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Gary Tischler • July 27, 2011

The touring version of “Rock of Ages” now at the National Theater for a short stay is probably critic-proof, bullet-proof, and any other kind of proof. You could probably find a hundred things wrong with it and none of it would matter because it’s sort of like one of those insistent puppies that jumps in your lap with muddy paws, slobbers over your fresh white shirt, and slurps your face until it shines.

If you’re immune to the charms of big hair, eighties music and the like you could of course try to ignore it and sort of nod off. Oh wait, you can’t do that either because the music, singers and guitars in this show are really loud and who knows, some jacked-up frizzy-haired guy might be running down the aisle trying to high-five you.

You might as well give it up. “Rock of Ages” is infectious and emblematic of its time, the time of the eighties, the time of stadium rock, of amped up anthems, of big-voiced, leather-booted girl singers AND guitar players, the time of Bon Jovi, Journey, Poison, and Kiss and lead singers who stuck their tongues out and wiggled them, something you don’t see the Bieber doing.

“Rock if Ages” us a big hit Broadway musical which celebrates eighties rock and roll the only way you can—by being as raunchy as possible, and as loud as possible, by screaming and pelvis pumping and guitar riffing and holding on to the scream notes for dear live.

And underneath, there’s actually a story, and it’s still the same old story, a fight for love and groupies, boy meets girl, boy meets girl in a rock blub, boy loses girl to a rock star in the men’s room (don’t ask), boy loses his way for a time, boy finally meets girl again at a strip joint. Well, it’s not the most wholesome of romances, but basically they’re sweet kids and, like the song goes, “she’s just a small town girl and ….it goes on and on and on” and “don’t stop believing,” you betchya.

There is sub-plot too, involving a German developer who wants to destroy the strip and the city that was built on rock and roll, and he has a dubious blond son named Franz who wants with all his heart to become a confectioner before the age of cupcakes. If only. Franz, who’s blonde, sweet and a little light on his feet, is aghast when the girl thinks he’s gay. “I’m not gay,” he explains, “I’m German.”

The plot convolutions shouldn’t concern audience members too much because they go completely off track in the second act. What never stops is the music, the energy, the push-push and pounding of the guitar and the house band, full of riffs that could give “Edge” a run for his pick.

The tempo and high energy of the show and the campy atmospherics of 1980s rock club and strip bar seem authentic and reek of nostalgia and draft beer, not to mention the general wretched excess which characterized the decade.

It’s an audience show—it’s as much fun to watch the audience members as it is to keep track of the performers on stage and what they’re up to. Just for fun, you’re equipped with tiny little plastic flashlights which you can wave so that it seems like 1985 all over again. If you should happen to experience a flashback to the time, be afraid, be very afraid.

All being said, here’s a few surprises: Constantine Maroulis, the nominal star of this production and an American Idol grad is a gangly, high-hair, appealing performer, with a voice pitched perfectly to the rockers and anthems he sings. Leather seems to be a major accessory for everyone, including blonde Elicia MacKenzie, who can knock a song like “I’m Gonna Harden my Heart” at least out of the theater and probably a ballpark. She seems equally at home as a heartland naïve would-be actress as a tough-chick Pasadena employee of the Venus Club.

Still, some things are bewildering, most notably what they’ve done with Pat Benator’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” which for reasons not to be pursued, features Franz and his father. But then there’s Peter Deiwick as Stacee Jazxx, an aging out-in-front-of-the-band star a la, I don’t know, whoever fronted Poison or Def Leopard. Apparently Tom Cruise is doing the role in the movie version. For real. Risky business, that.

If the eighties were or are your greatest decade ever, then “Rock of Ages” is, well, “Nothing but a Good Time.”

Suzanna Nelson •

Experience something like nothing else before; a place of performance and theater that holds no judgment and standard. Capital Fringe Festival, running from July 7 through July 24, is a show spectacular with over 200 productions including comedy, dramas, puppetry, dance, music, and every other genre possible, even ones that don’t exist. Variety for families, new theater adventures, or old critics, Fringe is an all day adventure down the rabbit hole of performance and production.

