Running time 2:15 minutes - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for invigorating, exhilarating theater

Storyline: Sixteen-year-old Lily knows nothing beyond the Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn where she lives a cloistered life with her much older husband.  An unlikely relationship with her enigmatic new African-American housekeeper opens Lily’s world to new possibilities, but at a huge and unexpected price.  In her insular world, the most eye-catching objects and coolest things are simply “stunning.”

Adjmi may have written Stunning from his own personal life experience, but this is not a stilted piece accessible only to Jews. This is a universal piece dealing with how forced isolation by family and community can be broken by the experience of an “other” placed within the midst. With new knowledge comes consequences that taint and paint with unexpected colors. Kauffman’s direction is one of constant verbal action. The words are spit out and over each other and yet one understands what is meant. With Kauffman’s direction there were loud gasps of audience emotion uttered at the performance this reviewer attended and with good reason. The words are used like rapid fire AK-47 shots, while at other at times words are like a single shot to the back of the head from a weapon with a silencer … unexpected but deadly. The audience feels the blood flowing from the wounded and the dead.

Laura Heisler's performance is one to behold. She moves from a garishly dressed little girl who sucks on a pacifier, to one who acts on her uncovered desires and kisses the black house-keeper full on the mouth by the end of Act 1. This, after showing little passion with her husband throughout the act. Over the course of Act II, Heisler changes as she acquires knowledge of the outside world. As her performance goes forward, her walk changes, her cadence changes, her modulation changes, her eyes change, she even seems taller. Throughout, her ability to project hurt is dead on. Quincy Tyler Bernstine is at first sympathetic, but her lies begin to weigh on her and she seems a caged animal waiting to be carted away. She makes her character three-dimensional; she is no stick figure character. Michael Gabriel Goodfriend, as the middle aged husband, is a scummy presence easy to hate at first, but who also presents depth in his portrayal as he loses status in the world and in his own home. Gabriella Fernandez-Coffey is coolly mean in her portrayal of another young Syrian Jewish bride. She has an internal nastiness that comes up from nowhere. (When she used a racial pejorative that seemed so personal, it brought total silence and then collective anger and hisses from the audience.)

Daniel Conway’s set design is just a total physical representation of the written word in the script. There is constant movement of walls and structures and furniture so that one sees an entire multi-story house over the course of the production. The use of mirrors is one great vision as the audience sees itself as well as actors from different perspectives. The set, the lighting and the sound are masterpieces of reflecting and conveying the tricked out nature of the characters and the script. The costumes worn by Heisler depict her growth as she moves from garish teen clothing - all spangles, bangles and rhinestones -  to a brilliantly white suit and finally to a plain black dress and heels that are all power.

Written by David Admji. Directed by Anne Kauffman. Fight choreography by John Gurski. Design: Daniel Conway (set) Helen Q. Huang (costumes) Colin K. Bills (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound) Rebecca Berlin (stage manager). Cast: Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Clinton Brandhagen, Gabriella Fernandez-Coffey, Michael Gabriel Goodfriend, Laura Heisler, Abby Wood.

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Running Time 1:15 - no intermission
A richly detailed, spirited one woman, multi-character performance

Storyline: Life inside a fictional New York City high school includes the lives of 10^th graders, their teachers, the long serving custodian and a resilient principal.

Ms. Sun’s No Child... won a slew of 2007 theater awards including the Lucille Lortel Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, a Theatre World Award and an Obie. It is a very spirited and engaging look at the usually unseen world of an inner city high school. "Unseen" does not mean that such a world is unknown to audiences. Most of what is known may be second hand and from newspaper stories and television news. Here in the DC area, the stories might be about the trials and tribulations of the current DC Mayor and his appointed school chief, or the recent dust up in Fairfax County over a student calling an official at home about not getting a snow day. Then there are the seemingly ever present shootings of students coming home from the school day. But, the actual insides of schools, now that is a different matter! So No Child…is a rare sighting indeed. Sun has developed, and director Hal Brooks has provided, something very critical. They have not turned this into a polemic and screed against some unnamed or made-up and unseen stickman. Bad conditions are no one person’s fault in No Child... even if the notes in the program seem to suggest otherwise.

Nilaja Sun is a gifted artist who can change herself into any number of diverse male and female 10th grade students or teachers of various ethnicities with great panache and even greater detail. She overlooks nothing in her portrayal and each character is richly detailed with all sorts of mannerisms of the body and facial expressions, and oh, what language delivering skills she has! Characterizations just feel right and ring true. Her characters are a wide ranging lot, but all are clearly differentiated even with their own well considered tics. Each of the students, the teachers, the janitor and the security guard all draw our attention to big city school life. There is the mumbler who wants to be unheard, the emotive curser who must learn to tone himself down, the gay male who must learn to fit in with macho types, the Dominicana who wants to perform in the play before her pregnancy shows, the thug who becomes the leader of the students and all who take up such large spaces with hands over their heads, legs spread or necks and heads bobbing, mouths open wide and speaking loudly and eyes circling around totally with attitude. The adults are also a wide ranging group, representing many ethnicities and abilities to endure. But, as we travel along with this crew of kids and adults, we come to care for them, to want them to succeed somehow because of Sun’s generous portrayals.

The production is set inside a high school; there are the all-too well remembered institutional yucky green walls, a number of chairs, and harsh fluorescent lights with some meticulous touches such as a small red pull lever for a fire alarm and instructions on how to walk stairs during an emergency on a card pasted to a wall.  Lighting is used to bring about a sense of location change.

Written by Nilaja Sun. Directed by Hal Brooks. Design Daniel Ettinger (set design adaptation)  Jessica Gaffney (costume) Jennifer Sheetz (properties) Mark Barton (lights) Ron Russell (sound) William E. Cruttenden III (stage manager). Cast: Nilaja Sun.

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Running Time 1:45 - one intermission
Magical realism worthy of the best writers in that genre

Storyline: As told by a narrator, a mysterious and mournful tale in which an entire Ohio town is brought to life. After a reckless car accident that kills her twin brother, teenager Charlotte McGraw becomes a fascination to her friends and family when it appears that she has received an eerie power from her brother’s dying kiss … or then again, did she? As for the initials in the title, they mean the “Kiss of Death.”

