Andrew White - Page 5

If you think the late Texas-born playwright Horton Foote and his fictional home town of Harrison, Texas are little more than genteel curiosities, think again. In Quotidian Theatre's season-opening production of Foote's A Coffin in Egypt, we are confronted with a life that is complex, dark and unapologetic. The cordial but tough-willed Myrtle Bledsoe (played by Quotidean stalwart Jane Squier Bruns) is a well-heeled widow way past the age when she would care what anybody thinks.

Steven A. Butler, Jr., a Maryland native, has a truly compelling story about his La Plata great-great grandparents, whose love blossomed when the Jim Crow, Blackface era was at its height. With talent and drive, they struggled against the odds and against an exploitative white manager to operate a touring circus featuring only performers of color.

Given that it's the time of year when Synetic brings out ghoulish Halloween fare, the choice of a children's favorite like Peter Pan may come as a bit of a surprise. But in this incarnation, adapted in fine fashion by Ed Monk, this is a Peter with bite and enough darkness to keep even the grownups on the edge of their seat.

As effervescent and fun as it is filled with the world of ideas (and equations), 'Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight' is a heady evening, bringing a great women back to brilliant life both onstage and in our collective memory.

What do you do, when you find yourself with a ballet artist who can seemingly levitate at will? A lithe male body that floats and leaps with such an airy insouciance it seems almost unfair he has to come back to earth? Answer: you seek out an equally lithe, supple prima ballerina whose talents match his, but with her own distinct gestural vocabulary.

Marie Jones, a native of Belfast, brilliantly punctures our tin-whistle conceit of the Irish in her poignant drama Stones in his Pockets. The play is also an actor's dream, because it calls for two actors to take on an entire village of roles, American as well as Irish.

In keeping with their love of open-air, marketplace theatre the company embraced a variety of outdoor spaces (I saw them on the west lawn at the National Building Museum), creating a vibrant atmosphere well before the first actor took the stage.

Stop for a moment to think how things have changed; how the election of Donald Trump and the imposition of a travel ban on Muslims and openly anti-immigrant, pro-white nationalist sentiment have torn away at the nation. It is no wonder that Akhtar's searing drama deserves its place on the stage right here, and right now.

Whew - what a night out! Rorschach Theatre's revival of their 2013 production of Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman's fantasy novel, features a fine roster of new and returning players, and is a perfect night out for adventurous families-especially those with restless older kids.

Robert McNamara's current production gives us everything you need for an exciting evening of Shakespeare, even for those who wouldn't know a Colosseum if it dropped into their front yards. The combination of high-octane performers, solid in the pentameter and carefully directed, is thrilling to watch. You can't miss this one.

For all the pathos in this, one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, director Ron Daniels has found a way to create and unexpectedly festive atmosphere. There is, refreshingly, room to laugh knowingly even as Iago weaves his evil plot.

If you're looking for new, compelling, finely-crafted plays, look no further than the Hub Theatre. Their recently-concluded run of Philip Dawkins' autobiographical tour-de-force The Happiest Place on Earth is more evidence, as if any were needed, that they are a company to be reckoned with on the Washington theatre scene. Not only do they have an unerring eye for innovative scripts, they know how to give their playwrights the high-value productions they deserve.

Happenstance's ensemble is chock full of talents, and when combined in a show like this it is impossible not to smile the whole way through. For kids you have slapstick, bad puns and the occasional chance for audience participation (we can make it rain, people). For adults you have visual puns from classic art, statues, and familiar French tunes that never go out of fashion.

Oblivion is about the emptiness that plagues modern life, and the desperate attempts we make to fill that emptiness with something, anything, regardless of how illusory. Director Christopher Goodrich has assembled a dynamite cast, and the intimate environment at the River Road Unitarian Universalist's Fireside Room brings us into close contact with four truly vivid characters.

How I Learned What I Learned was originally intended as a way for August Wilson to share the many colorful, real-life characters that informed his work. With Wilson's passing, others have stepped up to represent on his behalf; and Roundhouse is blessed to have Eugene Lee, a veteran of many of Wilson's plays, to perform the master dramatist's life story.

Flying V has become the premiere forum for stage fights in the DC area, and the creativity in their 'Flying V Fights' series has never been more awesome or delightful. This year's entry, 'The Secret History of the Unknown World,' sees co-directors (and co-founders) Jason Schlafstein and Jonathan Ezra Rubin presiding over an evening of mayhem devoted to the bizarre, alternative worlds that have obsessed us on page and on film over 100 years.

The Washington Ballet's latest program, on view through this weekend, is especially rich with the work of three great choreographers on display; this talented ensemble has never looked more lively and inspired, and it is a joyful evening not to be missed.

What makes the Maly production of Three Sisters so compelling is Lev Dudin's ability to show how Chekhov's small-town characters, mired in the mores and beliefs of 1890's provincial Russia, anticipate our own thwarted dreams. Surprises abound, as we discover the inner fire that burns in people we thought we knew as humble, down-home folk. And they become shockingly familiar and contemporary in the process.

There is be nothing on the stage more exhilarating, exasperating and joyful than the sight of an entire company completely committed, all on the edge-dancing literally on the edge of success, on the edge of failure. "Walking with 'Trane (2015)" reminds us what a vital contribution Urban Bush Women company has made to the American performing arts.

For years the word "Palestinian" has been synonymous with terror; it hasn't occurred to the mainstream media that beyond the headlines, and just out of the camera's view, are families-many of them now fatherless-struggling to survive and maintain their identity in a world that has grown increasingly hostile to their very existence. Raeda Taha's brilliant autobiographical one-woman show, 'Where Can I Find Someone Like You, Ali?,' provides us with a narrative that is as timely as it is necessary.