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The premiere of a bright new comedy
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
Tickets $26 - $55

Storyline: A theater-obsessed young writer with a marked psychological resemblance to Woody Allen's on-screen personality wants to write the book and lyrics for a musical based on Allen's famous movie. In an effort to get the rights to that copyrighted work, he seeks out the daughter of one of the film's producers who gets him together with a famous Broadway composer who already has those rights. The writer, who is having a crisis in his relationship with his girlfriend of a dozen years, pursues the composer and the producer's daughter while slighting his long-time composing partner.

The storyline of this new comedy may not sound particularly funny, but it is simply the skeleton on which the brightly personable humor of Sam Forman is displayed. There is enough meat on the bones of the story to make it a pleasant evening of theater while it is the humor - in both the text and the performance - that puts flesh on the piece and gives it a chance to charm an audience. Director Shirley Serotsky sees to the pacing, making sure that the sure-fire lines land and the resulting laughs aren't interrupted, but avoiding any feeling of an expectant pause for an expected reaction.

Key to the success of the production is the charm of Lefkowitz who has polished his skills at speaking directly to an audience in a self-revealing monologue style. He is, of course, the young man whose two monologues of personal recollections of life in the Potomac Region's theater community we reviewed, Help Wanted - A Personal Search for Meaningful Employment at the Start of the 21st Century at CENTERSTAGE and Now What at Woolly Mammoth. Here the words may not be his, but he makes them sound as if they are - and his persona from earlier monologues is a fine fit for the Woody Allen-ish character of this play.

Deb Sivigny's costumes say a great deal about the personality of each character even before a line of dialogue begins the process of introducing him or her to the audience. The writer's worn jeans, rumpled jacket and open collar un-tucked shirt looks so Manhattan would-be with-it! The two composers are garbed in the complete opposites of zonked out pot head and Zen-ed in self absorbed success. The different personalities of the two women in the writer's world of the moment are equally well stated in thread. Robbie Hayes' set is a fun combination of the story's scene locations and the place in the fantasy world in the writer's mind, the exterior of a movie theater from the famous scene in the movie Annie Hall. Projections of movie posters and changing words on the marquee of that theater get a number of laughs as well.

Written by Sam Forman. Directed by Shirley Serotsky. Design: Robbie Hayes (set) Deb Sivigny (costumes) Matthew A. Anderson (choreography) Garth Dolan (lights) Matt Nielson (sound) Gabriel Kahane (music) Stan Barouh (photography) Karen Currie (stage manager). Cast: Matthew A. Anderson, Tessa Klein, Josh Lefkowitz, Maureen Rohn, Alexander Strain.

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A slippery fictional political thriller, sadly featuring too many trap doors
Running Time: 1:15 minutes - no intermission
Tickets $25 - $30

Storyline:  With the clock ticking before a scheduled US attack on Iranian nuclear sites, two estranged friends from Tehran, one Jewish and one Muslim, agree to a secret meeting in a monastery in an attempt to avoid war. With their friend, an American ambassador pursing his own agenda, this diplomatic nail-biter examines the ties that bind and break with the world’s fate hanging in the balance. The title perhaps comes from the canticle Benedictus given in Luke, that in the first verse is a song of thanksgiving for the realization of the Messianic hopes of the Jewish nation.

Motti Lerner is an Israeli playwright and screenwriter whose plays have been produced not only in Israel and the United States but throughout Western Europe and Australia. Most deal with political issues related to Israel and the Middle East. In his program notes, he writes that Benedictus began as collaboration of theater artists including American and Iranian-born and from various theater venues, who felt that "the political crisis triggered by the Iran-Israel-US triangle was, and is, far too dangerous to leave in the hands of politicians and journalists alone.” If his intent was to add additional voices to the discussion, that can only be welcomed. Then again your reviewer does wonder what the final black-out might have been if any number of other artists, with their own political motivations (artist with political motivations, is that possible?) had crafted the production. However, that is what artistry is about, isn’t it? Director Rahaleh Nassir has recent Potomac region credits including Breath, Boom which was a Potomac Stages Pick at Studio Theatre’s 2^nd Stage.  Here she has taken the static and given it life, invigorating the words that characters speak in a gritty, fiery debate as the production heats up to its finish. She has added enough movement among the characters that the slow talking and slower walking Monk plays against the exhilarating speech patterns of the two protagonists.

Conrad Feininger is the American Ambassador with his own past links to Tolaydo and Kramer. He holds the real power, while others try to appear to have some ability to influence and reduce the possibility of war. His past includes imprisonment for 444 days after the Iranian Revolution broke out and the American Embassy was overtaken. His trust for anything Iranian is clearly limited and may fog his ability to provide “objective” analysis of the situation. And war is something that has been on his mind for decades. A quieter, but just as deadly presence, is Richard Mancini as the representative of the Pope, without troops, but with a spiritual affect that might be able to change the direction of things. Seemingly an unimportant character to start, he is far from it, especially as he delivers the pronouncement that ultimately leads to no exit except the one developed by the US Government.

A simple set includes contemporary appearing frosted glass panels at the wings and center with a large cross showing through at the back wall for those in the center of the rows of seating. The room is presented as in the Vatican. On stage is a frosted glass table with two chairs on rollers. Sounds include recordings as an introduction to the production and to set each of the many scenes. Recorded voices range from President Jimmy Carter to Walter Cronkite, to Iranian leadership and more during 1978 and then 30 years later. The costumes are rumpled suits except for that of the monk. Lighting is minimal except when a character moves down stage to present his internal thoughts by way of a monologue.

Written by Motti Lerner. Co-created by Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Motti Lerner, Roberta Levitow, Daniel Michaelson and Torange Yeghiazarian. Directed by Rahaleh Nassari. Design: David Ghatan (set and properties) Lynly Saunders (costumes) Martha Mountain (lights) Matt Otto (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Seth Finkle (stage manager). Cast: Conrad Feininger, Michael Kramer, Richard Mancini, Michael Tolaydo.

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Running time 2:10 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an absorbing exploration of moral dilemmas which is what Theater J does best
Price range $30 - $55

There's a striking theatricality to the presentation that carries throughout the evening. The opening scene takes place on a road and the rest of the play is staged on that same surface with various tables, chairs and desks distributed in different patterns to make different locations. But the road is always there. Since it is the impact of the events on that road that affect the subsequent scenes, that works eloquently. Throughout the play, the dialogue of Mitelpunkt, at least as translated by David Berkoff, is sharp and clear with no ambiguities. Each character lets loose with the emotion of the moment as the more complicated aspects of their interrelated relationships unravel.

Michael Tolaydo, stomping about with an ill-disguised energy and disquiet in the aftermath of "the accident" and Paul Morella trying to find just the right tone to convince his friend to leave the scene without involving him, are a fine team. Later, Tolaydo teams with Jennifer Mendenhall in a series of touching moments as they search for a way out of the conundrum created by the act of weakness on the road. Both Eliza Bell and Becky Peters, as women with multiple connections to the others that become clear with time, have flashes of sharp focus as well.

If you are lucky enough to have seats in the center of the house your first impression of the set will be one of those "oh, wow!" moments with the visage of a road disappearing into infinity beyond the proscenium. The import of that road's progress into the abyss will become clear as the evening progresses, but it is that first impression - and the first lighting effect - which will stay with you long after detailed memories of the play begin to recede. Sometime far in the future, someone will ask "which show was The Accident?" and you'll respond "the one with the road jutting into the audience." Thanks to both Tony Cisek who designed the set and lighting designer Martha Mountain for the memory.

Written by Hillel Mitelpunkt. Translated by David Berkoff. Adapted for the American stage by Ari Roth. Directed by Sinai Peter. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Gili Cohavi (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties) Martha Mountain (lights) Chris Baine (sound) Hanna Hakohen (music) Rebecca Berlin (stage manager). Cast: Eliza Bell, Jennifer Mendenhall, Paul Morella, Becky Peters, Michael Tolaydo.

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Running time 1:40 - no intermission
An affectionate biographical sketch

Storyline: Theodore Bikel appears in a solo-play with with music that he has written telling the story of the author Sholom Aleichem.

Three iconic individuals are on display in this one man show - no mean trick for a lone actor in his 84th year. One is Sholom Aleichem, the Russian Jew who was often referred to as "The Yiddish Mark Twain" (but, as you learn in this production, Mark Twain told him "No, I'm the American Sholom Aleichem.") He wrote his stories and plays in Yiddish, popularizing the language as well as spreading the cultural legacy of eastern-European Jewry. The second is his most famous creation, the character Tevye, the dairyman, who chats with God about the trials and tribulations of the life of a poor man with five daughters to find matches for without dowries. The third is Theodore Bikel, whose career as a performer has included so many performances as Tevye that to many he is Tevye.

Bikel is a cagy professional who knows full well how to charm an audience, and he expends a good deal of personal charisma over the course of his hour and a half on this stage. It is in service to a cause about which he clearly cares a great deal - legacy. Indeed, he even asks from the stage "Does anybody worry about legacy?" It is a plea for saving what is worth saving in a culture and passing it on to new generations. Strangely, then, the show itself tends to reintroduce Aleichem and his creation to those who already know a good deal about him and his stories, but doesn't serve as an introduction to the fascinating material for those who don't know much of the background beyond songs like "If I Were A Rich Man" and "Sunrise Sunset."

Working on a stage with just two chairs and a lectern under a proscenium arch on which the evocative projections of Zachary Borovay are shown to enrich the theatrical feeling of the evening, Bikel and two supporting musicians carry the audience through some of Aleichem's own story and snippets of some of his writings, while Bikel, who began his performing career as a singer of folk songs as well as an actor, punctuates points with his own English translations of traditional Yiddish songs. After nearly an hour of this, however, something special happens. Bikel turns to the Tevye storeis - and becomes Tevye. In the final sequence, he doesn't tell you how good or important the material is. He demonstrates it.

Written and performed by Theodore Bikel. Directed by Derek Goldman. Design: Robbie Hayes (set) Zachary Borovay (projections) Frank Labovitz (costumes) Dan Covey (lights) Stan Barouh (photography) Rebecca Berlin (stage manager). Musicians: Tamara Brooks, Merima Kljuco.

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Running time 2:05 - one intermission
Disturbing drama of Bosnia's time of trouble

Storyline: As war breaks out in Bosnia, the lives of four people connected by their pasts intersect in two kitchens. In one a Serbian soldier terrorizes a woman who it turns out he knew in better days. In the other a Bosnian is befriended by an elderly woman across cultural lines.

With the playwright of this look at the cultural conflict of Bosnia having the last name of Zadravec, audiences may mistakenly approach the piece as a play by a native who lived through Bosnia's heartbreak after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the simmering hatred unleashed in the aftermath between the Bosniaks and Croats. Stefanie Zadravec did live through the times, but did so here in the United States - the Upper East Side of Manhattan, to be precise. She sought to understand the horrors afflicting the land of her ancestors, however, and that effort led to the play. That sense of viewing troubling events from a remote perspective pervades the piece and helps American audiences connect with the questions it raises. However, the voice of Manhattan is never silenced in the dialogue Sadravec writes. With lines like "Hold on to your horses," "This will knock your socks off," "No kidding" and "We just about lost it" the conversations sound more reminiscent of East 85th Street and Second Avenue than of the Visegradski Most bridge over the river Drina.

With dialogue like that it is a good thing that Maia DeSanti, Joel Reuben Gans, Barbara Rappaport and Alexander Strain, along with their supporting cast, do not adopt thick eastern-European accents. The contrast would be too distracting. Instead, a more generic sound allows each major character to be represented by more subtle distinctions. Strain - who has a host of expletives of the four letter word beginning with "F" - lets his character's sense of panic explode, while DeSanti huddles against a partition and then summons the strength to attempt to survive the danger. Rappaport, as the elderly lady who spoons out tea and soup by the dram, gives a more colloquial tone to the "little old lady" role at the start and then grows as both the audience and Ganz, as the soldier who invades her space, get used to it.

James Kronzer contributes a set that tries to link the two kitchens in which the action takes place to the world to which the conflict comes. It is only partially successful as the two kitchens seem too similar and the appearance of the hallway of the apartment house as a backdrop and the brief display of an exterior wall riddled with bullet holes defeat the effort to establish that one is in Sarajevo and the other in Visegrad, separated by some 68 miles and a cultural gulf of immeasurable breadth. Both textual and visual clues as to just where we are at any given point in the story are missing. But once you stop trying to decipher the geography of the play, the psychology of the dilemma facing all four of the key characters can be wrenching.

Written by Stefanie Zadravec. Directed by Jessica Lefkow. Fight direction by Paul Gallagher. Design: James Kronzer (set) Misha Kachman (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties) Jason Arnold (lights) Matt Nielson (sound) Karen Currie (stage manager). Cast: Taylor Dawson, Maia DeSanti, Joel Reuben Ganz, Barbara Rappaport, Alexander Strain, Shane Wallis, Grady Weatherford.