It is fascinating that John Vreeke, the director of The K of D, is the same director whose most recent venture was the big budget, big cast, big-scale musical that was Olney’s Fiddler on the Roof. For The K of D , Vreeke’s vision is one of the microscopic and well thought-out nuance. He take a small rehearsal space and obscures its normal walls and florescent lighting so that the audience focuses not only on what is before them, but what they come to conjure in their minds. He has the production always pushing the story forward in a trim manner, there is little wasted time or effort. At times the story line is gently advanced and at other times it is roughly propelled, but the story line is always moving as at least 12 characters appear before you; moving, always moving, never still. Schellhardt’s script feels like an American Midwest version of the best of Latin American magical realism literature from some decades ago. It is wild, comic, at times puzzling, but always soulful and interesting. The script does not tip its hand until the final moments when the virtuous and righteous finally prevail in this wonderful, small scale adventure. Schellhardt currently teaches playwriting at Northwestern University. The K of D was work-shopped as part of the 2006 O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference in Connecticut.

Kimberly Gilbert is a wonder in her ability to seamlessly transform herself into at least 12 distinct characters in a nanosecond. She does not need to intellectually wrestle with the characters. She just inhabits them in a sharp-edged manner. No character roughly collides with another in the split-second it takes for Gilbert to move from one to another. She can be a pack of adolescents that includes several 15 year old girls and boys, each with their own distinctive personality and quirky mannerisms that become readily apparent whenever Gilbert becomes that character again throughout the production. Or she can be an overbearing mother or domineering father or even a slimy, disgusting, dog-killing neighbor who believes in cheap sex and cheaper women as live-ins. Gilbert has the ability to play most of them in a convincing manner not only because of a flawless line delivery, but because she has rubber for face and a bendable body that is elastic enough and asexually costumed to be either male or female but never androgynous. Finally, Gilbert does not have to “think” to get into each of the characters; there are no visible turning wheels in her eyes as she goes from one to another, she just becomes them.

The technical team behind this production are marvels at setting the stage. Marie-Noelle Daigneault has somehow concocted a small stage surrounded by hanging white sheets to give wing space as well as to cover the room’s institutional walls. Matt Otto’s pre-show mournful music is poignant with its voices of rough lives that “make a hard man humble.” His selection of sound effects from small chirping crickets to the eerie call of a heron, to the screeching of car brakes and barking dogs are all right there in your head in the small space and delivered on cue with the lighting and the text. Andrew F. Griffin’s light design makes one believe in birds flying across the room or a stranger at the door in the moonless darkness of a rainy night, let alone the fear of on-coming headlights. A skateboard, the only moving prop beyond Gilbert herself, has a recurring role and a place that makes total sense.

Written by Laura Schellhardt. Directed by John Vreeke. Design: Marie-Noelle Daigneault (set and costumes) Jennifer Sheez (properties) Andrew F. Griffin (lights) Matt Otto (sound) Stan Barouh (photography). Cast: Kimberly Gilbert.

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Running Time:  60 minutes no intermission
A short evening of craziness and feel-good laughter
Price: $25
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: An ever-changing attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes. An emotional and intellectual roller-coaster of ideas and images performed at break-neck speed with a participating audience. The plays run the gamut from the funny, the personal, the abstract, the political and the poignant. Changes every night.

The unpredictable and very creative Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind was first performed in Chicago by The Neo-Futurists in December, 1988. The show continues to be performed in Chicago to this day. The Neo-Futurists are a collective that believes in a theater experience of speed and utter conciseness in performing personal if not autobiographical stories mixed in with the political and the satirical. Most of the playlets are either of high spirits or light heartedness, taking on daily life with a way off-center outlook. But some are downright downbeat with the good reason that they take on topics such as; well, water boarding or the inability to cry at horrible events. The 30 shorts plays are selected in an order dictated by the audience from a nightly changing menu of possible playlets. There are 30 numbers corresponding to each short play from a clothes-line stretched across the stage. Audience members shout out numbers to determine the order and selection of the plays.

The cast is composed of the cerebral and physically imposing Greg Allen, who is also the master of ceremonies; Jessica Anne who has a little girl, somewhat Lisa Simpson type inflected high pitched voice that is so incongruous in the roles she takes on; the dark haired and very earthy Kristie Koehler Vuocolo; the muscular and unexpectedly lithe bodied John Pierson; and the lunatic, always go-for-broke Ryan Walters. Each is given the opportunity to shine in the spotlight or as a member of the small ensemble. Since the show changes every performance one can never be totally sure what will be performed, but highlights of the performance reviewed included a “mooning” take off on Apollo astronauts landing that will forever change this reviewer’s concept of what really happened. There was also a silent but “Mrs. Robinson” song backed depiction of robotic yet athletic love making as a takeoff on everything “Second Life.” The everyday existence of a DC bicycle messenger is brought to bear directly upon the audience with great panache, while there is an all-too-real portrayal of long distance love’s up and sad downs through phone conversations that this reviewer is sure have been experienced by too many of us. Be prepared, you will be expected to participate…enjoy it too, please.

The Wooly Mammoth main stage is bare except for black curtains, while in the wings are chairs and props. Lighting is generally full hot white, along with some blackouts and some spotlight affects used including during the aforementioned “mooning.” Sound consists of music to provide something to play against or play off, usually in a highly satirical way.

Written and directed by The Neo-Futurists. Created by Greg Allen. Technical: Sharon King (Production Assistant), Ann Allen (light board operator) Alan Chaikin (sound board operator) Colin Hovde (photography). Cast: Greg Allen, Jessica Anne, John Pierson, Krisitie Koehler Vuolcolo, Ryan Walters.

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Running time 1:10 - no intermission
The title says it all
Click here to buy the DVD set of the movies

Storyline: As the title promises, one man performs a high-energy encapsulation of all three of the original Star Wars movies: Star Wars (1977) The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), recreating all the memorable scenes while performing all the roles himself, providing the audio effects and the background music as well. Only a very few lighting effects augment what he does all by himself.

Charlie Ross is a Canadian actor who has parlayed this fringe-festival style show into an international career over the past seven years. He's a self-confessed Star Wars fan (it is reported that the number of times he has seen the films is in the hundreds) but the show is not an unquestioningly laudatory fawning fan piece. He makes fun of the weaknesses of the stories and of the performers as well albeit with more than a dash of affection. He brought it here for the 2006 Capital Fringe Festival and it struck a chord with fringers. Now Woolly brings him back for the rest of the month of December.

Ross' mimicry is spot on - witness his C-3PO whistle or his sounds of light sabers and TIE fighters. His impersonations aren't quite as sharp. You won't recognize any James Earl Jones in his Darth Vader, but he gets the breathing precisely right. Talent and technique aren't the only things going for Ross in this production. He also has that most indispensable item for anyone trying to perform his own material: a director. T.J. Dawe, also a Canadian actor and writer, took on the task of shaping the show for the stage. The result is a better balance than might have come from Ross simply acting out his own concepts.