Leave your traditionalism behind because once you enter The Fort (the ticket office and administration building) famously known from past Capital Fringes. Get ready to lose all concept of theater when you enter The Gypsy Tent, the main social area for viewers and performers with a bar and grill, dancing area, live music and performance space.

A few blocks from Chinatown and the Convention Center, Capital Fringe is an escape from D.C. daily adventures. Actors and viewers alike comment that the best part of Fringe is the people. “Everyone is so nice and energetic,” says Michael Bergman, the producer of “Moby Dick, An Adaption for Theater,” husband of one of the actresses in “Moby Dick” and father to technical manager of the play.

Fringe festivals started back in the mid-20th century in Scotland, where performance companies that were not allowed to perform on regal stages, banded together and created a place where they could perform. Here they were free from societal censorship, and were welcoming to all who wanted to participate. Somewhat castaways from society, they were on the fringe; hence the name.

With great Happy Hour specials, “sublime” food (according to Freelance Visual Art Critic and Curator David Tannous, an avid Capital Fringe viewer) the heart of the Fringe, The Gypsy Tent is where it’s at. Not only is it a social scene, but it also is the central location of performance, with three venues on location.

Having already seen more than 10 shows, Fringe has blown all of my expectations out of the water. What seems too many theater purists as just a hipster post-contemporary production, I think that Fringe has just as much credibility as Shakespeare or the American Ballet Theater.
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Georgetowner •

Director’s Cut Opening Reception

July 15th, 2011 at 05:00 PM info@oldprintgallery.com | Tel: (202) 965-1818

Director’s Cut opens with a free reception from 5-8 pm at The Old Print Gallery. The show is an celebration of the woodcut medium, the oldest known printmaking technique. Handpicked by our gallery director and ranging from 15th to 21st century prints, the selection will be a showcase of the evolution and creative innovation of the woodcut over time. Prints from the Nuremberg Chronicles (1493), white-line woodcuts from acclaimed Provincetown artist Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956), and more.
Address

The Old Print Gallery
1220 31st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007

NMWA Summer Exhibitions 2011

July 15th, 2011 at 10:00 AM

$10 adults, $8 students/visitors 65 and over, free for NMWA members/youth 18 and under.

mcragle@nmwa.org | Tel: 202-783-7373

The Art of Travel: Picturesque Views of Europe by Richenda Cunningham (July 15, 2011- October 30, 2011)

The Art of Travel features “Nine Views Taken on the Continent,” c. 1830, a lithographic portfolio of travel prints from NMWA’s collection by 19th-century British artist Richenda Cunningham. Employing the picturesque style, Cunningham depicts natural and architectural points of interest throughout France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, including Heidelberg Castle, Pont du Gard, and the Roman-era triumphal arch at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Address

1250 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005-3970

Garden to Table: Flowering and Edible

July 16th, 2011 at 10:00 AM | Tel: 202-965-0400

Flowers on your table? They’re for plates as well as vases. There’s still time to register for this hands-on workshop! Learn how to grow edible flowering plants at home, using sustainable methods, and prepare them in easy, great-tasting dishes. The morning opens in the Tudor Place Gardens with director of gardens and grounds Suzanne Bouchard. Then it’s into the kitchen with renowned instructor and locavore Chris Coppola Leibner of Just Simply… Cuisine, where you’ll prepare a delicious lunch from the gardens’ bounty.

