunfire, hoof beats), but they are so well chosen and smoothly modulated that they create a mesmerizing effect. Then, too, Anduss comes up with a nearly musical tone to underscore the first battlefield encounter that is as effective as any massive movie spectacle's symphonic score without ever exceeding the scale appropriate for such a delicate scene in such an intimate theater.

Written by Stephen Massicotte. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Choreographed by Kelly Parsley. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Frank Labovitz (costumes) Dan Covey (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound) Bruce Robey (photography) Roy Gross (stage manager). Cast: Kathleen Coons, Aubrey Deeker.

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Reviewed April 25
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes

Storyline: Just one simple blind date turns into a lengthy nightmare for a successful magazine writer and unsuccessful socializer who knows at first glance that the awkward young man her friend has set her up with is not for her. She accepts a second try, however, if only to be polite. When he strikes out again she courteously but firmly puts an end to it - she thinks. Soon flowers are showing up at the office, her voice message box is full and she believes he is watching her. Even a restraining order and police intervention fail to break the ever escalating chain of events.

Lucy Newman-Williams turns in an emotional performance as the writer turned victim which gets better as the play progresses because her character gets progressively more upset by her circumstances. She may start at too high an emotional level but she ends at the right place. Carlos Bustamante makes a very convincing looser of a blind date, avoiding making too much of his lack of social graces. Both Jim Jorgensen as the writer's boss and Tara Giordano as a clueless office intern are very good in support but Eric Sigdahlsen as a co-worker and Adele Robey as a police detective seem a bit mechanical. Robey has the misfortune of drawing the least well structured role as the detective seems to be Playwright Gillman's means of delivering the message that the powers that be are powerless in this situation.

Gillman takes a break from the straight-line escalation of frustration and dread with a side story as the heroine tries to keep busy by going out on interviews for stories for her magazine. She's interviewing a has-been of a skin-flick director hoping to make a comeback with his trademark concentration on all things mammary - films such as "The Breast is Yet to Come," "Ga Ga Girls Galore" and his classic "Sucubus Meets Incubus." John Dow takes this part to comic lengths but avoids overdoing things so that, as the storyline resolves with a tender moment, it isn't too hard to accept. He gets to sport Kate Turner-Walker's most outlandishly appropriate costumes. 

Milagros Ponce de León's set design elegantly solves the problem this multiple location play presents for a small black box theater. With two sliding bookcases which can be reversed to form room dividers or walls, the bar easily becomes an office which becomes an apartment then a hotel room and back again. Each location is distinct and appropriate for the scene and the impact of the special effect when the heroine's life literally collapses on her is very well done.

Written by Rebecca Gilman. Directed by Kirsten Kelly. Design: Milagros Ponce de León (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Joel Moritz (lights) Kirsten Kelly (sound) Bruce Robey (photography) Shawn Helm (stage manager). Cast: Carlos Bustamante, John Dow, Tara Giordano, Jim Jorgensen, Lucy Newman-Williams, Adele Robey, Eric Singdahlsen.

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Reviewed February 19
Running time 2 hours 5 minutes

Storyline: Three single twenty-somethings live in neighboring efficiency apartments in a less than luxury building. Their relationship as friends is based on their shared feelings of confinement in cramped quarters and the fact that they are each at the same stage of life, having finished formal schooling but not yet having established any level of notable success in such adult pursuits as careers or marriage.

While the cast numbers five, there are really three characters at the center of things while an almost off-stage world is inhabited by the other two. The three are Susan Lynskey as a struggling editor, Michael Glenn as a struggling composer and Ian LeValley who is struggling to master tongue twisters in order to become an auctioneer. Under Akerley's direction, each has developed a unique speech pattern to match the unique vocabulary and sentence structure written for the character by Gibson.

Not much actually happens during the short two-act show. The essence here isn't plot so much as it is the relationship between the three and the way they communicate with each other. Colorful descriptive terms abound. There are frequent touches of flippant banter. Sentences trail off at times and at others are completed by a different member of the trio than the one who started it off. The rather unique title of the piece is the playwright's affirmation that this is, in fact, the way these people really do speak.

The set design establishes this as a play of interrelationships even before the house lights go down. The flexible black-box theater at the H Street Playhouse has been set up so that the corridor of the apartment house divides the seating area into quarters with the three tiny apartments placed out at the extremes. As a result, wherever you sit, you will have to swivel your head to see the scenes in at least one of the apartments, creating the feeling that you aren't so much watching a play in a theater as you are witnessing life as it is being lived. There is another world beyond the circle of these young lives and Donahue has built another apartment at the extreme edge inhabited by Jason Lott and Adriene Nelson. Their parts are more ambiguous but seem to establish that life goes on outside the insular world of the three main characters. It is sure that not much is actually happening inside that world.

Written by Melissa James Gibson. Directed by Kathleen Akerley. Design: Thomas F. Donahue (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Suzen Mason (properties) John Burkland (lights) Jesse Terrill (sound & music)  Bruce Robey (photography) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: Michael Glenn, Ian LeValley, Jason Lott, Susan Lynskey, Adrienne Nelson.