Still, sketch comedy is sketch comedy and a skill at impersonation and mimicry can take you only so far. Carol Burnett used to send up a movie in a five or six minute bit - and she had the likes of Tim Conway and Harvey Korman to help out. Three movies in 70 minutes with no co-stars requires energy, skill and discipline, each of which Ross has in abundance. Having tackled the iconic trilogy of George Lucas' Star Wars epic, what's next for Ross? Why J. R. R. Tolkien, of course. Get set for the One-Man Lord of the Rings Trilogy at a theater near you soon!

Written and performed by Charles Ross. Directed by T.J. Dawe. Sound Board operated by Alan Chaikin. Production stage manager, Christine Fisichella.

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Running time 1:20 - no intermission
A monologue delivered by a very personable young man

Storyline: In a highly polished stream-of-consciousness monologue, actor/writer Josh Lefkowitz, a self-confessed autobiographical addict,  relates the aftermath of the success of his earlier highly polished stream-of-consciousness monologue.

Lefkowitz has become a familiar face to theatergoers in the Potomac region. He was the son in Woolly Mammoth's production of The Mineola Twins, the flighty young Dauphin in Olney's Saint Joan and the questioning medic in Signature's One Red Flower. By far the most personally revealing appearances have been his monologues. First Kiss was first seen as part of Madcap's Winter Carnival of New Works in 2005 and Help Wanted revealed a great deal about his hopes and dreams both personally and professionally. Now he moves further, and being just a tad older, his observations are a bit deeper and more thoughtful if no less entertaining. His relationship with his girlfriend, an actress who also has to go out on the road from time to time, and the temptations of combined success and separation is detailed along with the professional challenges he has and has not met since his last report.

This time out, Lefkowitz' writing doesn't rely as much as the earlier show did on an artificial structure. Then, he talked a good deal about the monologue style of actor/monologist Spalding Gray. Now he allows the narrative to flow as if the observations are occurring to him in real time. His progressions are no less effective, but he no longer dwells openly on the structure. What is more, he has an appealing stage presence which comes across as open, honest and unpretentious in a self-absorbed sort of way. His fascination with his own observations seems innocent rather than egocentric. The secret is that he is so likeable that you do, indeed, want to know about all the small things that occur in his life. The script is highly polished in a natural voice so the fact that each statement has been carefully worked and the progression of the story meticulously structured is hidden by the lack of pretension and a wealth of personal charm.

A major improvement between Help Wanted and Now What? has been Lefkowitz' apparent growth in self confidence even as he delivers material revealing his insecurities. Where Help Wanted was performed sitting at a table with a script which he consulted from time to time and turned page after page as the evening progressed, Lefkowitz has only a chair on the low-rise platform of a stage. He's up, pacing the platform much of the time, giving the performance an additional burst of energy when needed. The theatricality of the show is enhanced by Mark Lanks' lighting changes which are timed nicely to avoid distraction and by Lefkowitz' use of a hidden wireless microphone which provides a boost and increased sharpness for his voice without drawing attention to the fact that his voice is amplified.

Written and performed by Josh Lefkowitz. Design: Mark Lanks (lights) Stan Barouh (photography) Christy Denny (stage manager).

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Running time 1:35 - no intermission
A quirky comedy that spins through decades in less than hours
 

Storyline: A flip-flop on Homer's Odyssey  finds a stay-at-home dad trying to raise his daughter while his wife is off to the Trojan War for twenty years. This version, however, is set in modern times and the wife is on assignment as a photo journalist rather than commanding the troops, and the dad has the help of the apartment house delivery guy. Complicating matters, however, is the arrival of a video crew to create a documentary of the family life the photo-journalist left behind.

New York-based, Canadian-born playwright Melissa James Gibson is best known for her oddly titled play (sic) which featured young-adults living in neighboring units in a cramped apartment building. The strength of (sic) was the distinct speech patterns of the three main characters. Not much actually happened. With this new play, Gibson still provides sharp dialogue, but she puts more concentration on the workings of plot, adding complications to the mix in measured doses. The character of the stay-at-home dad is fairly well developed although the work of Jesse Lanat is a major factor in the distinctiveness of the role. The other characters come across pretty much as pawns in the plot. That plot is strong enough to support a single act but not much more, and it is to Gibson's credit that she recognizes the limitations of the material and develops it just as far as it can go and doesn't try to stretch it further. 

Lenat, in frumpy pajamas and sporting a silly looking goatee, carries the first few years of the two-decade plot almost entirely by himself. The Odyessey, after all, covers twenty years which leaves Gibson only about four minutes per year if she's to wrap this up in an hour and a half. So Lenat scratches hash marks to keep tabs on the passing days, weeks, months, years until his daughter Tel is old enough for actress Casie Platt to take on the role. She then helps out with the chronological rush by aging each time she makes an exit and an entrance. The missing piece in the family dynamic is, of course, the missing mom, and Christina Kirk makes her main contributions at the end of the story. Unfortunately for her, however, the main lapse in Gibson's script is the over-bearing speech she has to deliver on the futility of war, the horrors of government power and the value of freedom of expression. The points she makes have already been made through the events in the story itself, particularly the behavior of Deb Gottesman, Kathryn Falcone and Jessica Dunton as the video crew.

As is often the case at Woolly, one of the great pleasures of the piece is the chance to watch Michael Willis work his wily way with a part that seems close to a mere nothing, but which he makes memorable. Here he's "Bill the Delivery Guy," a throwback to Mary Tyler Moore's "Carlton the Doorman." Unlike Carlton, however, Bill actually appears on stage. He's not just a disembodied voice on an intercom. Willis makes the most of that distinction, adding the visual equivalent of the voice's droll restraint to make the character distinctive. He gives a demonstration of how to build a quirky character in measured doses without distracting from the progression of the play. He's a delight to watch and his performance may well be the thing you remember most of this evening spent in the slightly weird world of Melissa James Gibson's mind. 

Written by Melissa James Gibson. Directed by Daniel Aukin. Fight choreography by John Gurski. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Jake Pinholster (projections) Helen Q Huang (costumes) Jennifer Sheetz (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Ryan Rumery (music and sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Lindsay Miller (stage manager). Cast: Jessica Dunton, Kathryn Falcone, Deb Gottesman, Christina Kirk, Jesse Lenat, Casie Platt, Michael Willis. 