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Running Time 1: 45 no intermission
A high energy roller-coaster ride of sarcastic invective
 and soulful song

Story Line: A fusion of cabaret, rock and satirically delivered comic monologue aimed at today’s politicians and yesterday’s cultural icons. A hard driving three-piece band adds to the energy.

As directed by Bernhard and Kenneth Hartun, the show begins with an immediate head-turner as the audience waits patiently to view Ms. Bernhard. But her voice comes from somewhere unexpected as a spotlight slowly comes up to reveal her. She then descends to the stage area working the audience every step of the way. The production is broken into discrete scenes of 15 minutes or so each with a main theme for each scene; politics, Jewish upbringing, the lives of African American women, the trajectory of the current Presidential campaign as well as backward looks at the 1970’s and 80’s, decades that anchored Bernhard's life. When looking backwards, she appeared to be searching for icons, phrases and names that will immediately resonate with the audience. This is a very risky venture since in a live performance every audience is different. A too backward glance requires the audience to have the same visions memorized to make the desired connection and impact or it is just an ancient history lesson. (This reviewer remembers that the Borscht Belt died for a reason.)

On stage, Bernhard launches into her personal observations and songs with towering vigor. She sarcastically delivers lines aimed directed at Senator Joseph Lieberman and his wife Hadassah as well as Governor Sarah Palin, to name the recipients of some of her barbs. Her heroines are clear from the get-go ... African-American women such as Michelle Obama, Nina Simon and Jennifer Hudson representing all mistreated black women as Bernhard sings “And I’m Telling You (I’m Not Going)".  White males need not apply for hero status. In her looks back she name drops, seeking audience reactions; disco music, signs of the Zodiac, Rosie O’Donnell, Rémy Martin cognac, Coors beer, Project Runway, abstinence education, as well as the current trend for expensive cupcakes that are hard and dry when compared to Duncan Hines mix. In several scenes Bernhard is the African-American chanteuse she envisions herself to be, backed by a strong 3 piece band. An hour into the Sunday matinee performance she was unhappy with the lack of reactions by what she considered a too staid DC audience “who needed their sleep” for the next day’s work. She spoke of how unusual it was for her to work “during the daylight” and that the audience needed to wake and give her some love. She got what she asked for. Bernhard was not all rough edges, far from it. She often enough was a Rabbi in her High Holy Day’s sermon imploring her flock, to infuse them with compassion and remind them that it’s not what you wear that matters, but what is inside you that really counts.

The minimal set at Theater J is just a platform for Bernard and her all-male band, The Rebellious Jezebels. To give some appearance as a cabaret, there are 5 round tables on the floor between the first row of regular theater seats and the stage. What is a stand-out to this reviewer was Bernhard’s outfit and make-up. As she first comes into view and for nearly the entire production, Bernhard is alluring, far from a raunchy apparition. Rather, she is a woman of certain means and not a New York City Greenwich Village revolutionary. She appears quite comfortable in her appearance; subdued make-up, lightly colored lipstick hiding and accentuating her full lips, a white lace couture dress above knee length but with her legs veiled in black hose. And her hair is in a prom-like up-do with only her high stilettos giving away what might be in store. Then, when she comes out emulating 1970’s rockers in the final 15 minutes of the production, it is with rich red lips, lush blush and her hair in beautiful tangles, a definite visual force attired in black leather pants, suede high heel boots, a white open-necked shirt with a black bra.

Written by Sandra Bernhard and John Boskovich. Directed by Kenneth Hartun and Sandra Bernhard. Design: Jason Arnold (lights) Christopher Downing (sound) Elyce Turner (stage manager.) Cast: Sandra Bernhard. Musicians: Mitchell Kaplan (keyboards) Chris Jacks (guitar) Miles Kennedy (drums).

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Running time 2:30 - one intermission
A Biblical Bio-Musical
 

Storyline: Adam, the first man, has high hopes for the son of Saul, a youth named David who seemed fated to die an early death. So Adam, who by now had lived over 800 years, donated some seventy of his own remaining years to David so he could live the long and productive life Adam foresaw. Although David slays Goliath and rises to the throne, that life plays out with more difficulties and disappointments than Adam had hoped.

It may be indicative that, unlike so many musicals that succeed because of the skills of the book writer and/or the lyricist, the credit claimed by Yehuda Hyman is "libretto by." Operas have librettos. Musicals have books and lyrics. Hyman approaches the creation of this work with a sense of earnest seriousness that defeats the effort to achieve the unique blend of storytelling, emotional truth and silliness derived from the American musical's roots in vaudeville shtick. He throws in flights of fancy such as the concept that an angel is showing Adam a movie of David's life. But it comes off more like something from Adam Glass and Alice Goodman (think Nixon in China) than from Cy Coleman, David Zippel and Larry Gelbart (think City of Angels). Hoffman's score follows the currently trendy habit of using music to structure scenes rather than singing songs. Bits of melody float by from time to time but never linger long enough to burrow into your consciousness. The only musical or lyrical phrase that lingers at all is the repetitive "twenty four frames per second of light," a reference to the speed of movie film through a projector. It becomes more irritating than ingratiating.

Two fine actors portray the hero over a wide age range. Matt Pearson is David the handsome, virile youth. Bobby Smith, after creating the character of David's father Saul, becomes the conniving, mature king. Pearson's voice is more melodious than Smiths, if slightly less expressive, and Smith digs into his own personal grab bag of the tricks of a veteran performer to keep the interest level from flagging even earlier than it does. Carolyn Agan provides purity of voice and a lovely vision as Michal. A sadly underutilized Will Gartshore is both Jonathan, and David's son Absolom. Lawrence Redmond's performance as the soldier who has the misfortune to be married to the object of David's latest crush is well done, even as he's called upon to do an overly broad drunk act. Goliath is a plodding Russell Sunday. Off to one side, Donna Migliaccio and Norman Aronovic try mightily to generate some spark as the angel and Adam.

The problems in the turgid book and undistinguished score might have been offset by a sparkling physical production, but Olcott opts for a mono-palate look that lacks excitement or any capacity to divert. Misha Kachman's set is essentially an interlocking pair of plain white walls and Reggie Ray's costumes run the non-colorful gamut from white robes to unaccountably mod-looking black outfits (including patent leather platform boots and pants for Goliath). Even the introduction of "cute" puppets for the young shepherd David's flock of sheep continues the monochrome look. The choreography of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's DiMuro and Strassfeld is fairly rudimentary when the cast is dancing before the white walls, but more expressive when they perform in shadow from behind. The effect is repeated too often, however, and the natural exaggeration of body images as the shadows are generated either closer or farther from the screen is not used to any discernable effect.

Music by Daniel Hoffman. Libretto by Yehuda Hyman. Directed by Nick Olcott. Choreographed by Peter DiMuro and Shula Strassfeld of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Fight choreography by Paul Gallagher. Musical direction by George Fulginiti-Shakar. Design: Misha Kachman (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties and masks) Ksenya Litvak (puppets) Colin K. Bills (lights) Matt Otto (sound) Maribeth Chaprnka (stage manager). Cast: Carolyn Agan, Mathew A. Anderson, Norman Aronivic, Will Gartshore, Donna Migliaccio, Matt Pearson, Lawrence Redmond, Bobby Smith, Russell Sunday, Peggy Yates.  Musicians: Daniel Hoffman, William Knowles, N. Scott Robinson, Josh Schwartzman.

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Running time 2:30 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a performance not to be missed
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A New York City policeman, approaching his own 50th birthday and potential retirement from the force, meets a ninety year old used furniture dealer in the attic of his childhood home to arrange for the sale of the remaining furniture which had not been disposed of after the death of his father. His wife sees the proceeds from the sale as the last chance to straighten out their finances before his retirement, but there is the question of the financial interest of his brother with whom he's been all but estranged for years. When the brother shows up in the middle of the negotiations, all the emotional sores are reopened.

Miller, the master playwright whose 1949 Death of a Salesman and 1955 A View from the Bridge are being revived by Arena Stage right now, demonstrated again in this 1967 drama his ability to structure a play with nearly seamless progressions from basic concept to individual character development to climax in carefully measured steps. He never gets ahead of his audience, but never seems to be holding back for the slowest among them. He never aims for the lowest common denominator. It all simply seems to work. This particular revival came about because Robert Prosky and his sons agreed to do the show together at the Cape May Stage, an equity house in a converted church in the beach town in New Jersey where Robert and his wife have a summer home and where his son Andrew has performed many times. That was the summer of 2006. This January, they returned to the roles at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre, the oldest continuously operating theater in America in a joint production with Theater J.

Robert Prosky turns in a performance that must be considered an instant classic. His humor, the way he allows the humanity underlying the character to shine through the curmudgeonly crust of age, and most impressively, the way he deflects attention from himself to the others on stage with him are quite unique. Two of the three who share the stage are, of course, his own flesh and blood. Andrew Prosky, who was impressive in the 2006 Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia (most specifically in Richard Dresser's Rounding Third) has the more sympathetic role of the tormented younger brother, and he gives the kind of performance that would be the talk of the evening if it weren't for his father's even better work. John Prosky has the less satisfying and smaller role of the older brother who arrives on the scene late in the first act after all that fabulous interchange between the old furniture dealer and the younger brother has won the hearts of the audience. He does what can be done with it, and builds to an emotionally impressive peak in the second act. Leisa Mather joins the family as the policeman's wife.

Under director Michael Carleton, the production provides a sumptuous design for the space where the action takes place. Robert Kramer's attic set is piled high with old furniture and objects that might well tempt a used furniture dealer. The dinning room table, armoire, library table and, most particularly, the harp which are topics of conversation during the play, look for all the world like the real thing. The costumes also reinforce the feelings of the time (the play takes place in the mid-1960s) and the relative positions of the characters. The rumpled suit for Robert Prosky is as right for the role as is the actor - and that's saying a great deal.

Written by Arthur Miller. Directed by Michael Carleton. Design: Robert Kramer (set) Colleen Grady (costumes) Jason Arnold (lights) Kate Kilbane (stage manager). Cast: Leisa Mather, Andrew Prosky, John Prosky, Robert Prosky.

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Running time 1:15 - no intermission
Judy Gold stands tall in this one-woman comedy routine
Click here to buy the book

Storyline: Judy Gold and playwright Kate Moira Ryan traveled across the United States and interviewed over 50 Jewish women, of different ages, occupations and ethnicities. From these interviews - and Gold’s own relationships with her Mother, a former partner and children - comes this one-woman evening of stand-up comedy.

Playwright Kate Moira Ryan and Judy Gold had a high concept. Knowing what they knew about Gold’s mother-daughter relationship, they set off to learn how comedy might inform or how it might be used to reduce pain, suffering and hurt. They schlepped across the USA to interview Jewish woman. And after many such interviews 25 Questions was developed. About nine of the interviewed women’s stories were used in the production. The different points of view were mostly limited to whether a woman was a Reform, Conservative or Orthodox Jew. There was one convert to the faith. She was Chinese. There were no Black Jewish women, no Hispanic Jewish women, and no poor Jewish women. Some did have old Yiddish inflected accents.

Stand-up comedy is a blood sport. There you are, under a spotlight, with the audience waiting to be convulsed. Judy Gold has no problems taking on any audience. She just stands center stage and puts the fear of God into you with her strong gestures, tall frame and brass. She is a delightful deliverer of great comedy. Yet, there are times when she gets lost in the back and forth between mocking humor and the more contemplative presentation of Jewish women and their struggles as Jews, as woman, as Mothers and as people with differing views of how God might be in their lives. Gold delivers her mother-daughter vignettes with much yelling, invective, hand movements and rolling of eyes. She bounds around with deadpan looks and boisterous attitudes, hating New Jersey, wondering why her brothers were loved more than she, and falling in love with a woman. These are a pleasure to watch. But there are also the vignettes based upon the interviews of other women. Here the comedy trails off. The vignettes range from the notion of how horrible events, such as the Holocaust, can be turned into either a positive way to live out one’s life or how the unexpected death of a brother can lead to a life lived in fear. Other vignettes ask “Does one sit Shiva if your dead child is Gay?" and "How does one explain a long term relationship's breakup to a young child when he has two Mommies?” One of the high points of the evening was an unscripted give and take with a couple in the audience. At this point Gold was just plain real. A bantering hoot without being hurtful.

The technical work for the production is as would be expected for a standup comedy production; microphones, a side chair and necessary spotlights. The preshow music is of interest in setting up the performance and includes soft pop musical groups of the later 1960’s-early 1970’s such as The Carpenters, The Fifth Dimension, Captain and Tenille, Carly Simon, and The Association with song titles such as “Close to You,” "Beautiful Balloon,” “Love Will Keep us Together,” “Anticipation” and the anthem “I am Woman.”