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Reviewed August 9
Running time 2 hours 20 minutes

Storyline: Alice is an artist suffering the painter’s version of writers block, unable to even start, let alone finish a painting for which she has already been paid. As the pressures of deadlines and relationships with her lover and the client get too much for her she disappears through the blank canvas into the world of the mind where she meets various characters reminiscent of those familiar to anyone who knows Lewis Carroll’s original tales.

The Theater Alliance gives this new play by William Donnelly every chance to succeed. The cast is strong, the set is a delight, the costume, lighting and sound designs help turn the world inside out as Alice makes the leap into the never-world of imagination gone wild. Tony Cisek designed an artist's loft of white muslin for the reality scenes which flies apart to reveal a brightly colored fantasy world of the mind. Director Jeremy Skidmore moves the elements around in ever inventive efforts to keep the energy level high without seeming to be stuck at a single intensit.

Kathleen Coons resists what must have been a very strong temptation to overplay the reactions of Alice to all the madness that surrounds her, letting the audience fill in the blanks from time to time in a very satisfying performance. She’s surrounded by a mere ensemble of four but they handle what seems like dozens of roles both in the real world on one side of the canvas and the crazy one on the other. Particularly impressive is Jason Lott who manages to make each of the characters he plays (fellow artist and a security guard in the “real world” and a collection of strange creatures in the other) so different they don’t seem to be played by the same actor.

Donnelly’s script packs a great deal of punch, especially in the early going. It is ceaselessly inventive at the tricky task of making each of the denizens of Carroll’s demented world relate to the pressures in this Alice’s mind. He gives many of the characters telling lines such as the caterpillar’s criticism of Alice’s desire to be happy in her work: “Happy artists are bad artists.” In this case, at least for the majority of the evening, not only are the artists happy, so is the audience.

Written by William Donnelly. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Dan Covey (lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Bruce Robey (photography) Roy Gross (stage manager). Cast: Mando Alvarado, Rena Cherry Brown, Kathleen Coons, Diane Cooper-Gould, Jason Lott.

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Reviewed June 20
Running time 1 hour 50 minutes

Storyline: It is the last day in the life of Oedipus, who has wandered in exile since blinding himself in a spasm of guilt when he learned that the man he killed many years before was in fact his father, the King of Thebes, and that the woman he later married was in fact his mother. Led by his daughter Antigone, he has come to the city where the final confrontation with his successor and the truth of his tortured life plays out.

Such a storyline, based on the final work of Sophocles’ Oedipus trilogy, is not what you might expect from a musical, certainly not from a gospel musical. But playwright Lee Breuer believed in the mixture and sought out gospel music composer Bob Telson at the end of the 1970s to work on just such a project. What they came up with may have been stronger musically than dramatically but it became a big hit off-Broadway (although it had a failed run on Broadway) and has been produced around the country. This is the third time the Theater Alliance has staged the piece, the first here in their new home at the H Street Playhouse. Many of the key players in their previous productions are back.

Oedipus is played/sung by David K. North with a dignity that convinces and a passion that impresses. He’s no stranger to religious ceremony for he is the pastor of the Holy Redeemer Metropolitan Community Church in College Park. In stark contrast to his weighty presence as a man absorbed in his own misfortunes is the charm which James Foster brings to the role of the minister officiating at this service who tries to bring everyone into the fold, even exhorting the audience to clap and stomp along with the full cast in creating that “joyful noise” that characterizes much of true gospel music. It is infectious and inspiring. 

All this takes place in a tent constructed before the audience’s eyes and over their heads in the flexible black box of a theater on H Street. This is the third set design by Tony Cisek we have had reason to praise in reviews just this week -- when does this man sleep? Unlike his supremely realistic boathouse for Talley’s Folly at Theater J or his superbly surrealistic ice floe for Donna Q at Signature, this is an impressionistic environment constructed of muslin strung from every side in a moving opening sequence. It is matched by the sterling work of costume designer Cynthia Webb Manley who works in the same color scheme of whites, silvers and creams which catch and reflect lighting designer Lynn Joslin’s pallet of tones.

Conceived and adapted by Lee Breuer. Music by Bob Telson. Original lyrics by Lee Breuer. Adapted lyrics by Bob Telson and Lee Breuer. Directed by Paul-Dougles Michnewicz. Co-direction and music direction by James Foster. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Cynthia Webb-Manly assisted by Jerri Ford (costumes) Lynn Joslin (lights) Bruce Robey (photography) Andre Manly (stage manager). Cast: Vanessa Allegra, Tameka Borges, Dan Butler, Orlanzo Chappell, Korey L. R. Dean, James Foster, Angela J. Gates, Sandra Hill, LaSharon Johnson, Lisa Lewis, Wanda Lumpkins, Mark A. Myers, Rev. David K. North, Jacqueline O’Day, Kimberly Spencer-McLeod, Stephawn P. Stephens, Addison Switzer, Jerusa Carl Wilson.

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May 8 – June 7, 2003
Thief River

Reviewed May 11
Running time 1 hour 40 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: Teenage boys in rural Minnesota just after World War II take different paths through life as a result of different choices they make about how to deal with their sexuality and the seminal events triggered by their attraction to each other. These events took place and the choices were made when they were 18. The courses their lives took since that fateful day are examined at - - and from the perspective of - - the two times they came back together at ages 43 and 73.