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Running time 2:15 - one intermission
An evening of sparkling dialogue delivered with polish, style and energy
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for September

Storyline: Two young American missionaries in equatorial West Africa to do good work, staying the night in the home of a wealthy westerner and his wife, come up against the reality that the world is perceived differently in different cultures and that the good work they want to do may not be seen by others as quite as virtuous as they had hoped. When one appears to have disappeared, all the remaining occupants of the house have varying ideas as to what should be done.

The name Bruce Norris is new in the Potomac Region. He's an actor as well as the author of a half dozen plays, most of which have debuted at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. He also appears on stage at other well known theaters around the country and even across the Atlantic, but, as far as we know, he hasn't appeared in the Potomac Region. Norris' script has been entrusted to Pam MacKinnon, a director who also has not, as far as we know, worked in the Potomac Region in recent memory. The closest she seems to have come to the beltway was the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia in 2005, when she helmed Father Joy to a joyfully satisfying world premiere. It is her unerring sense of timing and pace that drives the delivery of Norris' overlapping dialogue, letting nearly every one of the best lines emerge from the general din of argument at precisely the right moment for the audience to catch the wit and then have the rest of the statement subside into the near-cacophony. It is quite a display.

Of course, it is the seven principals who execute Norris' concepts at MacKinnon's pace to such enjoyable effect. The two young Christian missionaries are (1) Tim Getman who listens as well as he pronounces - his glances at some of the more egregious statements of his companion are priceless, and (2) Katie Couric look-alike Marni Penning as a television personality turned missionary who transitions from motionless victim of crippling pain to energetic advocate of human rights to anguished witness of unexpected horrors with such earnestness that the illogic of some of those transitions is masked. Their hosts include Charles H. Hyman in a spot-on caricature of a self-made man well beyond any self-doubts, and Naomi Jacobson who verges on being a trophy-wife except that she holds her own sway in the household. Dawn Ursula is a bit overly officious as a woman high up in the local government but she keeps up her end of the argument scenes with style. John Livingstone Rolle gets some of the bigger laughs precisely because the pace slows when he is either sleepy or stoned - which is most of the time. The funniest invention in Norris' script gets delightful delivery from Kofi Owuso who addresses the audience directly in a set of speeches that act as sort of bookends to the story.

Norris should want to come back to the Potomac Region and to Woolly after the quality of the production his new play has received here. For one thing, one could not ask for a finer set design than that provided by James Kronzer. The guest room of the wealthy industrialist's modern stucco and tile home with African-influenced furnishings sits surrounded by the trees of the open spaces, many with floodlights illuminating the perimeter to assure the security of the residents. Colin Bills shines warm setting sunlight through the window at one point and offers blue moonlight at another. Matthew M. Nielson sneaks in the sounds of birds and animals as well as a touch of scene setting music, and just to add to the elegance of the production, Helen Q. Huang drapes both Ursula and Jacobson with the most opulently lovely of fabrics while letting Getman and Penning get by with the missionary organization t-shirts and shorts that are the equivalent of tropical camping gear.

Written by Bruce Norris. Directed by Pam MacKinnon. Design: James Kronzer (set) Helen Q. Huang (costumes) Jennifer Sheetz (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Matthew M. Nielson (composer/sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: James Foster, Jr., Tim Getman, Charles H. Hyman, Naomi Jacobson, James J. Johnson, Kofi Owusu, Marni Penning, John Livingstone Rolle, Dawn Ursula.

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Running time 1:50 - one intermission
t Potomac Stages Pick for a well constructed, very funny comedy with an intriguing concept
Received a citation and $7,500 prize in the American Theatre Critics Associaiton / Steinberg Award for Outstanding New Play of 2007

Storyline: While quietly reading a book in a café, a woman is distracted by the cell phone of the man at the next table who doesn't seem to realize his cell phone is ringing. She soon discovers why -- he's dead. To get the offending noise to stop she answers the phone and, being a helpful soul, tries to assist the person who's calling. She's soon involved in the deceased man's life, and in her zeal to soothe his family's pain, finds herself making up stories about him that meet their needs for the affection and acceptance that they never actually got from him. She's able to meet some of those needs of his mother, his wife, his brother and even his "other woman," but she simply can't deal with the needs of his clients. He was in the illicit trade of black market human organs.

Ruhl uses her peculiar sense of humor to explore issues surrounding the phenomenon that the easier technology makes it for people to stay in touch, the more insubstantial the communication becomes and the less we really seem to touch each other's lives. Just as in The Clean House, she is in touch with the troubling side of the modern world for the man and woman on the street. Also as in that earlier piece, she begins with a first act filled with laughs but setting the stage for some strange digressions into deeper meanings. This not to say that what comes after intermission is somehow less funny. But it is a bit more adventurous. In this case, that second act begins with the scene having shifted from the real world to a hell where people have to wear the clothes they died in which means they have to go to the laundromat once a week and stand around naked while they wash their clothes - I told you Ruhl had a peculiar sense of humor.

Just as The Clean House had a superb monologue that remains stuck in memory (the "Matilda Tries To Tell The Perfect Joke" scene played entirely in Portuguese), so too, Dead Man's Cell Phone has a stand-alone piece that is worth the price of admission all by itself. It is a scene for the dead man in the title after he's settled into the peculiar hell Ruhl envisioned for him. As delivered by Rick Foucheux, it is an eleven minute gem. It isn't the only fine performance, however. Polly Noonan makes a terrific mousy young woman who would say anything to make people feel better. In her hands, you believe the impulses which lead to all the strange consequences. Sarah Marshall is just as funny as you would expect if you saw how very good she was with Ruhl's material in The Clean House. Naomi Jacobson is another alumni of the earlier Ruhl play doing nice work here, this time as the deceased's widow, and Bruce Nelson does, as he almost always seems to do, create the character of a strange man with a warmly human soul underneath all the peculiarities. In short, the show is marvelously cast. Only Jennifer Mendenhall seems somehow less than she might be in the role of "the other woman," but it really isn't clear if the problem here is in the text or the performance. It just seems that this one character is a bit too far removed from the world of the rest of the dead man's circle.

Set designer Neil Patel reveals a series of starkly satisfying visual assemblies within a single principal set of a semi-circle of tile representing the café in a subway station in New York. The dinning room table for family get-togethers which is wheeled in, or the lectern for a eulogy which appears in an angled opening are among the eye-pleasing features, as is a roll-on structure that reveals a stationery store. The drop-down lamps in the shape of houses is another superb visual. Both Colin K. Bills' varied lighting and Martin Desjardin's atmospheric music help enrich the feel of the production. All the design elements are in service to - rather than distractions from - the concepts in Ruhl's play, and that play is a delight. Woolly has already extended the scheduled run by a week - the better to get your tickets. Get them now.

