Review: Washington Stage Guild vs. Critics in ST. NICHOLAS

I was all ready and looking forward to the final installment of Back to Methuselah, the George Bernard Shaw epic that the Washington Stage Guild has been staging in chapters since 2014. But building the future, or more precisely, "as far as thought can reach" proved too costly for the venerable D.C. group this year, so they put it off until next year, switching it with next season's planned revival of St." Nicholas.

The one man play by Conor McPherson, the Irish playwright who other works include The Weir and This Lime Tree Bower, was previously staged there in 1999. Once again it is played by Stage Guild artistic director Bill Largess, who is happy to return to the character of a theater critic in part because he says he is now the right age. It's also possible he may enjoy getting back at critics in general, those dour, faceless scribblers who throw insults in the dark.

Critics are certainly getting their comeuppance this season in D.C. with the Shakespeare Theater staging both The Critic and The Real Inspector Hound currently.

And the unnamed critic in St. Nicholas could fit right next to those other fictional critics - hard drinking, cynical, power-hungry, self-loathing. In this case, however, he follows an actress to the world of vampires, who are involved in a more literal kind of blood sucking.

Largess is in full capacity of his text; he even relishes its telling. Director Laura Giannarelli has him bouncing all over the stage, to a chair, to standing, to pacing, perhaps not sure that the simple telling of his tale will sufficiently hold audiences.

The lights by Marianne Meadows are brightening and lowering as well, as if to suggest a day's new sunrise. It's nice that the piece begins and ends with the lighting and extinguishing of a single bulb by Largess.

There's no clear reason why the piece is called St. Nicholas. It certainly has nothing to do with Christmas and is thought perhaps to refer to the name of the church where the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe is buried (after a life of enduring his own critics).

Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

The Washington Stage Guild production of ST. NICHOLAS continues through Feb. 21 at the Undercroft Theatre of the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Call 240-592-0050 or www.stageguild.org.

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