Written by Kate Moira Ryan with Judy Gold. Directed by Karen Kohlass. Design: Louisa Thompson (set) Jennifer Tipton (lights) Jorge Muelle (sound) Damon W. Arringtron and Kate Kilbane (stage managers). Cast: Judy Gold.

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Running time 2:05 - one intermission
A klezmer musical version of a whimsical story
Click here to buy Singer's Book of Stories

Storyline: Shlemiel, the beadle of the tiny town of fools called Chelm, is sent off to spread the word of the supposed wisdom of the town fathers. He's tricked into coming right back into town, but thinks he's stumbled on a duplicate of Chelm. When he finds his wife and children, he thinks they are duplicates too, but he falls back in love with Mrs. Shlemiel, thinking she's a different woman. His "infidelity" is discovered and he's banished - only to be tricked again, and so he returns to what he thinks is "Chelm One."

Not sure just what "klezmer" is? Think of the wedding dance in Fiddler on the Roof - you got it!  Fiddler was a kind of klezmerization of show music, if you will. This, on the other hand, is more klezmer and much truer to the klezmer traditions. Those traditions grew out of the dance music played at wedding parties in east-European Jewish communities when the devotional music of the ceremony was blended with the joyous release of celebration. Here, with a four piece band, the music becomes practically irresistible. The story is pretty catchy, as well with its folk tale simplicity and underlying theme of being able to leave the errors of your past behind you - at least for a while.

The two leading women are the most memorable. There's McWilliams, doing some of her finest work in a light-hearted role, making the part of Mrs. Shlemiel both very funny and quite touching. Migliaccio is a fabulous comic shrew - complete with pickle to pound on the head of her husband. The men are good but not quite as much fun. Thomas Howley does get a good deal of the foolishness of Shlemiel's gullibility right and Dan Manning mugs his way through multiple bits as Migliaccio's mate, the town's leading "wise man" who suffers the indignity of the attacks from her club-like gherkin while holding forth with his hair brained theories. The town's other "wise men" are portrayed by four highly talented individuals, each of whom rarely bursts out of the ensemble to display individuality. Thus, the talents of Matthew Anderson, Rob McQuay, Fred Strother and Howard Stegack seem at times wasted, but, in fact, they are simply sacrificing the spotlight for the good of the ensemble. Under-utilized in the first half but coming brightly into the spotlight with the second act's second song "Papa Don't Be Meshuga" are Justin Pereira and Isabel Thompson as Shlemiel's children. Pereira is particularly sharp with the comedy of the song.

The infectious beat of this music is never quite as contagious as in the on-stage solo taken by Clarinetist David Julian Gray along with the violin fiddled by Daniel Hoffman that opens the second act. The first act had a brief musical intro that used a single reference to "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler but it is that second act opener that really gets the audience going.

Conceived and adapted by Robert Brustein based on the play by I. B. Singer. Music by Hankus Netsky. Lyrics by Arnold Weinstein. Directed by Nick Olcott. Additional music and arrangements by Zalmen Mlotek. Music direction by Derek Bowley. Choreography by Michael Bobbitt. Design: Misha Kachman (set) Kathleen Runey (scenic artist) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Andrea Moore (properties) Martha Mountain (lights) Maribeth Chaprnka (stage manager). Cast: Matthew A. Anderson, Thomas Howley, Dan Manning, Rob McQuay, Amy McWilliams, Donna Migliaccio, Justin Pereira, Fred Strother, Howard Stregack, Isabel Thompson.  Musicians: Derek Bowley, Daniel Hoffman, David Julian Gray, Joe Link.

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Running time 1:55 - one intermission
A fast paced spearing of Hollywood's studio system
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A new Head of Production for a major studio, an expert at working the system, has a dream project dropped into his lap by a subordinate anxious to get ahead. As they prepare to pitch the big boss, they are distracted by an earnest and sexy temporary worker and one bets the other he can bed her in just one night. She, on the other hand, has a project of her own to pitch.

Mamet's ability to light up the stage with bright dialogue is on display here. He puts some fabulous words in the mouths of these three characters and they all ring true. When the head of production says he wants to film a sophomoric novel about the effect of radiation on society he says it is because he believes in the book, to which the subordinate who wants him to do his project instead responds "I believe in the Yellow Pages but I don't want to film it!" and challenges him to "tell it to me in one sentence ... if you can't tell it to me in one sentence, they can't print it in TV Guide." Mamet never delves below the surface of the characters, however. That may well be because he doesn't believe they have anything under the surface, but the facile byplay of these characters is in stark contrast to the depth of understanding of the tormented sales staff in Glengarry. No one would market Glengarry as a comedy, however. This lighter work is simply a comedy. A very good comedy.

Danton Stone is suitably smarmy as the Head of Production who talks a mile a minute when he wants something, which is practically every waking moment. "I'm going to do you the honor of speaking frankly" is a line that slithers from his mouth with an intimidating, I-dare-you-to-question-my-integrity pose. Many of his one-liners are directed to Peter Birkenhead, who is energetic and tightly wound as the nearly hyper would-be producer. Both are new to Theater J and the Potomac Region. A familiar face, however, is that of Meghan Grady, a frequent player at Synetic who was most recently on this stage in Either Or. She's the real pleasure in the trio, absolutely nailing the fast flying flippantry of the contest of wills between her and Stone in act two.

Daniel Conway provides not one but two striking sets for the three-act play. The first set is the executive office in the movie studio. It is used for acts one and three. In between is the apartment of the Head of Production where his seduction of the temporary worker - or is that his seduction by the temporary worker? - takes place. The production takes a fifteen minute intermission between acts one and two to allow changing the set but just a quick stretch break while the stagehands put it back together. Since Theater J's home in the Goldman Theater is a thrust stage without a curtain, the shift is conducted in full view of a fascinated audience, many of whom applaud once the change has been accomplished.

Written by David Mamet. Directed by Jerry Whiddon. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties) Cory Ryan Frank (lights) Neil McFadden (sound) Karen Currie (stage manager). Cast: Peter Birkenhead, Meghan Grady, Danton Stone.

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Running time 2:20 - one intermission
A powerful drama of a family caught in the politics of the modern middle east

Storyline: In the year 2012, the family of the leader of a Jewish settlement in an area of the West Bank which was taken from Jordan in the Six Day War of 1967 is torn by the emotional pressures of their differing reactions to Israeli agreements in a United States brokered peace agreement. The agreement would threaten their ability to remain in their home and live in their community.

Motti Lerner, whose Passing the Love of Women was produced here in 2004, wrote an earlier version of this play twenty years ago. Theater J asked him to update it after doing a one-night reading of his original script, and he has re-thought some of the political events that trigger the reactions of the family members but has retained the family-centered aspects of the play. This is the premiere of the English language version of the play. It is a blend of timelessness in his family-centered set of character studies, and timeliness in his treatment of a completely believable political scenario. Just who is President of the United States, Prime Minister of Israel or President of the Palestinian National Authority isn't at issue here. It is the impact of their actions on one family that is. That reduces geopolitics to personal terms. Lerner manages to incorporate the different views that different people even in the same family can have.

Michael Tolaydo turns in another polished performance that reveals the workings of a mind and a conscience in a fundamentally good man who has to face the consequences of his own actions, in this case years of leadership of a Zionist settlement in the area that might well be "returned" in a peace agreement. The script gives him plenty of opportunity to show growth and development and he takes every advantage. Laura Giannarelli is particularly understandable as his long supporting wife whose love for him is tested by her love for the rest of her family. Alexander Strain is superb as their younger son whose home is his hope. Lindsay Haynes, as their daughter, and Joel Reuben Ganz, as her husband, do fine jobs with satisfyingly complex characters. Of all the eight-member cast on stage, only Norman Aronovic, as a neighbor who is both in-law to their daughter and the secretary of the settlement, seems a bit artificial. The rest all interrelate in a very believable representation of an extended family under pressure.

While the cast is entirely local, the production features an international mix in the creative team. The director, Sinai Peter is an Israeli who was an Artistic Director at the Haifa Municipal Theatre. The attractive set of the modern home with its panoramic view of the settlements in Samaria is by Kinereth Kisch and the contemporary costumes, which so nicely reinforce each performer's efforts to establish individual characters, are by Dalia Penn. Both are Israeli artists working with local lighting designer Martha Mountain and properties designer Michelle Elwyn. The sound for the production is handled by local sound designer Clay Teunis with incidental music composed by Israeli Hannah Kakohen. The result is a physical production that feels right, giving American audiences a chance to feel a bit of what daily life is like in an area of our world where tension and domestic life co-exist.

Written by Motti Lerner. Directed by Sinai Peter. Design: Kinereth Kisch (set) Dalia Penn (costumes) Martha Mountain (lights) Clay Teunis (sound) Hannah Hakohen (incidental music) Stan Barouh (photography) Maribeth Chaprnka (stage manager). Cast: Norman Aronovic, Becky Peters, Joel Reuben Ganz, Laura Giannarelli, Lindsay Haynes, John Johnston, Alexander Strain, Michael Tolaydo, and the voice of Dan Raviv.

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Running time 2:35 - one intermission
A powerful holocaust play impeccably performed

Storyline: A German evangelical Christian with an expertise in chemistry is caught up in the Nazi movement and his knowledge of extermination chemicals is found to be of importance to those in the party and the government who administer the mass murder programs of the Reich. He's appalled when his mentally disturbed sister is a victim of the systematic killing of the "mentally deficient," but gets caught up himself in the program when his knowledge of Zyklon B which promises to be a more efficient chemical for the gas chambers in the concentration camps.

Keneally gives us a look into the quandary facing one tiny cog on the gigantic gear that powered one element of a horrific aspect of human history. This is the role of a holocaust play (or book or movie) - to let us, or force us, to think in terms of individual actions rather than sit back and comfortably condemn broad sweeps of history. The result isn't a particularly pleasant evening in the theater, but, then, it shouldn't be. It should be difficult to look this moment in history in the face without blinking, and Keneally gives us the opportunity to do that by focusing in so closely on real people that make real choices rather than specks blown by the irresistible winds of history.

Paul Morella leads a cast of well known faces. His ramrod stiff posture reveals the pressure inside as he grapples with the series of blows history has for him. He's particularly good at revealing the reluctance to believe the nearly-unbelievable, and the power of the blow when he realizes the consequences of what is expected of him. Ralph Cosham is solid as his even stiffer father who is assailed by no doubts at all, who can actually say with a straight face "to tell a government what it wants to hear is not a lie, it is a civic courtesy." Two women put a human face on the dilemma and they are nicely played by Elizabeth H. Richards and Meghan Grady. The rest of the cast are called upon to play multiple roles given that Keneally has written a play with more parts than most theaters can afford to fill. John Lescault has four roles ranging from a pastor to the Papal Nuncio and Conrad Feininger is both a civilian investigator and an SS police chief. All do creditable jobs in each of their roles.

James Kronzer's set reflects what has become known as "Nazi Architecture," that strange amalgamation of Imperial Roman grandeur and Art Deco fluidity. He carries set pieces beyond the proscenium to draw the audience into the strange world of the Third Reich. The most dramatic image of the evening is saved for the very last. Morella's character has meticulously saved the paperwork which, in true Teutonic spirit, he believes will prove his version of events to be the truth. As he is taken away after the fall of the Reich, all that remains on stage is his stack of papers - highlighted by a spotlight. It is a call to study the record, find the truth and remember.

Written by Thomas Keneally. Directed by Daniel De Raey. Design: James Kronzer (set) Misha Kachman (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties) Martha Mountain (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Kate Kilbane (stage manager). Cast: Ralph Cosham, Parker Dixon, John Dow, Conrad Feininger, Meghan Grady, John Lescault, John-Michael MacDonald, Paul Morella, Elizabeth Richards, Clay Steakley.

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Running time 1:40 - no intermission
A solo performance featuring five members of one family

Storyline: One actress portrays five members of a family - father, mother, two daughters and a grandmother. Bonds of love are stretched but never broken as each pursues his or her own idea of happiness.

Don't look here for a revelation of this family's secrets. You will simply have to attend and let Glaser tell them in her own way. Suffice it to say that each of the five characters are talking about their family trials and tribulations, hopes and dreams, pressures and bonds. There is affection in each characterization although there is also great humor in the magnification of quirks and peculiarities. You get the feeling that none of the five would allow anyone outside the family to say any of the things they say about themselves.

Each of the five characters are strongly sketched, with an emphasis on their peculiarities at the start but an equal emphasis on their family ties by the end. At each change of character Glaser changes costumes on-stage, costumes she has been wearing over a plain black leotard, and discarding whatever wig completed the image of the previous character. The result is a bit repetitive, with each vignette lasting approximately the same amount of time and following approximately the same structure. By the fourth or fifth vignette, you can pretty much predict how the presentation will proceed. Even so, you are carried along by Glaser's obvious affection for her subjects.