Written by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman. Choreography by Karma Camp. Design: Neil Patel (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Jennifer Sheetz (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Martin Desjardines (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Taryn Colberg (stage manager). Cast: Rick Foucheux, Naomi Jacobson, Sarah Marshall, Jennifer Mendenhall, Bruce Nelson, Polly Noonan.

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Running time 1:55 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for the most laughs per minute

Storyline: A lesbian actress fears she has lost the affection of her lover, an actress who has accepted a chance to star in Shakespeare's cross dressing comedy in a summer stock production. So she disguises herself as an actor and gets the co-starring part as his/her lover's lover. This is the plot of a play in the mind of a playwright whose cast help him try out different versions of scenes and make changes and corrections as they rehearse this play within a play within a play.

This confection of multiple identity is the work of David Greenspan whose biography is itself a collection of contradictions. He's a writer and a performer. He's performs his own material and that of others. He was the original understudy in the musical Hairspray for both the roles of Tracy's mother and Tracy's father -- no wonder he could come up with a plot about a woman playing a man playing a woman! Looking further back in his bio, you find he wrote Myopia, a solo play within a play within a play (something about a musical about Warren G. Harding - hey, the guy's got imagination!) This time out it isn't a solo play, but Greenspan again explores layers of theatricality with a nimble and refreshingly open sense of humor. Shalwitz gives that humor every opportunity to work -- and work it does. However, he stages a number of key moments with cast members laying on the floor of the low-stage in Woolly's theater with its very slight rake of the audience floor. As a result, many behind the front row of the orchestra section spend part of the evening twisting to see between the heads in front of them. For this show, try the central tier, the boxes or the balcony.

This is the funniest performance from Kate Eastwood Norris since, well - since the last time she was on a stage. This woman can make unfunny funny, but that isn't a skill she needs here. Here, she has material worthy of her talents and she makes the most of it. Reviewers often refer to musical theater performers who can "stop the show" with a fabulous song (we referred to the "show stopping Debra Monk" just last week in our review of Curtains on Broadway), but when is the last time you've seen someone stop a show without a song? Norris accomplishes this with a crystal clear comic dialogue with herself that has her twisting and turning at top speed, creating both sides of a conversation with such clarity that no one in the audience doubted which character said what, while, at the same time, providing "herself" with both the set ups and the punch lines for a series of gags that builds to a wonderful theatrical climax.

No part in this six-role play is either easy or small. Thus, a cast of six really good comic actors is necessary, and that is just what Shalwitz has. Jenna Sokolowski does a great job with the bright and chipper director's assistant with the great name of Eve Addaman (try that as Addaman, Eve). Daniel Frith has a number of fine visual moments as the director of the summer stock show in Maine -- his requests of "his cast" to try some of his wilder ideas may well be Shalwitz' own self-depreciatory humor given physical form by this talented young actor. Best of the supporting bunch, however, is Daniel Escobar who takes what must be the most stereotypically written part in the play and gives it both depth and humor, especially in his lengthy inebriated recitation of all the gay-man plays he doesn't want to see.

Written by David Greenspan. Directed by Howard Shalwitz. Design: Tony Cisek (set) Melanie Clark (costumes) Jennifer Sheetz (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Hana Sellers (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Taryn Colberg (stage manager). Cast: Daniel Escobar, Daniel Frith, Gia Mora, Kate Eastwood Norris, Michael Russotto, Jenna Sokolowski.

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Running time 1:35 - no intermission
A lively and intriguing look at love, life and death

Storyline: The death of a firefighter in the line of duty brings to an end a lengthy marriage - or does it? "Widow" isn't ready to let go and she captures "Soul" and shuts him up in her hope chest. He's been separated from "Body" however. In the normal course of things, it may be true that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. But when "Body" and "Soul" are not free to depart "this veil of tears" images from that life can get caught in a replay loop. Even "Widow" begins to weary of it, especially when "Wooer" arrives on the scene.

This is the first time that Colette Searls has directed here at Woolly Mammoth. She was the "puppetographer" on last year's The Velvet Sky and lists herself as a puppetry specialist (she's a recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation grant) so it may not be too surprising that the production has a strong sense of visual storytelling. This is a good thing since the one-act, hour and a half show has little excess time to fritter away and every aspect needs to get the story moving along briskly.

With Naomi Jacobson as "Widow," the production has a strong center around which the confusion swirls. Matthew Montelongo's "Body" and Michael Russotto's "Soul" resemble each other enough to make it seem reasonable that they are simply two sides of the same coin. J. Fred Shiffman is a bit less shtickie than he was in his last outing, Arena's She Loves Me, and his "Wooer" is both funny and touching.

Daniel Ettinger's set is a fine example of exaggerated unreality. The box that is "Widow's" home is an angular construction of high walls, windows displaying not views but colors that reveal the world (red for fire, for example) and a central space dominated by the two things that dominate her world - a bed with all its connections to "Body" and the chest in which she keeps "Soul."

Written by Noah Haidle. Directed by Colette Searls. Flying by Foy. Choreography by Michael J. Bobbitt. Fight Choreography by John Gurski. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Jennifer Sheetz (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Ryan Rumery (sound and music) Stan Barouh (photography) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: Connor Aikin, Naomi Jacobson, Matthew Montelongo, Michael Russotto, J. Fred Shiffman.

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Running time 2:00 – one intermission
A quirky feel good story with music by the King
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award
 for November
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A dominatrix on her fortieth birthday, one of her clients, her mildly retarded daughter, a devout catholic housecleaner and a Chinese Elvis come together for one night during Advent in a touching retelling of the story of the prodigal son (daughter).

The cast works very well together in this off-beat story. Too often such unique characters fail to mesh as an ensemble, but that is not the case here. While Beth Hylton, who plays the dominatrix mother on her fortieth birthday, doesn’t quite come across as a woman who has been servicing clients in that manner for decades, her performance as a mother making the best of the cards she has been dealt is effective. One might wonder just how much David Bryan Jackson was paid for this show when you see him after his first costume change. Let’s just say that this reviewer would not have the guts to appear on stage so attired. More disturbing is he IS believable in his role as the submissive, but fortunately that lasts only a moment, and the story continues once the background has been set.