The play skips forward and back, introducing plot twist after twist with surprising clarity that makes all the complications seem part of one organic whole. The event underlying the story emerges a little at a time. Just when you think you have the story put together in your mind, Blessing adds a detail you didn’t see coming. Part of the magic of this play is the way it challenges you and keeps you on your toes without the kind of false leads that mystery novels (or Agatha Christie plays) put in your way. This is serious business and Blessing isn’t toying with the audience. He’s revealing each detail only after the earlier details have sunk in and been thoroughly examined.

Each of the actors plays one of the two central characters and also one of the men who figured in the unfolding of the central story of their lives. There is a sense of continuity in the performance of Peter Wylie, R. Scott Williams and John Dow as one character at three ages, and the performance of Jeremy Skidmore, Tim Carlin and John Feist as the other. There is also a bond that emerges between the Wylie/Williams/Dow character and the Skidmore/Carlin/Feist character which grows stronger, richer and deeper throughout the evening as it did throughout their lives. Each of the actors must also give the secondary role a good shot and they do. Williams is particularly impressive at being two very different people in different scenes and Carlin finds as many telling little details in the smaller of the two parts he plays as he does for his major assignment, giving each a distinct personality without overdoing it.

The set is the work of the same Jeremy Skidmore who plays one third of one half of the pair (and, as Artistic Director of the Theater Alliance, is essentially the producer of this production). It is an elegant piece of work which is enhanced nicely by Peter Joyce’s precise and powerful lighting design which changes tone along with the action and provides visual clues to the changes in time. So, to, do Kate Turner-Walker’s costumes. Note the three inch cuff on the blue jeans of 1948, the one inch tie on the white short-sleeve shirt of 1973 and the plaid flannel jacket of 2001 defining one character at three stages. Ryan Rumery’s soundscape adds a sense of reality and also reinforces the sense of time, with supporting musical nuances. A George Winston-ish piano underscoring a monologue by a 73 year old segueing smoothly to a subtle synth as the monologue shifts to the 18 year old. The entire production is marked by reinforcing touches.

Written by Lee Blessing. Directed by Steven Carpenter. Fight choreography by Diane Cooper-Gould. Design: Jeremy Skidmore (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Peter Joyce (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound) Shawn Helm (stage manager). Cast: Tim Carlin, John Dow, John Feist, Jeremy Skidmore, R. Scott Williams, Peter Wylie.

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Reviewed February 20
Running time 2 hours 40 minutes

Design is not a factor in the failure of the production to capture the imagination. If you have ever toured a modern meatpacking plant you will recognize this assembly of scaffold-like structure on a stained and slimy concrete floor as a concentration of all the elements of reality. Tony Cizek creates a very real looking but still very serviceable playing space which Skidmore uses to great advantage as he creates stage pictures of striking images. The effect is amplified by the stark lighting effects of Dan Covey and the claxon sounds from Peter Finnegan. The world of this industrial hell is effectively created.

The cast works earnestly to drive home the menace of this mechanized milieu, with its time-driven repetitive motions leading to carpel tunnel syndrome, its flashing blades ever ready to slice a finger instead of a carcass, its dehumanizing devotion to the demands of the assembly line and the ever present oppression of a management presented in this script as not only unconcerned with worker welfare but viewing the employees as pawns to be manipulated for their own sick pleasures.

On the working floor you have strong performances from Thembi Duncan and Jennifer Mendenhall as packers whose sufferings are exasperated by factors of race and handicap. Among the men, Aubrey Deeker impresses most as the strange worker with a mysterious past. Hovering above Barry Abrams is suitably menacing and surreal in a role too obviously symbolic of the system’s ability to grind down individuals into components like scraps are ground into sausage.

Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Design: Tony Cisek (set), Kate Turner-Walker (costumes), Beth Baldwin (properties) Dan Covey (lights), Peter Finnegan (sound) Bruce Robey (photos). Cast: Thembi Duncan, Jennifer Mendenhall, Barry Abrams, Aubrey Deeker, Tim Carlin, Elizabeth Duck, James O. Dunn, James Foster.

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Reviewed November 7
Running time2 hours 30 minutes

Performed by Brad Sherrill. Directed by Scott Cowart. Design: Darryl Moran & Jeremy Skidmore (Lights) Mark Hickman (sound).

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Reviewed August 9
Running time 2 hours 30 minutes
Price $20
t Potomac Stages Pick

Adapted from Ted Hughes’ translations of Ovid by Tim Suplle and Simon Reade. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Choreographed by Sam Elmore and Kelly Parsley. Design: Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Ayun Fedorcha (lights) Peter Finnegan (sound) Bruce Robey (photography). Cast: Kathleen Coons, Sara Anika Nelson, Peter Finnegan, Sam Elmore, Mando Alvarado, Aubrey Deeker, Colby DiSarro, Shannon Dunne, Jack Frias, Lindsey Harrison, Cleo Pizana, Adele Robey.