The most intriguing feature of the spare set design is the mirror into which Glaser stares as she applies different styles of makeup. It is a see-through mirror so that all of the audience can see her actions while she can see her own reflection to apply the makeup. At times it makes her monologue seem as if she is talking to herself in the mirror rather than to the members of the audience. It emphasizes the intimacy of the revelations and forms something of a compact with the audience who are both listening and eavesdropping. Such are the pleasures of solo-shows.

Written by Sherry Glaser and Greg Howells. Based on the New York production directed by Bob Balaban. Design: Rob Odorisio's set adapted by Thomas Howley. John-Paul Szczepanski's lighting design adapted by Jason Arnold. David Elias (stage manager). Cast: Sherry Glaser.

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Running time 2:20 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a lovely and lively memoir of life in an unorthodox family
Click here to buy the memoir

Storyline: In the stage adaptation of her own memoir, Laura Shaine Cunningham remembers what life was like in her youth in the Bronx in the 1950s when, at age eight, she lost her mother and was raised by her two eccentric uncles.

Klein establishes her adult-looking-back-on-childhood character quickly and builds a very touching bond with Becky Peters as her mother. Taylor made another fine casting choice when she avoided having Peters double on other parts once the mother has died. There's enough doubling with Cam Magee taking on multiple roles. As it is, the cast is fairly large for this intimate house - ten actors in the dozen roles. Those actors are well selected. Paul Morella displays a marvelously light comic touch as the uncle who hides his identity in the shroud of secrecy ("All will be revealed in due course" he says in response to any effort to extract information.) David Elias has the sharper role to play as the first uncle to arrive in young Lilly's life - an uncle so desperate to leave bachelorhood behind that he's known to propose before a first date. Elias does a very nice job of avoiding being too quirky. Susan Moses creates a nosey neighbor with just a hint of a soft side to her.

Knowing that Halo Wines is featured in the cast - indeed, listed second only to Klein in the program - you may wonder when intermission arrives and she's yet to make an entrance. Her role, that of the grandmother who goes by the name/description of "Etka from Minsk" and never by "Grandmother" or any of its diminutives, is a bit too large to be called a cameo but is properly categorized as a supporting one. Casting Wines, as effervescent and enjoyable as she is, tends to unbalance the production just as it is progressing toward resolution. It doesn't damage the show as much as, for instance, the casting of the late Dorothy Loudon in Kander and Ebb's Over and Over a few years back, but it does give the final third of the show a rougher road to hoe than need be, and Wines' performance isn't quite as polished as the billing would lead you to expect. For example, she has a bit in her first scene that establishes that she has one good ear and one good eye - and they aren't on the same side of her head. The bit is quickly forgotten, however, as she never again seems to have any difficulty seeing or hearing people all around her.  

An airy atmosphere is established by the choice of setting - filmy sheers, scrim at the back revealing projections and two movable platforms that swivel and combine to create everything from apartments to Central Park fences. No effort is made to actually recreate Lilly's paint scheme for the apartment she shares with her uncles - it is a good thing since that paint scheme is patterned on an orange and vanilla creamsicle. The cast is made to serve as stagehands a bit too often, moving the stylized set pieces about.

Written by Laura Shaine Cunningham based on her memoir. Directed by Delia Taylor. Design: Kathleen Runey (set) Michael Skinner (projections) Melanie Clark (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Lindsay Miller (stage manager). Cast: David Elias, Tiffany Fillmore, Lindsay Haynes, Tom Howley, Tessa Klein, Cam Magee, Paul Morella, Susan Moses, Becky Peters, Halo Wines.

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Running time 1:30 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a gentle memory play of successive generations of fathers and sons

Storyline: As he approaches the final moments of his life, an elderly man looks back on his relationship with his father and with his son and grandson. He had been a symphony orchestra conductor, his son a jazz band leader and his grandson is into rap music, while his own father claimed to be non-musical, interested instead in operating a family business.

Brustein is the founder of both the Yale and the American Repertory Theatres and a former Dean of the Yale Drama School and Professor of English at Harvard. As a theater critic for the New Republic for nearly half a century, he has guided the thinking of theater students and scholars with thousands of reviews and no fewer than 15 books. With credentials like that it is rather daunting to be in a position to offer a critique of his work. On first exposure, which is often all a reviewer gets, this gentle memory play appears earnest and sincere with a clear desire to be liked. But the language seems a bit too formal for conversations inside a family and way too much time is absorbed in conversations the real purpose of which appears to be to tell the audience who these people are and what their relationship is. None of the characters seem to finish the sentences of another or to even speak in the kind of familiar shorthand that family members do in private conversations. Perhaps the addition of a genealogical chart of the characters to the program would help a bit so that you can study the relationships beforehand so you don't have to be distracted from the play to think through just who is who. After all, the play is only an hour and a half and there is a lot of material to absorb. In the meantime, here's the shorthand version: Abe begat the conductor Richard who begat David who begat Sean. Minnie, who is Abe's wife, and Naomi, who is Richard's wife, are both played by one actress, in this case Susan Rome, while David's first wife, Christine, is played by Anne Petersen.

The central character is given a lovely rendition by Bill Hamlin, doing some of his best work here at Theater J which is saying a lot, for he has turned in some memorable portrayals on this stage. In the dual role of his younger self and also his son is Sean Dugan who played the role in the piece's workshop at the Vineyard Playhouse in Massachusetts this summer. It is is his first exposure on stages in the Potomac Region and his work is strong enough to make us hope it wont be his last. New York based Mitchell Greenberg is sharp as both the conductor's memory of his own father and as a middle-aged version of the conductor himself. Local actor Joe Baker makes his Theater J debut with some nice touches indeed as the rap-intrigued teenager. Anne Petersen, who also appeared in the workshop version of the play, has a single strong scene as the youngest woman in the piece, while Susan Rome takes on a double role and is a bit confusing as to which she is when, the mother of the conductor or his widow.

As audiences at Theatre J have come to expect, the production is given an intelligently designed set, appropriately lit and enhanced by an effective sound design. Indeed, the sound design is credited to Matt Rowe, a frequent contributor to theaters throughout the Potomac Region and head sound technician at Signature Theatre. The primary aspect of the sound here is the music that fills the conductor's head, and the program also credits the work of the sound designer from this summer's  workshop presentation, which probably means he made the original choices of recordings of the music of Mahler, Rachmaninov, Artie Shaw and others used in the show. Since the story plays out in the memory of the conductor, there is no real effort to capture any rap - a music he couldn't recognize as music anyway.

Written by Robert Brustein. Directed by Wesley Savick. Design: Lewis Folden (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Andrew Conway (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Matt Rowe (sound) David Remedios (original sound design) Stan Barouh (photography) Rebecca Berlin (stage manager). Cast: Joe Baker, Sean Dugan, Mitchell Greenberg, Bill Hamlin, Anne Petersen, Susan Rome.

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Running time 1:45 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a joyous klezmer
 musical version of a whimsical story
 Click here to buy the book

Storyline: Shlemiel, the beadle of the tiny town of fools called Chelm, is sent off to spread the word of the supposed wisdom of the town fathers. He's tricked into coming right back into town but thinks he's stumbled on a duplicate of Chelm. When he finds his wife and children he thinks they are duplicates too, but he falls back in love with Mrs. Shlemiel, thinking she's a different woman. His "infidelity" is discovered and he's banished - only to be tricked again, and so he returns to what he thinks is "Chelm One."

Structurally, Brustein's book for the musical is a delight, both in the flow of the story and in the way so much of the plot and character information is provided in song rather than dialogue. There's really very little talking and quite a lot of singing here, which is great when the songs are as tuneful and clever as they are. Most of the music is by Hankus Netsky, founder of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and the lyrics are by Arnold Weinstein, whose credits range from the comic Punch and Judy Get Divorced to a serious adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphosis. The songs do tend to repeat a point here and there a bit, three choruses rather than four would often work. Still, it is a short, quick show. The second act begins with an entr'acte that really gets the audience clapping and swaying and the exit music is so much fun that the audience didn't exit until it was over. (David Julian Gray's clarinet wails and sways with positive panache.) So, why wasn't there an overture? With a show that lasts less than two hours even with an intermission, it certainly wasn't because they thought it was too long. The strength of the entr'acte was such that they could simply have played it as the overture - I wouldn't mind hearing it twice.

An article on klezmer stated that "enthusiasm is more important than talent, though talent doesn't hurt either." The cast here has both enthusiasm and talent. We all know that Amy McWilliams, Donna Migliaccio, Rob McQuay and Dwayne Nitz are amazingly talented. Here McWilliams makes the part of Mrs. Shlemiel both very funny and quite touching. Migliaccio is a fabulous comic shrew - complete with pickle to pound on the head of her husband, played by Dan Manning, who makes an imposingly foolish Groman Ox. (Don't you just love the names? Too bad they weren't able to include Shmendrick Numskull from another story in Singer's storybook.) Max Talisman, who recently finished the run of Caroline, or Change at Studio, shows a comic delivery capability he didn't get to display in that musical. Nitz not only takes on multiple roles, he takes a turn on the drums as well.

In the title role is Tom Howley, whose work in the region in the past hardly seems to have presaged the charm and energy he displays here. His resume includes puppeteer in Glen Echo, a slot in a show during the Fringe Festival, doing commercials for a cable news station, wielding a hammer at the West End Dinner Theatre until it folded a few years ago, and, currently, constructing sets here at Theatre J. He is confident, funny, touching and in fine voice in the lead. You might try to remember the name as it will probably be in the cast list of many shows in the near future.

Conceived and adapted by Robert Brustein based on the play by I. B. Singer. Music by Hankus Netsky. Lyrics by Arnold Weinstein. Directed by Nick Olcott. Additional music and musical direction by Zalmen Mlotek. Assistant musical direction by Daniel Hoffman. Design: Franklin Labovitz (costumes) David Elias (stage manager). Cast: Peter Gil, Tom Howley, Rob McQuay, Amy McWilliams, Dan Manning, Donna Migliaccio, Dwayne Nitz, Howard Stregack, Max Talisman, Isabel Thompson. Musicians: David Julian Gray, Daniel Hoffman, Alex Tang.

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Running time 2:35 - two intermissions
The world premiere of an intellectually challenging play

Storyline: As Nazi totalitarianism stifles all artistic or intellectual freedoms in occupied Paris, Pablo Picasso takes all the measures he believes necessary to avoid any involvement that might draw the attention of the authorities who might just decide to eliminate him before he gets to create all the great art he believes is in him - but at what price to his friends, his colleagues, his lovers or his own humanity?

The show opens on a projection sequence in which the elements of Picasso's famous cubist painting Guernica fly in and assemble into Picasso's final arrangement. The sequence demonstrates the essence of his approach of dissecting his subject - in this case, the destruction by the Nazis of that Basque city in 1937 - and then displaying the elements in a manner that invites a fresh look. With Mitchell Hébert as Picasso visible through the screen applying paint with vigorous strokes of a brush, it seems like a scene from Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George. But it is soon clear that this won't be a musical and that it won't be about the process of art, it will be about the worth of art in relationship to the worth of human life and values such as duty, and friendship.

Hébert's Picasso is a brutal presence cloaked in the mantle of fame, even when he's not doing anything but hiding out in his studio. There's no softness, no human concern for others and no apparent capacity for self doubt in this widely acknowledged master artist. Hébert breathes life into the portrait, but no heart - but perhaps that's his point. This is in contrast with the other "heavy" in the story, the fictional Nazi officer, played with equal parts passion and pride by Saxon Palmer. Watching these two, the contrast is marked - even when they aren't doing much. Palmer hovers on the edges of many of the scenes, a constant reminder of the consistent presence of Nazi power in occupied Paris. At times he seems to be part of the background but one you can never shake. Hébert, on the other hand, always draws your eye even when he's just smoking a cigarette (no one smokes on stage as well as he!).

Theater J's production feels substantial, but suffers from the use of a cast of seven to portray fifteen characters. Only Hébert, Kathleen Coons as a modern journalist and Katherine Clarvoe as his lover of the time, the photographer who famously documented his creation of Guernica, are free from doubling. Palmer has to take a turn playing Jean Cocteau which becomes confusing - is he really Cocteau, or is he the Nazi impersonating Cocteau, or is it a figment of the imagination of Picasso? Keeping the characters straight is difficult as the always intriguing Jim Jorgensen plays four different characters, the solidly satisfying Bill Hamlin assays three and the sadly underutilized Lawrence Redmond has three fairly colorless characters to play.

Written by Ariel Dorfman. Directed by John Dillon. Design: Lewis Folden (set) Kate Turner Walker (costumes) Michelle Elwyn (properties) Martha Mountain (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound) David Elias (stage manager). Cast: Katherine Clarvoe, Kathleen Coons, Bill Hamlin, Mitchell Hébert, Jim Jorgensen, Saxon Palmer, Lawrence Redmond. 