The focus of the night, contrary to the story’s title, is not Josie or Martha, played by Sarah Marshall, or even the “Chinese Elvis” impersonator, portrayed with some skill by Tommy Nam, but the role of Brenda-Marie, an adult woman who is retarded enough that she lives with her mother, but not so badly off that she cannot understand right and wrong. Ms. Gilbert is a pleasure to watch throughout the evening, even though she spends quite a bit of it hidden away inside a tent. When someone long lost returns, played by Tiffany Fillmore in her Woolly Mammoth debut, the interaction between the two is a good portrayal of an intimate character study. The developing relationship between Martha, an obsessive compulsive housecleaner and Lionel, Josie’s favorite client, provides many laughs through the performance, and while not vital to the main story is a welcome addition to the evening.

The set, by Dan Conway, must be given some of the credit for the success of the performance. When you first see it prior to the start of the show, it seems like it might be too large for a small ensemble play, but it is used deftly by director John Vreeke, to give room for stories to unfold and emotions to unravel. Often the lack of a curtain is missed in theaters these days, but for once it was a delight to have more time to take in the beauty of the house that Dan built. And finally, there is the music of the King, which again seems to be what brought in a fair number of the crowd. Whether played during intermission, or sang, not badly, by Tommy Nam (who after all is playing a Chinese Elvis impersonator at the start of his career), the crowd could be seen dancing in their seats and enjoying the way that each song fit into the story. Recently extended to play through December 17^th, you have more time to catch this holiday treat.

Written by Charlotte Jones, Directed by John Vreeke. Design: Dan Conway (set) Colin K. Bills (lights) Matthew M. Nielson (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) William V. Carlton (stage manager). Cast: Tiffany Fillmore, Kimberly Gilbert, Beth Hylton, David Bryan Jackson, Sarah Marshall, Tony Nam.

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Running time 1:20 - no intermission
An often funny and disturbing staging of a
political cartoon tirade

Storyline: A chronological presentation of some of the sharpest barbs thrown at the administration of George W. Bush, his policies and their results in Afghanistan, Iraq, domestic policy, disaster relief and electoral politics in the comic strip by David Rees.

The program reprints just the first panel of the second strip printed back on October 9, 2001 with its bitterly ironic "Oh my God, This War on Terrorism is gonna rule! I can't wait until the war is over and there's no more terrorism!" Talk about cutting to the chase. Few commentators at the time managed to take a position on the central thrust of the administration's position in just two sentences and both accurately describe its target and annihilate it. Not everyone then wanted to hear that argument. Not everyone now wants to hear it. If your resistance to the message is strong, this show is going to get your dander up. If you are already in agreement with the view that the Bush Administration record on so many fronts is a negative one, this show will delight you with many laughs and not a few lines you will try to remember to use yourself. If you happen to be in between somewhere, your reaction to the show is likely to be somewhere in between as well.

The cast of five are natural, energetic and have choreographed their movements to a sheen in a collaborative ensemble performance. Each of the performers has a distinct persona on stage and each runs a thread of personal behavior through the short evening, however it is the collective impression that is important. And those overhead projectors! They are the key to the pacing of the evening. The slides - well, actually those photo-copied transparent sheets that carry the images the machines project on the screen behind the long on stage table - are slapped onto the projector screens with ever increasing vehemence as the Bush Administration continues year after year. The attitude is an ever amplifying "will this never end?"

The link to a sub-culture mentality is established by that "f-word." Just like the free speech movement hippies of Berkeley in the 1960s, the cast uses the word like a flag waving in the verbal wind to establish that the speaker is "with it," free of inhibitions and totally anti-establishment. OK, we get the point.

Written by Kirk Lynn et al from the internet comic by David Rees. Directed by Shawn Sides. Design: Leilah Stewart (set) Laura Cannon (costumes) Brian Scott (lights) Robert S. Fisher (sound) Bret Brookshire (photography) Jose Hernandez (stage manager). Cast: Lana Lesley, Jason Liebrecht, Kirk Lynn, Amy Miley, Chad Nichols.

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Running time 1:50 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for compelling interlocking
 stories and performances
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for September

Storyline: Two women enact the stories of their encounter with the reality of AIDS, one in Zimbabwe and one in Los Angeles. Although separated by 10,249 miles, the two are united by the challenge of life in places where black women experience the highest rate of new infections in a world wide epidemic that thrives on cultural attitudes that women must confront in the battle to avoid the modern plague.

When the show completed its successful New York run, Gurira and Salter took it to Zimbabwe and also stopped in South Africa to play it in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Now, back in the US, they will perform it in Ohio, California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Illinois. But first, we get to see it here in the Potomac Region at Woolly. See it you should, for not only is it deftly and sensitively written, it is performed with a sense of assurance and style that is impressive indeed. Each woman creates an intensely personal, simultaneously troubling and amusing portrait of the world they grew up in. With their unique but complimentary gifts, each is worth knowing as a stand alone experience, but the cumulative effect of the two merged into one drives home its message of universal values and dangers in a unique way.

Gurira has a sharp, precise maturity that draws attention to every word she speaks. Her accent is sharp, requiring careful listening, which in turn, draws you into the story of her world. Salter uses the more melodic speech patterns of the street to create her portrait of not only her character but of those who share her South Central L.A. world. The distinctions between them soon meld to highlight the similarities in their situations - women in a culture that limits their options and denigrates their value at a time when a terrible scourge is wracking their world. Sound depressing? No, their play and their performances combine into a highly affirmative experience. It is precisely because these are women you are glad to have come to know that makes their survival so important to you.

The simple set provides a painted background that captures the rich but dull browns of both heat-seared South Central L.A. and, one suspects, of Zimabwe. The use of scarves as both costumes and set dressing ties each story to its locale without apparent pretense. Movement is a key element of the way the evening moves gracefully from continent to continent, event to event and story to story. In the absence of a credit for choreography, this must be attributed to the director, Robert O'Hara, but, to be honest, it isn't clear if he added the element of movement to the work of the two women or if it is their own sense of style and rhythm that is at work. Whatever it is, it is very effective without being distracting - an admirable balance. But, then, balance is the hallmark of the entire project.

Written by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter. Directed by Robert O'Hara. Design: Peter R. Feuchtwanger (set) Sarah Hillard (costumes) Jay Duckworth (properties) Colin D. Young (lights) Lindsay Jones (sound) Rubin Coudyzer (photography) Kate Heffel (stage manager). Cast: Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter.

