Mary Lincer - Page 3

What did our critic think of FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS at Nu Sass? Whether or not Edmund Gwenn (he played Santa in Miracle on 34th St.) verifiably said on his deathbed that dying is easy but comedy is hard doesn't change the truth, and Donna Hoke's ninety-minute play Finding Neil Patrick Harris proves it. Somewhat thoughtful nevertheless, Finding Neil Patrick Harris considers promises, friendship, competition, the nature of both comedy and happiness, along with the role that being a fan of a TV celebrity can have in a life. Staged by Nu Sass in its 30-seat space, the scene changes run the risk of exhausting the actors, but there really is nowhere to put a stagehand.

What did our critic think of SHOUT SISTER SHOUT! at Ford's Theatre? Four lady singers dominate in the very best way SHOUT SISTER SHOUT!, a musical biography of Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915-1973). at Ford's Theatre through May 13. Sister Rosetta began singing in church alongside her mother, Katie Bell, who traveled and preached in the rural South before women could vote.

What did our critic think of GLORIA: A LIFE at Theater J?

What did our critic think of BLUE at Eisenhower Theater?

What did our critic think of INTO THE WOODS at Opera House/Kennedy Center?

What did our critic think of GISELLE at Opera House/Kennedy Center? Giselle, like Hamlet for actors, Carmen for mezzo-sopranos, and Mrs. Lovett for musical theatre singer/actors of a certain age, brings audiences to the theatre to get to know the skills of the latest acclaimed ballerina. (Previous Giselles include: Makarova, Fracci, Julie Kent, Gelsey Kirkland, Alonso, Markova, Misty Copeland, Fonteyn, Virginia Johnson, Pavlova.) Ukrainian-Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, former director of the Bolshoi Ballet, current artist in residence for American Ballet Theatre, soon to be artist in residence for New York City Ballet, has brought three ballerinas to dance Giselle with a company of exiled, excellent Ukrainian dancers to the Kennedy Center through February 5.

What did our critic think of JANE ANGER at Shakespeare Theatre?

What did our critic think of THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE at Theatre J?

What did our critic think of TOOTSIE at Capital One Hall?

What did our critic think of JUST FOR US at Woolly Mammoth?

What did our critic think of THE LOOK OF LOVE at Eisenhower Theater?

What did our critic think of AIN'T NO MO' at Woolly Mammoth?Thanks to Barack Obama's presidency but, alas, because of Rachel Dolezal's wannabe caper, American drama requires some updated, Black-originated satire; Jordan E. Cooper obliges with Ain't No Mo', his 100 minute whupping of white privilege, supremacy, and presumptive cultural majority at Woolly Mammoth through October 9. Cooper follows the late Douglas Turner Ward and George C. Wolfe whose Day of Absence (1965) and The Colored Museum (1986) lampooned white dominance with comedy both uproarious and bitter, and so does this show. It's good to have the real, live, three-dimensional exchange that only theatre provides. No disrespect, Dear White People, Get Out, Sorry to Bother You, and the canon of Spike Lee.

What did our critic think of HAMILTON at Kennedy Center Opera House? Hamilton, the 11 Tony award-winning musical, has returned to the Kennedy Center Opera House through October 9.

What did our critic think of THE SECOND CITY'S THE REVOLUTION WILL BE IMPROVISED at Theater Lab/Kennedy Center? While we await Saturday Night Live's 48th season, Washingtonians can bounce on over to the Kennedy Center for comic relief by The Second City's the Revolution Will Be Improvised. The troupe reminds us that the End may be near because there's a TV show called 'Is it cake?'

What did our critic think of IN HIS HANDS at Mosaic At Atlas Performing Arts Center? The world première of Benjamin Benne's In His Hands has opened at the Atlas Performing Arts Center while it's still Pride month. But this fine script's universal notions hold true from Jan. to December; the play is short (90 minutes), and it's nice to remember.

Mary Seacole (1805-1881) had more skills than José Andres; in addition to establishing catering in war zones (Seacole set up a rest stop for British soldiers near the front lines during the Crimean War.), she also provided health care services during Jamaica's 1850 cholera epidemic and Panama's the following year.

For Keegan Theatre's regional première of Yoga Play by Dipika Guha, Set Designer Matthew J. Keenan provides a sleek, beige unit set onto which Jeremy Bennett's projections shine, pop, narrate, move, and comment. (Be sure to read the changing smoothie descriptions in the Jojomon canteen.) Cindy Landrum Jacobs dresses the set with useful objects which multi-task effortlessly, and Alberto Segarra's lights unify everyone's work. Sound Designer Dan Deiter lets the audience down once in Act I when a phone conversation with a character's mother is garbled and plot points are thus muffled. Otherwise, a very complicated sound plot enhances the production. Shadia Hafiz' costume choices suit southern California corporate offices and yoga studios everywhere.

The Washington National Opera has gathered a company of first rate singers for a portmanteau of four, one-act operas called Written in Stone. Unfortunately, their fine skills and exceptional voices cannot make silk purses out of scores, libretti, and orchestrations that evade aesthetics, emphasize negatives, and ignore the connection implicit in musical theatre between the notes and the text. This world première requires an orchestra to seem to be playing a piece of music that is not the same piece of music as the singers are singing. The last time this many groups of unfriendly instruments had a gig in a first run house was probably PDQ Bach's last show in Carnegie Hall. Gesamtkunstwerk this isn't, and it lasts for two and a half hours.

Likest thou to laugh? Then get thee to the Theater Lab at the Kennedy Center through December 19 for The Improvised Shakespeare Company who returneth with 90 minutes of gallimaufry for mature groundlings only. The lads invent what viewers dealt/in Shakespeare's words, so timely felt/clad but in sword and in dance belt. In other words, five gentlemen are going to make you laugh for an hour and a half with no sets, no costumes, no props, no sound cues, no microphones, no play--just one suggestion from the audience plus every situation, complication, characterization, and implication in every play that Shakespeare ever wrote. See these players well bestowed, because they don't know whose line it is anyway.