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Reviewed April 8
Running time 2:20 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages pick for sparkling dialogue
 delivered with style

Storyline: Three couples have returned home in the wee hours of the morning following Truman Capote's legendary 1966 Black and White Ball at  New York's Plaza Hotel. Not all have returned to their own apartments, however. One couple, who crashed the party, is at home. The others have switched partners for a while, although not always with the intention of intimacy. All six have found the evening much less satisfying than they expected. They think the fault must be in their own lives, not in any failing on the part of Capote or the literati assembled at "The Party of the Century." Of course, that would be unthinkable.

When Richard Greenberg gets fascinated by something, the result usually ends up on stage in a form that is fascinating for the audience. Here his interest is in the party for something less than 600 people in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel which was ostensibly to celebrate the publication of Capote's groundbreaking hit journalistic novel "In Cold Blood," but turned out to be much more a celebration of celebrity. Greenberg uses the occasion to explore the fascination that fame and its accompanying power can have for those who don't have it. Many of the characters here have expected this night of all nights to be a defining point in their lives. None has liked what they got. They do talk about it with great aplomb, however, exchanging quips and bons mot at a furious pace. Taking place as it does in what Frank Sinatra sang about as "the wee small hours of the morning" and among people who have had a most exhaustive, if not completely exhausting evening, it is amazing that any of them can rise to the literate expectations of their partners and keep up the level of banter. But they can and they do.

How wonderful to see Brigid Cleary back on this stage delivering lines that match the level of her craft. She opened Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul on this stage under director John Vreeke with a monologue of memorable impact. Now, with the same director, she opens Greenberg’s latest with a dialogue scene shared with Jeff Allin. It has the same hypnotic effect of setting the entire tone of the evening. Allin adds a laconic touch of class to the scene, especially during the first half when the two are masked. When they remove their masks, somehow the magic of mystery is diminished. But, then, isn't that the point? Maia DeSanti manages to keep the speech impediment of her character from being either her sole defining feature or a cheap gag, while Todd Scofield is subtly superb as her husband, a millionaire from the Midwest where people don't necessarily care quite as much about the cult of personality as they do on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Colleen Delany is both funny and touching as the wallflower he has accompanied home because they seem to have been left behind by their respective spouses. Cameron McNary is the artist who may or may not be reading patron of the arts DeSanti's intentions correctly.

A sense of stylishness permeates the production and it is isn’t limited to the work of the author and the actors. All the design elements contribute as well. Kathleen Geldard’s costumes, especially those for the ladies, capture the glitter of the characters’ pretensions with unerring accuracy. The masks go a long way toward establishing each character’s expectations for the evening. Daniel Conway has designed an elegant set with rotating panels that switch from Jackson Pollack-style paintings and modern sculpture to exposed brick and bric-a-brac. The feel is right and helps the cast make the most of the material. All in all -  what a kick!

Written by Richard Greenberg. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: Daniel Conway (set and lights) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Suzen Mason (properties) Matt Rowe (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Delia Taylor (stage manager). Cast: Jeff Allin, Brigid Cleary, Colleen Delany, Maia DeSanti, Cameron McNary, Todd Scofield.

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Reviewed February 15
Running time 1:30 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for visual, aural and emotional impact
Click here to buy the original script

Storyline: A woman in a Georgian village is loved by a young man of insufficient means to impress her father who arranges a marriage for her to a wealthy man from a neighboring village. Heartbreak takes her lover's life, but his spirit is so attached to their love that it takes possession of her. Her father arranges for an exorcism but the bond of love between the two youngsters is too strong for temporal intervention.

Synetic's Paata Tsikurishvili and Theater J's Hannah Hessel have adapted the 1920 play by S. Anski. The full title of the play was The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds: A Dramatic Legend in Four Acts. The original script ran to about fifty pages. When arena stage mounted an adaptation in 1975 with Diane Weist in the role of the possessed girl, and again when Tony Kushner adapted it, the text ran to a hundred pages. The team that could do Hamlet in silence doesn't need pages and pages of words. Instead they use just a few, punctuated by crystal clear story-telling in posture, gesture and dance. The result strips the story of verbiage and emphasizes emotion in a production of beauty, energy, and driving momentum that builds to a marvelously visual and aural climax.

Typical of a Tsikurishvili show, the first few scenes seem somehow dislocated or even confusing. But go with the flow - for they do coalesce into a story that takes hold of your imagination and carries you away while treating you to visual pleasures. It builds nicely, with a slight dip in intensity for the wedding dance sequence. Then it regains both momentum and power as the supernatural aspects of the story kick in. Choreographer Irina Tsikurishvili performs the role of the girl herself and is both dramatic and fluid, while many of the Synetic regulars perform with their usual precision, including the always expressive Irakli Kavadze in the role of the father who wants material wealth for his daughter. New to the troupe is Andrew Zox who is quite at home in the style as the young man whose spirit can't do without the girl.

Kavadze is also credited along with Paata Tsikurisvhili with the sound design of the show which has the sonic impact we've come to expect from Synetic. They use a selection of full symphony orchestra pieces that sound very much as if they were written as the scores for movies (think Bernard Herrman and his Alfred Hitchcock scores). Scenic designer Anastasia Ryurikov Simes uses native costumes of Georgia, some strangely reminiscent of Cossack garb, and simple but striking set elements such as hanging books for the scene in the synagogue. The simplest effect is the most effective, the light that signifies the final triumph of love.  

Adapted by Hannah Hessel and Paata Tsikurishvili from the play by S. Anski. Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili. Choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili. Design: Anastasia Ryurikov Simes (set, costumes, properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Irakli Kavsadze and Paata Tsikurishvili (sound) Lindsay Miller (stage manager). Cast: Daniel Eichner, Philip Fletcher, Meghan Grady, Joel Reuben Ganz, Dan Istrate, Julia Kunina, Olena Kushch, Irakli Kavsadze, Geoff Nelson, Armand Sindoni, Irina Tsikurishvili, Nathan Weinberger, Michael C. Wilson, Andrew Zox.

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Reviewed December 21
Running time 1:30 - no intermission
A good natured rock concert with a storyline
Very brief semi-nudity
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: While performing some of their hits, the rock group Betty enacts the tale of how the three members of the group met, formed a band, got jobs, recorded their songs, toured both as intro acts and as the featured act, broke up and got back together.

This autobiographical piece was, of course, written by its three principals. Two are sisters - Amy and Elizabeth Ziff. They are the daughters of the late Irv Ziff who was a well known character actor in the Potomac Region prior to his death in 2000. Amy is the principal narrator of the piece and it appears she has been the onstage spokesperson for the group during the concert appearances. She has an open, free personality and an easy sense of humor. Sister Elizabeth is a bit more caustic and shows her temper in brief flashes. (A flash is also what earned the "Very brief semi-nudity" advisory above, for she lifts her top for just a moment to get a bit of attention at the top of the show.) Alyson Palmer, the tall statuesque one, takes longer to establish her personality which is probably appropriate as the last one to join the group. Once she's firmly ensconced, however, she's as strong and individualistic as the others.

The contributions of either the original director, Michael Greif, or the credited director of this staging, Sarah Bittenbender, is harder to determine than those of the on-stage talent. Someone honed this material into effective theatrical shape, finding ways to segue smoothly from playing music to telling the story and places to insert touches of humor or conflict in order to keep the evening from just being just a slightly augmented concert. Whoever gets the credit, the result is a show that does more than let you get to know the music of Betty, it lets you know the three women who constitute the band. It may not make everyone care a lot about them either as individuals or as a group, but it does give you more than a mere string of songs, no matter how well performed.

Special commendations should go to both David A. Arnold who designed the sound for the show and Mat Rowe who implemented the design as "Sound Engineer" for the unusual accomplishment of providing a good deal of dynamic range in a rock show. Yes, the loud stuff is quite loud, indeed. But there are soft moments of quiet harmonizing and the dialogue scenes range from soft, intimate discussions to loud arguments with appropriate gradations along the way. For a show that could simply be called "loud" this one has a surprising amount of aural variety.

Written and performed by Alyson Palmer, Amy Ziff and Elizabeth Ziff. Directed by Sara Bittenbender. Original New York production directed by Michael Greif. Design: Kevin Adams (original set and lights) Tom Howley (set adaptation) Lisa Ogonowski (lights) David A. Arnold (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) David Elias (stage manager). Supporting musicians: Tony Salvatore (guitar) Mino Gori (percussion).

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Reviewed November 6
Running time: 1:35 - no intermission
A biological-clock-is ticking comedy with scientific overtones 
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: As a music teacher reaches her fortieth birthday her life seems to be going nowhere. The man in her life has asked her to leave. Her best friend has moved away. Her father is suffering from a possibly terminal condition while her step-mother wants a divorce from him. What's more, that old biological clock keeps right on ticking. Then she starts receiving video mail from an old friend who is a comedian in Iceland and she meets a scientist who seems as intrigued with her as he is with his area of study, the "string theory," that might connect all the other theories such as Einstein's theory of relativity to create "a theory of everything."

Melinda Wade plays the forty-year-old birthday girl with a winsome exasperation, sweet but close to the end of her rope. She's not quite desperate yet but she feels it coming on. She has a running conversation in her mind with Lynn Chavis as her best friend who has moved to Iowa (the middle west being seen as moving to nowhere). Director Peg Denithorne stages these with both characters staring ahead in order to indicate the telepathetic nature of the exchange. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to determine if Wade might be breaking the theatrical fourth wall to address the audience or simply staring off into space while thinking of her friend. Field Blauvelt and Gary Sloan are the two men in her life, each contributing solid performances.

Those solid performances can't compete, however, with the sparkle of Steve Brady or the intensity of Conrad Feininger. Each time either one gets on the stage the energy level shoots up and the attention given to the problems of Wade's music teacher take a back seat to these secondary stories. Brady's character appears at first only in vignettes as taped videos from Iceland where he is struggling with the twin temptations of alcohol and groupies (due to his local fame as a performer). Soon, however, he's entertaining other members of the cast either in a sauna (symbolized by the pail of dry ice and water he carries onto the set) or on horseback (a stool equipped with reins). As her father, Feininger is very much present in the teacher's life as he first attempts suicide and then recovers his health only to be left by his wife.

All this takes place on a stage defined by lines, shapes and notations. The back wall reads left to right starting with musical notes that meld mid-stage into mathematical formulae before merging into a globe. The entire thing is surrounded by a squared off proscenium deformed by the gravitational pull of that globe. Anne Gibson has returned to design this polished playing space. She has come up with striking sets going back at least to the room filling convent she designed for Theater for the First Amendment's The Sins of Sor Juana in 1999. Debra Kim Sigigny has designed some effective costumes for most characters, but gives Wade an unfortunately frumpy outfit that makes you wonder if the solution to her mid-life crisis might be as simple as a make over.  

Written by Jacquelyn Reingold. Directed by Peg Denithorne. Design: Anne Gibson (set) Debra Kim Sivigny (costumes) Katherine Osborne (properties)  Daniel Conway (lights) Bryan Miller (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Delia Taylor (stage manager). Cast: Field Blauvelt, Steve Brady, Lynn Chavis, Conrad Feininger, Gary Sloan, Melinda Wade.

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Reviewed September 7
Running time 2:25 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for absorbing intellectual combat and a memorable majestic performance
Click here to buy the book

Storyline: In Spain in the year 1263 the King of Aragon hosts a debate between a learned Jewish scholar and a Dominican Friar on the two questions "Has the Messiah come or is yet to come?" and "Is the Messiah a man or a god?" The pressures of court intrigue, the growing power of the Roman Catholic Church and the rise of anti-Semitism throughout Christendom set the stage for a battle of minds and hearts.

The play is by a scholar, not a playwright. The late Dr. Hyam Maccoby produced a lifetime of serious scholarly tomes on the history of Judaism including one, Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages, for which he translated the account of a formal disputation on Jewish versus Christian views of the Messiah and the life and nature of Jesus. That account forms the backbone of this play, but the scholar does more than merely recount an ancient debate.  Maccoby provides historical and human context through a number of subplots. Since play writing wasn't his principal skill, it is not surprising that not all the subplots play out well, but he gives nice substance to the King, the Queen and the Pope's representative, with only the subplots of the King's mistress and the disputant's daughter's admirer seeming too artificially theatrical. That Maccoby's source is the account written by one of the disputants might lead you to expect a one-sided view of the battle, but Jewish devotion to intellectual rigor in examining important questions is proven in part by the fact that the strengths of the Dominican Friar's arguments are put as clearly as are those of the Rabbi.