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Running time 2:20 - one intermission
A look into the inner sanctum for teachers in a quirky high school

Storyline: Four teachers spar over the mundane and the extraordinary in the sanctuary set aside for faculty at a high school where some students seem to have become caught up in a craze involving "the rapture."

Los Angeles playwright Bridget Carpenter, the author of Up (The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair), first presented this play at the Humana Festival in Louisville, but this is a new version receiving its first performance here. The play earned her the $10,000 Kesserling Prize for an emerging American Playwright from the National Arts Club in 2002. Shalwitz directs with his usual attention to the mundane details of every day activities early in the play in order to set up the flights of fancy that come later.

Megan Anderson is bright and perky as the drama teacher in touch with some of the student's higher aspirations, while history teacher Michael Russotto shows a touch of exasperation over both the bureaucratic frustrations in a large modern high school and the cliquish attitude of some of the faculty. This is the Potomac Region debut for Ethan T. Bowen who adds a touch of weariness as the English teacher, while Michael Willis is a teacher of very few words who makes periodic appearances between the epigrammatic announcements on the PA system from a really strange principal. (Willis also provides the disembodied voice of the principal.) Making a brief but well done appearance as the only student the audience gets to see is Miles Butler.

Robin Stapley's set is a spot-on recreation of a slightly dilapidated former classroom that seems to hover before the void beyond. Stapley was presented with practically the same challenges for this play as was Bob Crowley when he was hired to design The History Boys for London and later Broadway - a school room, the halls, even a projection area for filmed sequences. Crowley's solution earned him the Tony Award this year. Stapley's design is better. (It would have been nice, however, had it not featured a prominently placed institutional clock with hands that never move from 9:30.) The faculty room is surrounded by halls with student's lockers, but a velvety black behind and above isolates the location. That black is slashed in a final effect that validates the play's reach for deeper meanings in the metaphysical subplot that ends the piece. 

Written by Bridget Carpenter. Directed by Howard Shalwitz. Fight choreography by John Gurski. Design: Robin Stapley (set) Melanie Clark (costumes) Jennifer Sheetz (properties) Jay A. Herzog (lights) Michael Kraskin (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) William V. Carlton (stage manager). Cast: Megan Anderson, Ethan T. Bowen, Miles Butler, Michael Russotto, Michael Willis.

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Reviewed April 8
Running time 2:50 - One Intermission
Shalwitz leads an evening of fine frantic antics
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A strangely troubled "Irish Man" seeks the assistance of a troublingly strange practitioner of an obscure psychological offshoot called Dynamatology to overcome various blockages which are keeping him from being able to sing as well as the Italian Tenor Beniamino Gigli. (He knows he is capable of singing that well because he sang beautifully as a boy.) The exchange of psycho-babble seems to unearth more psychoses in the psyche of the practitioner than in the supposed patient. While the sounds of the recordings of Gigli fill the cluttered office, the two - plus the occasional lover of one - vent deeply held emotions.

Particularly impressive is the intensity and physicality of the performance of Howard Shalwitz as a sort of psychotherapist in desperate need of the services of a real practitioner of the psychiatric healing arts. It is a clear case of "Dynamatologist: heal thyself." From the first minute, as he perches precariously on the ledge of a window trying to establish contact with a lover using a phone he's jerry rigged to avoid actually paying for the call, till the very last when, again, the window plays a key part in the play, he's a walking collection of quirks, twitches and strange mannerisms that, in lesser hands, might mask the inner turmoil of the character. In his hands, though, they amplify revealing comments to bring a troubled soul into focus.

Hébert matches Shalwitz in scene after scene but his character isn't on stage continuously as is Shalwitz's. Nonetheless, when he gets a chance to let loose, as in the opening minutes of the second act, he is a force of impressive strength. Kimberly Schraf has the least stage time of the trio but she is quite good when she is on stage.

Any play where recorded music plays as big a role as it does here requires a sort of magic touch on the part of the sound designer. It isn't that new sound effects needed to be created or that there were a lot of choices as to music - the script calls for a host of arias recorded by Gigli. However, these recordings could sound terribly artificial if played simply through the speaker of the on-stage record player, or they could sound disjointed and removed from the world of the play if they seemed to come from a sound system in the theater's auditorium. Somehow, sound designer Hana Sellers makes them seem to fill the world of the play and spill out over the audience. It is an all enveloping presence, just as Gigli's presence was so much a factor in the character's lives. (For the record, Gigli was born in 1890, was a star at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the 1920s and died in Italy in 1957.)

Written by Tom Murphy. Directed by Tom Prewitt. Design: Anne Gibson (set) Deb Sivigny (costumes) Linda S. Evans (properties) Lisa L. Ogonowski (lights) Hana Sellers (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Taryn Colbert (stage manager). Cast: Mitchell Hébert, Kimberly Schraf, Howard Shalwitz.

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Reviewed February 5
Running time 1:25 - no intermission
A razor sharp premiere of a troubling tale of danger
Winner of the Ushers Favorite Show award for February 2006

Storyline: After nearly thirteen years without a good night's sleep, a man takes his son from the protective hold of his mother who hasn't even had a bad nights sleep in that time as she struggles to remain vigilant, for she has known that a terrible fate would befall their son if she fell asleep before his thirteenth birthday. Father and son head off to New York City. The son breaks free and sets off to enjoy an adventure but he's confronted by many of the dangers parents would envision when thinking of their young son on his own in the big city. The real danger, however, comes from something much closer to home.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa left our town a few years ago to pursue his study of playwrighting at Yale. His The Muckle Man was a Source Theatre success in 2001, earning him a nomination for the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play in that year's Helen Hayes Awards cycle. Now he's back in town, and his latest script is getting the kind of world premiere production every author dreams about - good cast, great design, strong direction. His text is clean, his dialogue sharp and the concept is both original and serious. It takes a while to figure out some of the scene shifts, but it isn't quite clear if that is a technique he and director Taichman are using intentionally to heighten the sense of the surreal, or if it is a result of the decision to hold the story to a one-act of less than ninety minutes when the audience clearly could be kept on the edge of their seats a bit longer.

Leading the cast is Jeanine Serralles whose posture captures the conflict between fatigue and fear as the sleep deprived mother, Will Gartshore who progresses in measured steps through the revelations of the play as the father, and in a notable local debut, Matthew Stadelmann as the twelve-going-on-thirteen young man who is even more confused by the world than most kids his age. He combines that confusion with a fine sense of youth's fearless interest in the world at large but a timidity that sneaks up on him whenever he gets too close to the unknown. In the brief span of the show there is little time for the supporting players, Rick Foucheux, Michael Russotto and Dawn Ursula, to make much out of the multiple roles assigned to them but they are the a pleasure to watch, anyway.