For those who remember Theodore Bikel best for his Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, this evening seems almost as if Tevye had got his wish. In Fiddler Tevye sings of all the things he would do if he were a rich man. "The sweetest thing of all," he sings, would be to "discuss the holy books with the learned men seven hours every day." Bikel makes you feel his pleasure at the construction and consideration of a logical argument, and also the Rabbi's painful realization that this disputation is not merely an intellectual exercise. It has real consequences for his people. As he says, he doesn't know which to fear more: losing the argument or winning it. Edward Gero plays his opponent with just as much fervor - what a pair they make! Any production of a debate play turns in part on whether the audience believes that each debater really believes what he is arguing and is trying as hard as he possibly can to prevail. It is to Bikel and Gero's credit that this intellectual struggle is completely believable.

Supporting the cerebral combat are performances and design contributions of note. John Lescault makes a very human monarch. As his queen, Naomi Jacobson communicates more with body posture and a glance than many actresses with long speeches. As good as Andrew Long is in the scenes where his character tries to control events for the Catholic Church, he is even better simply sitting and listening to the debate rage on. His subtle facial expressions say volumes both about the church's stake in the struggle and his own thought process. Everything works together in this production, Daniel Ettingers' lovely set is dramatically lit by Colin K. Bills. The effect is amplified by the sumptuous costumes (Kathleen Geldard gives Jacobson a stunning gown that matches her throne) and even Ryan Rummery's sound design works with the action as sounds are synchronized with the closing of volumes or the pounding of fists. In every aspect, there is one feature - intelligence.

Written by Hyam Maccoby. Directed by Nick Olcott. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Colin K. Bills (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Delia Taylor (stage manager). Cast: Theodore Bikel, Field Blauvelt, Tymberlee Chanel, Edward Gero, Matthew Gottlieb, Naomi Jacobsen, John Lescault, Andrew Long, John-Michael MacDonald, Rahaleh Nassri.

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Re-reviewed June 1
t Still a Potomac Stages Pick

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Reviewed May 8
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for Intellectually and emotionally challenging material
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Hannah Arendt had been a student of noted philosopher Martin Heidegger before the Nazis came to power in Germany. They'd even shared a brief affair. During the Nazi period, however, he came under the spell of Hitler's vision of the future while she fled because of her Jewish ancestry. After the war, she tries to come to grips with his views and his failure to explain himself to the world. 

As satisfying a job as Lescault does in the daunting challenge of presenting Martin Heidegger, the most impressive piece of acting here is actually that of Elizabeth Rich in the role of Arendt. Never mind that her character has the more politically correct set of opinions to voice. She has the challenge of making Arendt something more than a symbol of her views, she has to show the conflict between her affection for Heidegger the man, and her confusion over his ability to hold views she sees as completely incompatible with her understanding of his values - the values she studied under his tutelage and the essence of the man she came to admire and love. Her conflict comes through clearly and the pain it causes her is apparent in Rich's impressive performance. What is more, her intensity level from the first moment of the play drives the entire production.

That there is a fine supporting cast at work goes almost unnoticed in the heat generated by Rich and Lescault (a heat that is entirely intellectual and personal, there really isn't much sexual spark between them even in the single bed scene that is designed to remove any doubt about the level of physical intimacy the author assumes existed between these two). Steven Carpenter is suitably brittle, Bill Hamlin sufficiently suave and Kimberly Schraft just shrewish enough without descending into stereotype. But the focus never shifts from the two central characters and the evening rides on the shoulders of Rich and Lescault.

Once again, Theater J provides an impressive set on its small stage. Tony Cisek's assemblage of platforms, partitions and walls is covered with writing which Dan Covey highlights using stencil-like shields that throw patterns on the surface. The initial image of the lights flaring in synchronization with the igniting of a cigarette gets the evening off to a striking start. Ryan Rumery's all enveloping sound provides pace and a visceral feel for movement choreographer Cassie Meador's opening sequence. However, the real fireworks are still to come. They are the verbal exchanges between Rich/Arendt and Lesault/Heidegger, especially in the second act when Heidegger's devotion to the dream of greatness which he felt Hitler offered, and his sense of betrayal that the Third Reich didn't reach its goals, become painfully, awfully clear.

Written by Kate Fodor. Directed by Jeremy B. Cohen. Movement choreography by Cassie Meador. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Dale Nadel (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Michael Kramer (stage manager). Cast: Christopher Browne, Steven Carpenter, Bill Hamlin, John Lescault, Rahaleh Nassri, Elizabeth Rich, Kimberly Schraf, Ellen Young.

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Reviewed April 6
Running time 1:15 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a fascinating character impressively created
Price range $10-$30

Storyline: A woman who has been the victim of a brutal attack takes the audience into her confidence to explain her physical, psychological and spiritual recovery, a process which is very much still ongoing.

Buck's script is remarkable, not in its theatrical conventions or in its format, for in these it is fairly straight forward using a chronological approach to the story and a simple but effective projections to give a visual feel to match the subject. What is remarkable is its content - the open and honest exploration of her reaction to all that has been involved in her recovery to date. The script covers subjects large and small, and, indeed, it is the tiny details that bring it all to life. It is the honesty of her exploration of her own thoughts, fears and values that is unusual, and it is the deep sense of humanity, the gratitude toward the remarkable number of people who helped her survive and recover, and the open discussion of her feelings toward the unknown assailant that make this one-act encounter with her one that will linger in memory for a great while.

Buck's self-examination delivers the over-all story of her hospitalization, her therapy, her return to the working world and the role of the many people whose help and support was crucial. The tiny details and her own thoughts about these things are fascinating. Of the support she received she says "it's not about me anymore. There are all these people who have invested in putting me back together." Openly discussing the fact that she's a lesbian and bemoaning the fact that the police never even considered the possibility that the beating was a hate crime, she says "I want the satisfaction of classification" but also admits that "all crimes are hateful."  She acknowledges that it is still a recovery she must make herself. "I'm alone when I close my eyes - so I keep them open" she says. Told that few survive such a horrible beating, she replies "my soul chose to live. I'm here. Now what?"

Holly Twyford has a way of establishing contact with her audiences no matter if she's doing tragedy, romance, comedy or historical drama. It is usually just described as "stage presence." Here, as the only person on stage in the medium sized but still intimate Goldman Theater at the DC Jewish Community Center, she uses that presence in a very personal way. Whether she can actually see beyond the lights into the darkness of the hall or not, she seems to establish direct eye contact with the audience, making the narrative a very personal conversation directed at each individual. From time to time, when her character lapses into her own thoughts, Twyford's focus extends beyond the hall. Then, when she returns to the narrative, she re-establishes the contact with the audience with renewed impact. What is even more impressive, however, is that she never over-does any of these techniques. The performance is always about her character and her recovery, never about the actress and her skills.

Written by Jeanette L. Buck. Directed by Delia Taylor. Design: Caitlin Lainoff (set and properties) Kathleen Geldard (costume) Lisa L. Ogonowski (lights) Michael Skinner (projections) Adrianna Carroll Daugherty (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Kate Olden (stage manager). Cast: Holly Twyford. 

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Reviewed January 16
Running time 2:05 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a tremendous performance in the title role
Click here to buy the novel

Storyline: The famous author of a work on the Holocaust is becoming more and more reclusive and has recently been diagnosed with a degenerative neurological condition. As he begins a major project of translating Virgil's The Aeneid, he hires a strangely scarred young woman as an assistant, not knowing that she harbors deep feelings of anti-Semitism. His sister is appalled by his selection but he defends her. As he comes to understand and value her, so she learns from him and gains a sense of self worth from his faith in her.

Oates was thrice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (Black Water, What I Lived For and Blonde) and has written many plays as well (I Stand Before You Naked, Tone Clusters). She even combines the two disciplines with adaptations of her own novels. Her novel The Tattooed Girl was published in 2003 and now the stage version of the story receives its world premiere at Theatre J. Any play must stand or fall on how it works on stage, and not all the elements that make a novel work will make a play work. For this reason, Ms. Oates has changed the novel's story somewhat and streamlined the cast of characters for the stage. The themes and the main concept, however, remain. The result feels slightly restrained and artificial, with dialogue that sounds a bit like internal monologues one would read rather than words one would actually say.

Shupe's co-star is the reliable Michael Russotto. While he is convincing in each individual scene, his performance never seems to take flight as Shupe's does and pales by comparison. Cam Magee doesn't get to stretch her considerable skills  in the one-note role of the sister who reacts so very dramatically to the appearance of Shupe's character in the life of her brother who has always relied on her for help. Christopher Browne fares better from the script since his character, Shupe's former pimp or lover or enslaver or defiler (or all the above) is the personification of the evil outside world, and thus, can be played for all the malevolence it can yield. He does a fine job of it. Filling out a number of other roles, particularly those of all the applicants for the position of assistant which Shupe's character finally lands, is Karl Miller who makes the most of his brief stage time.

A real strength of this production is Dan Conway's set as lit by Colin Bills. The set itself is ambitious enough, with floor to proscenium wooden bookcases stage right, an ascending wooden staircase dominating the center stage and a contrasting corrugated metal back wall that curves around to contain the space. The floor seems to dissolve from rich hardwood slats at the front to cement pavement at the rear, a yawning aperture to a harsh outside world. As lit by Bills, the foreground is a protected intellectual world threatened by all that aperture might let in.

Written by Joyce Carol Oates. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: Dan Conway (set) Sue Chiang (costumes) Shannon Kennedy (properties) Colin Bills (lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Delia Taylor (stage manager). Cast: Christopher Browne, Cam Magee, Karl Miller, Michael Russotto, Michelle Shupe.

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Reviewed November 4
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: At the height of the 1950's red scare over communism's rising influence in the world and domestic fears of subversive activities, one couple tries to keep from getting into any trouble over their left-leaning beliefs. They read and accept everything from the leftist press (citing The Daily Worker with authority), change positions with alacrity when the Soviet Union's positions change, and deplore the policies of the Eisenhower Administration, but they describe themselves as "progressive" rather than "communist" and try to keep their innocent teenage daughter from revealing too much of what happens in their home. That daughter strikes up a friendship with a man who spends his free time on the banks of the river painting the skyline and she shares too much information with him while resisting the inquiries of an obvious agent of the government.

Jules Feiffer has been portraying the world view of the trendy left since his cartoons first appeared in the Village Voice in 1956. While turning out the famous panels that gave voice to the world view prevailing in that paper's community (the Village in this instance being Greenwich Village, famously described by Comden and Green as "the Bohemian cradle of painters, writers, actors and etcetera"), Feiffer has written plays (Knock Knock) screenplays (Carnal Knowledge) and children's books (The Man in the Ceiling). In this, a new play commissioned by Lincoln Center, he looks at the milieu from which he came to prominence - the slightly insular world of isolated liberality, progressiveness and ethnicity more at home with the beatnik culture of the 1950s than with either the Lawrence Welk middle-American version of entertainment or the Ozzie and Harriet/Father Knows Best view of family life.

As could be expected of a man whose fame is based on his ability to turn a phrase in on itself in the confines of a newspaper cartoon, Feiffer's script includes many one line zingers and pithy observations. It is tempting at times to pause and think through the multiple layers of meaning in a quip or an aside. There are comments about "the pantheon of the persecuted," observations that "we progressives are the only people who insist this country be what it claims to be" and convolutions like "I don't even know if the people I know are the people I know." Director Nick Olcott indulges the audience in this, following a pace which is deliberate and even at times a bit plodding.

For a piece which purports to capture a specific time and a certain place - greater New York City in the 1950s - the set designed by Lewis Folden is peculiarly generic with a very contemporary feel. It is a beige world defined by overlapping scrim panels behind which an occasional projection of a New York skyline appears. It lacks any sense of the claustrophobia of the close-set neighborhood, any touch of ethnic togetherness that still mark New York's neighborhoods, or any connection to the architecture of the place. Furniture consists of widely spaced small piles of newspapers. Kathleen Geldard, on the other hand, has designed period-specific costumes which help establish both the life style and the individual characteristics of each of the people who inhabit Feiffer's world.

Written by Jules Feiffer. Directed by Nick Olcott. Design: Lewis Folden (set) Kathleen Geldard (costumes) Shannon Kennedy (properties) Jason Arnold (lights) Matt Rowe (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Lisa Vivo (stage manager). Cast: Lily Balsen, Field Blauvelt, Jim Jorgensen, Valerie Leonard, Lawrence Redmond, Peter Wylie.

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Reviewed July 9
Running time: 2:25 - one intermission

Storyline: Two twenty-somethings have been best of friends for much of their lives. One is happily married and pursuing fame and fortune as a songwriter while teaching music to make ends meet. The other is nowhere near as focused, not yet really knowing what to do with his life. The songwriter is attracted to the mother of one of his students but the ties of his marriage are strong. His friend is attracted to his wife but won't let himself recognize it. Their lives are complicated by the arrival of a sleazy record producer who is either interested in the songwriter's songs or in his wife who sings them in a club.