The striking set design of Scott Bradley features the safe cocoon of a home that literally splits apart, revealing a world that is less confined, less ordered and more daunting. Colin K. Bills provides some surgically precise lighting effects which mark the young man's trip into the unknown, but there is a strange sequential lighting effect that runs across the top of the back wall that remains both obscure and distracting.

Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman. Design: Scott Bradley (set) Helen Huang (costumes) Brett Terrell (properties) Colin K. Bills (lights) Martin Desjardins and Vinent Olivieri (sound and music) Stan Barouh (photography) Colleen Martin (stage manager). Cast: Rick Foucheux, Will Gartshore, Michael Russotto, Jeanine Serralles, Matthew Stadelmann, Dawn Ursula.

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 Reviewed November 20
Running time 2:20 - one intermission
The premiere of a strong new play

Storyline: In 1950, the view of life on the front stoop of an apartment building in one of Atlanta's new "upscale negro" communities is contrasted with the life going on in the apartments just a wall away.

Shephard-Massat has been a playwright on the rise now for almost a decade, with awards (including the Kennedy Centers' Roger L. Stevens Award in 1999) and well received plays (Waiting To Be Invited and Someplace Soft to Fall). This play calls for its cast of eight to form a smooth and effective ensemble. While the plot brings Dawn Ursula and J Paul Nicholas to the forefront, fine character creations by Doug Brown, Craig Wallace, Bethany Butler and Michael Anthony Williams almost make you want the show to last longer so you can keep watching them work. Ursula and Nicholas carry their characters through the more convoluted development of their parts with great skill. Ursula captures the pain of developments with a great sense of realism: no over-acting but not one emotional stop on her journey ignored. Nicholas is also impressive at the slow revelations of the worst aspects of his character's nature.

Seret Scott's direction occasionally allows the conflicting stories to pile on top of each other, and she inserts some strangely distracting touches. For example, she unaccountably blocks the action in at least one of the apartments so that the occupants indoors are talking to the people outdoors through the one window in the set that doesn't seem to be able to be opened. However, she gives her extremely talented cast the leeway to make the most of each character. Indeed, some go a bit too far with the personal quirks of their parts, especially Lizan Mitchell whose whiney motormouth is completely in character, but distracting at just the wrong moments,more irritating than necessary and often difficult to understand.

Perhaps it was the effort to split the playing space into even halves for the outside and the inside worlds being portrayed, but the set by Daniel Ettinger, while visually striking, has too-constricted spaces in which Scott must block the action inside of the apartment house. Subdivided into four rooms and a stairway, it is cramped and excessively shallow as well as seeming a bit too modern for 1950. Sure, the apartments would have been cramped in such a project in Atlanta in 1950, but Scott needed some room to move her actors around, especially in the bedroom on the lower right side. No such constraint affected costume designer Kate Turner-Walker who gives each character a unique look thoroughly in keeping with each personality but collectively reflecting the time and place.

Written by S.M. Shephard-Massat. Directed by Seret Scott. Design: Daniel Ettinger (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Linda Evans (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Taryn Colberg (stage manager). Cast: Doug Brown, Bethany Butler, Jessica Frances Dukes, Lizan Mitchell, J Paul Nicholas, Dawn Ursula, Craig Wallace, Michael Anthony Williams.

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Reviewed September 11
Running time 2:40 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a meaty comedy
with an first-rate leading performance

Storyline: In a frantic call to 911, thirteen year old Justin refuses the operator's instruction to get out of the house where his mother is dying from an attack by the homeless man her husband hired to do odd jobs around the house. The tape of that call is released to the media and makes him a celebrity after she dies of her wounds. His father cashes in on that celebrity with a best selling book ("After Ashley") and a television show. The conflict between private grief and public exploitation reaches its climax when Justin torpedoes the effort to turn his mother's memory into a false image for a new shelter for the battered women.

Sullivan seems to shine when playing a kid with flashes of maturity exposed by a lack of age-induced reticence. Two years ago he was notable as a child playing the part of a grownup in the slapstick tragedy Family Stories at Rorschach. Here he's given the chance to be the voice of reason, delivering telling barbs of acerbic wit as his character reacts to all the idiocy of tragedy-based celebrity surrounding him. He's the voice of the playwright, too. The entire story reinforces his view of events. That could be grating or cloying in less capable hands. In Sullivan's, it is sharp, thoughtful and highly entertaining.

Supporting Sullivan are familiar faces like Paul Morella as the suitably smarmy TV talk show host and Michael Willis, a bit too sleazy as a pornographer who prefers to be known as "a guide to erotic exploration."  Deanna McGovern makes an effective partner for much of Sullivan's exploration of the world of sordid celebrity as a sort of groupie who hits on him in a bar, where, by age 17, he spends a good deal of his time. The key supporting roles are those of Justin's parents: mother Marni Penning in the set-up scene prior to the crime, and Bruce Nelson as the father who tries to create and market a false memory of her afterwards. Penning gives Sullivan lots of opportunity to demonstrate the terse humor in the set up scene while Nelson gives a surprisingly underdone performance.

This is the third show mounted in Woolly's new theater on D Street. Every theater company needs to feel its way into a new space and find the best way to use its individuality. The new theater has a shallow rake to the audience floor which doesn't work well for the blocking that Lee Mikeska Gardner uses on James Kronzer's mod-looking set. The lesson to be gleaned from this production is that staging significant portions of a play with characters downstage laying or sitting on the floor means not everyone in the audience will be able to see them. For this production, the best seats in the house are the Center Tier's Row K between seats 104 and 116 and the Center Balcony Row AA between 203 and 219.

Written by Gina Gionfriddo. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. Design: James Kronzer (set) Melanie Clark (costumes) Lesley Milner (properties) Lisa L. Ogonowski (lights) Michael Kraskin (sound) Stan Barouh (photography) Laura Smith (stage manager). Cast: Deanna McGovern, Paul Morella, Bruce Nelson, Marni Penning, Mark Sullivan, Michael Willis.

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Reviewed July 22
Running time 2:05 - one intermission
Winner of the Ushers Favorite Show Award for July 2005
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a touching play about the power of laughter
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A Portuguese-speaking Brazilian housekeeper, who hates to clean, drives her employer nuts. The employer, a successful doctor, has a sister who does like to clean ("if it weren't for dust, I don't know if I'd want to live.") The Brazilian housekeeper and the sister beco