The twenty-somethings are Peter Wylie and Eric Sutton, two of the Potomac Region's finest young actors who seem to come up with plumb parts at many local companies. Each is impressive here as they work together and in scenes with the rest of the cast. Just watch Wylie's chin tremble as his songwriter character first struggles to comprehend the possibility that his friend might be sexually interested in his wife, and that the interest might be reciprocal. Or watch Sutton struggling with exactly the same realization slipping his hands nervously into the pockets of his sweatpants only to discover a loose thread which he absently tugs at and twists around his finger. These are details that take already convincing characterizations to vivid life. The eye contact between the two of them and the overlapping rhythm of their conversations in the scenes set in Tryst's coffee bar on 18th street are a delight.

A newcomer to local stages is Liz Mamana who gives weight to the songwriter's wife's struggle with her own temptations while Lucy Newman-Williams and Lindsay Spencer do a nice job with parts that are less fully developed as the music student and her Mrs. Robinson-ish mother. Dan Via is suitably smarmy as the record producer. He's a bit difficult to understand in the first chorus of a song, almost as if his body microphone had not been turned on. Music accompaniment is by the on-stage Steve McWiliams with Jenny Cartney and Mike Kosemchak off stage on keyboard and bass.

Roth directs his own play. Frequently that is a recipe for disappointment, for most plays benefit from direction by someone who brings a fresh view to a work. Here, however, it seems to work very well. The strengths of the script are nicely highlighted with key scenes well placed on the stage with one significant exception. Dan Via's first appearance is so far stage right that he's not visible to those sitting on the left side of the house. The key exchanges over coffee between Wylie and Sutton, on the other hand, are right down front on the lip of the stage where they take full advantage of the intimacy of this small theater. Two other key sequences, each in a bed, are not far upstage in Daniel Conway's attractive brick and blond wood set, while the looming threat of the sleazy producer is introduced far upstage overlooking the world of these young people. Jason Arnold's very active and precise lighting design separates and defines the playing areas. It is an attractive production about attractive people who, while imperfect, not yet mature and subject to weaknesses, are fundamentally good and believe in an admirable set of values. How refreshing is that?

Written and directed by Ari Roth with original songs by the author. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Susan Chiang (costumes) Dale R. Nadel (properties) Jason Arnold (lights) Matt Rowe (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Michael Kramer (stage manager). Cast: Liz Mamana, Steve McWilliams, Lucy Newman-Williams, Lindsay Spencer, Eric Sutton, Dan Via, Peter Wylie.

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Reviewed May 9
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes
Adult themes and brief nudity

Storyline: Two young Jewish men in mid-nineteenth century Poland bond while studying the Torah together, but the bond becomes something more than intellectual or religious. Both are expected to marry but they are compelled by their love for each other to stay together. They flee to another city and one of them adopts the role of wife as they live together. Such an arrangement,  what would today be referred to as a same sex marriage, could not be accepted and they end their lives rather than separate.

Karl Miller handles the transition from male student to pretend-female wife/seamstress with a surety that is nearly seamless. He is totally believable as he finds a comfort level in a woman's persona and he communicates the pain and confusion involved with subtlety in a role that requires a lengthy emotional journey. David Covington may well be nearly as good as Miller in his portrayal of the student who remains male, but the script has him making selfish demands and decisions over and over again. Not only does this make it difficult to sympathize with his character, it makes the affection Millers' character feels for him hard to believe. The play gives short shrift to what must have been a gradual growth in their attraction for each other, giving the audience little chance to come to care about the pair before they are forced by events to take their disturbing actions.

Supporting roles include at least three memorable performances. Tim Getman makes about as much as can be made out of the role of a beggar/narrator/jester with a mixture of oral flippantry and physical  comedy. Caren Anton is the mother of the boy who adopts a woman's role. She is good throughout the show but she is absolutely marvelous in the moment her character recognizes her son and his transgression of all the standards she holds dear. Joel Snyder isn't given a moment of such intensity in the script but, as the landlord from whom the "couple" rent their new home, he is a solid presence of what Warren G. Harding would later call "normalcy" tested by a temptation complicated by a development he can't comprehend.

Daniel Conway has contributed another of his memorable sets for this special space where his boat dock for Talley's Folly earned him a Helen Hayes Award nomination. It is but the most notable of the elements that make this production so solid and satisfying. Mark Anduss' soundscape includes a thunder effect that rocks the audience into the world of the play accompanied by Dan Covey's flash effects while Kate Turney-Walker's costumes communicate time, place and status in a glance.

Written by Motti Lerner and Israel Zamir based on the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Translated by Hillel Halkin.  Directed by Daniel De Raey. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Dale R. Nadel (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Elizabeth Weisner (stage manger). Cast: Caren Anton, David Covington, Tim Getman, Mitchell Hébert, Elizabeth Jernigan, Martha Karl, Amy Montminy, Karl Miller, Joel Snyder, Grady Weatherford.

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Reviewed March 10
Running time 3 hours 40 minutes
A joint production with Woolly Mammoth
t A Potomac Stages pick for intellectual intrigue, striking characters and situations

Storyline: An English lady, unhappy in her marriage and not too thrilled with her relationship with their daughter either, becomes fascinated with an out of date tourist guide to the Afghan capitol of Kabul. Suddenly, she's off to the mysterious middle-east where she disappears into the Taliban-controlled closed culture of that poverty ridden but proud country just as the Americans bomb a suspected terrorist camp in Kkhost. Her husband and daughter travel to Kabul to find her. The husband believes initial reports that she had been killed but her daughter travels deep into the back streets of the city in search of the truth.

The key item in the title is the slash, for there really are two plays here joined at the heart. The first hour is a solo performance piece, fascinating on its own merits but immeasurably enriched by what follows, and what follows is significantly enhanced by what precedes it. One of Kushner's incredibly personal personalities, the English lady known as Homebody, is brought to vibrant life by Brigid Cleary. She's all alone on the stage but not all alone in the room for she draws the entire audience into communication with her. Cleary reacts to the audience's reactions to her statements, turning a monologue into a conversation. (It helps that the house lights which are faded to black when the stage is darkened to start the show are brought back up to about a third so the audience isn't in the dark and it appears that Cleary can, in fact, see them.) Her presentation of the portions of the guide book that so fascinate her character is peppered with self-revealing asides, salted with the kinds of additional information that a woman who loves to read would have stored in her brain and sweetened with an enthusiasm for life that makes you awfully glad you met her.

The Kabul part of Homebody/Kabul -  the part that is populated with a host of intriguing characters - is not quite as uniformly satisfying as that first segment, but it is never less than fascinating and occasionally spellbinding. The spellbinding part comes late in the evening when Jennifer Mendenhall makes her appearance as an Afghan woman wanting to leave the country because her husband wants to take a new wife. Her tantrums are enough to make you believe her husband would want to be rid of her under any circumstance, but watch closely for they are so skillfully modulated that they ingratiate rather than repel the listener. This is a trick that Maia DeSanti as Homebody's daughter hasn't quite mastered. Her whining outbursts, as well motivated as they are, become tiresome and seem petulant when her character certainly has a great deal to whine about. In between the two extremes are a number of fascinating individual portraits including Doug Brown as an inscrutable guide/poet, Aubrey Deeker as an Afghan who loves the lyrics of Sinatra songs, Conrad Feininger as an infuriatingly logical Mullah and, most notably, Rich Foucheaux as the husband who may not have cared a lot for Homebody in the waning era of their marriage but whose fate all but destroys him.

The world which Homebody's family searches is confined in but strikingly staged on Lewis Folden's earthen toned set given depth, suspense and dramatic emphasis through Colin K. Bills' effective lighting design and Dave McKeever's haunting soundscape of the backstreets of Taliban-held Kabul. The fine thing about the visual and aural design is it remains a background for the actors as they create the characters out of Kushner's words, but it seems to amplify them - not in volume and not in any audio augmentation sense, but in the way they frame the moments, add depth to the spaces between characterizations and provide the audience with a sense of the feel of backstreet Kabul. It's quite a trip.

Written by Tony Kushner. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: Lewis Folden (set) Helen Q. Huang (costumes) Shannon Thomas Kennedy (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Dave McKeever (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) John "Scooter" Krattenmaker (stage manager). Cast: Doug Brown, Brigid Cleary, Aubrey Deeker, Maia DeSanti, Conrad Feininger, Ted Feldman, Rick Foucheux, Michael Kramer, Jennifer Mendenhall, Michael Russotto. 

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Reviewed January 25
Running time 2 hours 35 minutes
 

Storyline: Each of two one act plays concerns a mature woman interacting with a professional world. One actress plays both women who have much in common and even know each other. In the first play the woman is a patient in the medical world seeking a cure for a progressive deterioration that seems to be a case of her system being allergic to itself. Her symptoms are characterized by the “rash” of the title. In the second, the woman is a college literature professor who won't accept a paper from one of her students because she can’t believe a “jock” could produce such an intellectually remarkable product. That “jock” is the third in the line of his family to attend the college, hence the title of the second play.

Kathryn Grody is both women and her performances are particularly enjoyable because she resists the temptation to concentrate on making them different. She is a skilled actress and could have added superfluous touches just to create differences. But she and director Michael Barakiva wisely focus on the creation of meaningful characters and the similarities are allowed to stand without comment. The physical problems of the first character, especially the fact that her upper lip is paralyzed in the early scenes, are contrasted subtly in the second play as she appears more vital and energetic. But each is a woman who is intriguing and well worth spending half an evening with.

The supporting cast is a bit of a mixed bag. Bill Grimmette is superb as the doctor in the first play, presenting a combination of witty bedside manner and genuine affection for his patient. His performance shows that he is the kind of actor you would want on stage with you since he is so supportive and cooperative in dialogue scenes. His character shows that he is just the kind of doctor you would want on your side if you were suffering from a rare and undiagnosed ailment. The fact that Wasserstein’s script has him making diagnostic findings before getting all the information he needs is simply ignored.

Edward Boroevich joins up with Janine Barris to play the Cupid and Psyche who appear in the woman’s drug induced dreams during her treatment, and they do an acceptable job, but Boroevich has a much more challenging role in the second play and here he is a disappointment. As the “jock” who turns in a sterling paper, Boroevich delivers his lines with a youthful energy that is just right for the situation but at times he seems to turn off in-between lines, awaiting his cue, which draws too much attention to the fact that he is acting.

Written by Wendy Wasserstein. Directed by Michael Barakiva. Design: James Kronzer (set) Susan Chiang (costumes) Dale Nadel (properties) Jason Arnold (lights) Mark Anduss and Ryan Rumery (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) John “Scooter” Krattenmaker (stage manger). Cast: Janine Barris, Edward Boroevich, Bill Grimmette, Kathryn Grody.

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Reviewed November 2
Running time 1 hour 20 minutes

Storyline: The life of Moses is enacted from the moment of his birth during a time when Jewish male babies were being slaughtered, through to his death just before the Jews he has led out of Egypt and through the desert finally arrived at the Promised Land.

In telling a well known story, a theater company can either bring new insights to the tale or entertaining new visions of the incidents. Of course, there is no rule that says they can’t do both. But, in this instance, it is the new images approach that is offered. There are no new insights into the much studied account from sacred texts of the story of Moses. Still, it is an entertaining and at times stunningly original presentation.

The Traveling Jewish Theatre’s Artistic Director (and one of three co-authors of this piece), Aaron Davidman, plays Moses as a much put upon beast of burden in service to his God, played by another co-author, Eric Rhys Miller. While Davidman’s Moses rushes to fulfill his assigned role of deliverer of his people, Miller’s version of God is a cool dude in shades. Each actor takes other roles as well while composer/musician Daniel Hoffman takes center stage at the start and then moves to the side to provide accompaniment on violin, guitar and an assortment of rhythm instruments.

Director (and the third co-author) Corey Fischer deploys the two actors and musician Daniel Hoffman on Richard Olmsted’s starkly beautiful, minimalist set. Olmsted also contributed the lighting, which not only sets mood and feeling through the warm desert colors of light which emphasize the yellows and oranges of the set pieces, but casts shadows across the set to create a work of visual art.

Written by Aaron Davidman, Corey Fischer and Eric Rhys Miller. Directed by Corey Fischer. Music composed by Daniel Hoffman. Design: Richard Olmsted (set and lights) Lauren Kaplan (costumes) Stephanie K. Patterson (photography) Rebecca Berlin (stage manager). Cast: Aaron Davidman, Daniel Hoffman, Eric Rhys Miller.

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Reviewed June 22
Running time 97 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: In the last year of World War II, a middle-aged Jewish accountant visits a younger, wealthier, gentile woman who seems to him to be the only woman he’s ever met who can see the world the way he sees it. He meets with her in the boathouse down by the river on her parents’ estate with matrimony as his goal. She comes only to try to avoid a scene and to get him to leave her alone, but he uses charm and humor to keep the meeting going, raising questions and issues that make their shared values obvious even to her. When each shares a secret of their background, the bond seems to form.   

Lanford Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play feels like a gentle taste of nostalgia but builds to an emotional impact. Both characters are deeply detailed as they respond to each other and answer -- as well as they are able -- the other’s questions. The man searches for a way to connect with the woman while she tries one tactic after another to avoid connection. Through it all they each reveal details of their lives and it is one of the remarkable aspects of Wilson’s script that each detail rings true but none seems calculated. Ultimately, the intensity of their exchange has created just the bond she had feared. 

Rick Foucheux and Colleen Delany are each marvelous in their own right but it is the chemistry between them that turns the evening into something very special. Foucheux is the first to earn the audience’s affection with his opening explanations that has a hint of Our Town’s stage manager. But when Delany arrives on the scene he quickly forgets the audience and turns his charm on her. She captures the audience’s fondness more slowly but capture it she does.

The “Folly” of the title isn’t the singular of “Follies,” as in a vaudeville-ish theatrical review, nor is it an irrational or thoughtless thing. It is the third dictionary meaning, the architectural meaning “a building of eccentric or overly elaborate design, usually built for decorative rather than practical purposes” and, oh, has Daniel Conway created a set that captures both the whimsy of it and the creeping dilapidation of age. This boat house which Delany’s characters' uncle built to look like a gazebo on the water’s edge is transformed in Jason Arnold’s sometimes subtle but always right lighting design with help from Mark K. Anduss’ soundscape into an outpost of hope and humanity in a wartime world gone mad. 

Written by Lanford Wilson. Directed by Peg Denithorne. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Susan Chiang (costumes) Dale R. Nadel (properties) Jason Arnold (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Taryn J. Colberg (stage manager). Cast: Rick Foucheux, Colleen Delany.

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Reviewed May 7
Running time 2 hours 15 minutes

Storyline: In 1810 in the Ukraine, a rabbi who teaches through storytelling is dying without an heir to take on his Hasidic sect. He has just enough strength left for one final story – a tale that skips though time to identify a spiritual heir in a city on the water which turns out to be San Francisco in the twenty-first century. He is a clerk in the IBM building who must learn a lesson from each of seven travelers in order to be in a position to carry on the rabbi’s work.

In his program notes, the author of this play writes about his introduction to branches of Jewish culture he’d never known, how he stumbled upon the 1810 story that became this play and about his decade long, world-wide travels to do research for it. How, then, can the result seem so haphazard? The hybrid of dance and theater that co-directors Liz Lerman and Nick Olcott utilize to put the play on the stage doesn’t seem to imbue individual elements with interest, intrigue and charm nor does it create a dramatic whole out of the parts. Individual pieces may capture the imagination momentarily but most of them are either skipped over too quickly or stretched out too long.

Naomi Jacobson is “The Rebbe” both in his death-rattle, one-last-story effort as he succumbs to tuberculosis at the age of 38, and in his energetic, joyful and youthful storytelling in which he becomes each of the “travelers” to teach the important lessons to the computer clerk played by Alek Friedman. Jacobson has no difficulty assuming the persona of a man and she is a fine storytelling actress. Had the stories been more compelling her performance would have been able to carry additional weight. Friedman has more depth in his role simply because he has a more complex emotional journey to take – and his character tells us so early in the second act. The delight of the evening is Bill Hamlin as a mysterious, dapper stranger who challenges much of the mysticism of the stories. He goes from interested spectator to sardonic interviewer and back again with a stop in the middle in a very funny bit as a waiter describing a chicken dish from the menu. As is often the case with an outstanding performance in a supporting role, this play seems better every time Hamlin is on the stage.

That stage is the intriguing circular platform bearing circular patterns that set designer Lewis Folden surrounds with freeform shapes of copper mesh. Adam Magazine gives the space many different appearances with many different lighting schemes, keeping the space from seeming static. Sound, and not just music, is very important in this piece and Mark K. Anduss provides an effective soundscape of elements such as wind and traffic noises while Jessie Terrill has composed music for The Rebbe’s follower’s dances. Those dances are credited to the co-directors “in collaboration with the performers.” Lerman comes from the world of dance and Olcott from the world of theater. That can be a powerful combination but the magic of the mixture seems to have eluded them this time out.

Written by Yehuda Hyman. Directed by Liz Lerman and Nick Olcott. Music composed by Jesse Terrill. Vocal direction by Deborah Wicks La Puma. Choreography by Liz Lerman and Nick Olcott in collaboration with the performers. Design: Lewis Folden (set) Rhonda Key (costumes) Adam Magazine (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound). Cast: Naomi Jacobson, Alek Friedman, Bill Hamlin, Fred Michael Beam, Laurel Dugan, Nehal Joshi, Deborah Karp, Cassie Meador, Quincy Northrup, Sara Ridberg, Jesse Terrill, Nicole Williams.

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Reviewed March 5
Running time 2 hours 10 minutes
A co -production with
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: A young would-be film maker who is still looking for his first big break after college has two roommates, a girl friend and an old college friend who is sacked out on his couch. The friend suffers from bipolar disorder and, with the aid of medication, is barely functional. The film maker proposes that they tape a documentary on the life of his bipolar friend.

Director Silverman implements the script’s cinematic technique with blackouts, flashbacks and even the occasional visual equivalent of a dissolve. But she keeps it from becoming a distraction. Instead, she maintains the focus on the three characters and their interactions. Given the strength of those characters, and the complexity of their relationships, this is just the right way to go. It avoids overloading the brief time available as the two acts are quite tightly constructed.

Chernus’ character begins the evening under the influence of medication. For the first third of the evening, he seems something of a background character – a motivator for Sutton and an object for Delany to observe and comment on. Later on he “goes off his meds” and the full scope of his condition becomes not only apparent but absolutely, frighteningly compelling. It becomes clear just why the medication is both a boon and a bane. Without them he swings from high-energy exhilaration to paranoic panic and back again. With them, he disappears into his surroundings without having much individuality or identity of his own. 

This sharp production looks as good as it plays. Erhard Rom’s set seems like an interlocking collection of film frames, carrying the theme of the movie-making through in the representation of the apartment where most of the action takes place. Dan Conway’s lighting design is bright, providing punctuation at appropriate moments.

Written by Neena Berber. Directed by Leigh Silverman. Design: Erhard Rom (set) Michele Reisch (costumes) Linda S. Evans and Jennifer Peterson (properties) Dan Conway (lights) Jill B.C. Du Boff (sound) Stan Barouh (photos) Shannon Marie Mayonado (stage manager). Cast: Michael Chernus, Eric Sutton, Colleen Delany.

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Reviewed January 12
Running Time 2 hours 25 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

This is what theater is for. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you think. It makes you feel. It is a shared experience, with the entire audience coming together emotionally even though they sit in the dark without making eye contact with each other. It is the play, and the performances, that creates that emotional connection and that is the magic of live theater.

Storyline: A family with four grown daughters gathers at Passover for the Seder dinner for one last time before the father of the house must be placed in a home due to the advancing ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. They, and their respective spouses, lovers, and would-be significant others reminisce, compete, probe, spar, argue and come together as only families can.

Jenniffer Maisel’s play walked away with the 2001 New American Plays Award of the Kennedy Center, joining such legendary works as Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles and Kushner’s Angels in America as winner of that award. It deserves the honor, creating not just a collection of distinct and intriguing individuals combined into believable couples, but a larger grouping of interconnecting relationships with nearly a dozen elements – an extended family. Each individual affects the others and is affected by each of them. Parents, siblings, lovers, friends. Each gives and each takes from each relationship as the family shares what it knows is a momentous event. All the events feel right even when they are improbable – this is theater not a documentary. The climax isn’t reality, it is more than that. It is the presentation of the collective hopes and dreams of a family in extremis – and it draws the warm tears of affection.

Joseph Megel, who directed the play’s premiere in Chicago, comes to Theater J to lead a marvelous local cast headed by Halo Wines and Bill Hamlin in the roles of the parents. Wines finds the perfect blend of humor and pain in the role while Hamlin finds ways to communicate from within the shell of dementia. An ensemble piece of the first order, the ensemble of sisters and partners is first rate. Tim Getman takes the quirkiest of the roles and makes it smoothly believable while Bernard Engel as the next door neighbor finds a gentle warmth that is just right for his characters’ role in the family dynamics.

Megel is also working with a local design team and the visual and sonic results are as satisfying as the performances. Anne Gibson’s set mixes interiors and exteriors in a way that creates one world, a home. Her walls of painted scrim which reveal scenes behind walls works well, in part because of the precision of the lighting design of Lisa Ogonowski who also creates the lovely final image. Mark K. Anduss provides music evocative of the family’s history and Susan Chiang’s costumes are just right for each of the very individual characters who meld in one evening at the Seder table.

Of great importance to this play are the traditions of a Jewish home (even one that is – as Wines’ character tells us – “reformed, very reformed”). While those not familiar with the traditions can follow the plot without difficulty, some familiarity will allow concentrating on the play rather than the references. If you aren’t already familiar with these, you might want to look up “Seder” in a reference or find a good guide on the web. www.holidays.net/passover/seder offers a useful overview.

Written by Jennifer Maisel. Directed by Joseph Megel. Dance choreography by Morgan Duncan. Fight choreography by John Gurski. Design: Anne Gibson (set) Susan Chaing (costumes) Greta Dowling (properties) Lisa Ogonowski (lights) Mark K. Anduss (sound). Cast: Halo Wines, Bill Hamlin, Tim Getman, Bernard Engel, Susan Rome, Kerri Rambow, Carla Briscoe, Tricia McCauley, Michelle Shupe, Jim Jorgensen, Kelly Gardner.

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Reviewed November 13, 2002
Running time 2 hours
Price range $21 - $34

Written by Ariel Dorfman. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: James Kronzer (set0 Susan Chiang (costumes) Pegi Marshall-Amundsen (properties) Mark Anduss (sound). Cast: Paula Gruskiewicz, Mitchell Hébert, John Lescault.

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Reviewed May 28
Running time 2 hours 55 minutes

Written by Ari Roth. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: Dan Conway (set and lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Susan Chiang (costumes) Dale Nadel (properties.) Cast: Rick Foucheux, Michelle Shupe, Jennifer Mendenhall, Jim Jorgensen, Irving Jacobs, Julie-Ann Elliot, Michael Russotto, Christopher Lane.

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Reviewed June 2
Running time 3 hours 5 minutes

Written by Ari Roth. Directed by Peg Denithorne. Design: Dan Conway (set and lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Susan Chiang (costume) Dale R. Nadel (properties.) Cast: Rick Foucheux, Christopher Lane, Michelle Shupe, Jennifer Mendenhall, Jim Jorgensen, Irving Jacobs, Julie-Ann Elliot, Michael Russotto.

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Reviewed April 11
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes

Adapted from the diaries of Victor Klemperer by Karen Malpede and George Barenieff. Directed by Karen Malpede. Design: Neil Patel (set) Angela Wendt (costume) Mike Daniels (lights based on the original design of Tony Giovannetti). Cast: George Bartenieff.

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Reviewed February 24
Running time 2 hours 15 minutes

Storyline: The apartment of a famous white pop singer is broken into by a black man who terrorizes her with his claim to have known her years ago before she changed her identity and entered show business. She, on the other hand, maintains that she never was the girl he thinks he knew. Their confrontation raises issues of stereotypes, prejudices, self-knowledge, responsibility and identity in a swirl of language and images.

Written by Mark Medoff. Directed by Bob Devin Jones. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Jay A. Herzog (lights) Brenda K. Plakans (costumes) Kim Deane (properties) Kevin Campbell (sound and music.) Cast: Craig Wallace, Sue-Anne Morrow.

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Reviewed January 22
Running time 1 hour 30 minutes

Written by David Hare. Directed by Nick Olcott. Design: Lou Stancari (set) Martha Moutnain (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Rachel Homan (stage manager), Beth Sambur (assistant stage manager). Cast: David Bryan Jackson.

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Reviewed January 13
Running time 1 hour 55 minutes

Written by Joshua Ford. Directed by Nick Olcott. Design: Lou Stancari (set) Martha Mountain (lights) Tony Angelini (sound) Susan Chaing (costumes.) Cast: Eric Sutton, Jack Kyrieleison, Caren Anton, Raheleh Nassri, Michal Kramer, Grady Weatherford. With the voice of Charlie Varon.

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Reviewed November 15
Running time 2 hours

I suppose you can do a similar presentation on any major character by any major author but surely Shylock is among the most important creations of literature, especially in the way it embodies and then transmits the prejudices of one age through to future centuries. Without setting out a hypothesis as if the evening were an academic lecture, Armstrong manages to establish the concept of Shylock as a symbol of the presumed avarice and wickedness of Jews and then explores where that image came from and how it survived the centuries. In his hands, it is not a lecture delivered dryly from some presumed authority, it is a fascinating journey of exploration taken by the audience led by the artist. It is a trip very much worth taking.

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Reviewed November 1
Running time 2 hours