(In July, don’t miss “Fruit Cultivation in Small Spaces!” Learn how tiny plots and patios can still put forth luscious fruit.)
Address

Tudor Place Historic House and Garden
1644 31st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007

Tasting of Italian Dessert Wines

July 16th, 2011 at 12:00 PM

$45 | Tel: 202-467-4466

Taste 11 different varieties of grappa and Italian dessert wines, as part of the year-long celebration of Italy’s 150th and Al Tiramisu’s 15th anniversaries. Chef Luigi Diotaiuti discusses each wines history and region. Appetizers and pasta will accompany the wines.
Address

Al Tiramisu
2014 P St. NW
Washington, DC 20036

Robert Devaney •

Neyla restaurant on N Street provided an above-average sartorial scene, July 14, for a stylish book-signing party, hosted by Robert Finfer, president and CEO of Integrity Capital Partners, and Michael Yo of both E! News and the Chelsea Handler Show. The man of the hour was Glenn O’Brien, “Style Guy” columnist for Gentleman’s Quarterly, and author of “How to be a Man: A Guide to Style and Behavior for the Modern Gentleman” (Rizzoli New York).

“How to be a Man” is a trusty compendium of man-knowledge. Part how-to guide, part memoir, “How to be a Man” covers the important items in O’Brien’s signature common sense and conversational tone. Chapters include “How to Not Look Stupid” and “Hair Today (Gone Tomorrow?).” In a world where men have long since abandoned wearing ties to work, along with the majority of manners, it is nice to see a guide for the modern gentleman.

O’Brien, a Georgetown University graduate, got his start in New York covering Manhattan’s pop scene for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, later becoming its editor. He has since written for Spin and Artforum. O’Brien’s GQ column, “The Style Guy,” answers readers’ questions about everything from skinny jeans to pinkie rings.

The well-suited crowd of guys (and gals, of course) included local influencers, politicos, media types and financial advisors, who sipped cocktails from Rémy Martin as well as iced tea mixed by The Teaologist’s Jennie Ripps. They also received O’Brien’s new book which he happily signed. The style guru recalled his days as a Hoya, working for a time at Clyde’s and Safeway. He said he was delighted to have lunch that afternoon at The Tombs which looked to him pretty much as he left it back in the late 1960s – and more than delighted at his reception at Neyla. As for D.C. style? The women dress better than the men, he said. And future books? Maybe, he said, something on White House protocol . . . and “How to be a Congressman.”
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Nico Dodd •

This Friday, the world was shaken by an attack on government offices in Oslo, Norway, and on a youth summer camp at Utoya. A gunman opened fire on at the camp in Utoya, killing 68, and a car bomb in Oslo killed 8.

In Washington, a mass of flowers and candles has collected beneath the statue of Crown Princess Martha in front of the Norwegian Embassy.

For those wishing to express their support, a book of condolences will be open for signing at the Norwegian Embassy, located at 2720 34th Street N.W., on Tuesday July 26 between 1 and 3 p.m. and Wednesday July 27 between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m.

Gary Tischler • July 26, 2011

In Washington, D.C., national politics is always the talk of the town, until the NFL season and babble-babble about the Redskins starts. But this may not happen this year, due to the deadlock between players and owners over how to divide up billions in revenue, an unseemly labor quarrel in the summer of our economic discontent. If there’s no football, folks may finally realize that Owner Dan Snyder really is not only the face of the Redskins organization, but its heart and soul, which is to say it, has neither.

Locally, the mayor’s woes and that of sundry council men stuck with unseemly problems seems to have brought local politics to a serious case of the slows, nearing stagnation.

On the national front, on the other hand, some odd, weird, media-pushed and otherwise scandals, mishaps and downright strangeness are about the only things that are keeping at bay the creeping stagnation that now exists.

Consider the economy, which is stagnant, and promises to remain that way, wiping away whatever surge in popularity President Barack Obama may have gained from the death of Osama Bin Laden. Jobs are trumping almost every other other issue, and yet, the Republicans continue to insist that the national debt trumps jobs, and anyway, that’s Obama’s job and fault. This, in a climate where the unemployment rate actually crept upward, while Wall Street, alarmed, saw the Dow Jones drop below 12,000 for the first time in quite some time. The recovery, assumed to be steadily happening, now looked as vulnerable as a rabbit running into a mongoose

State polls, where GOP governors have been trying to solve the debt problem by firing public employees show that that’s perhaps not the way to go. Almost every GOP governor elected by Tea Party support has a lower approval rating than the president, which was sinking slightly.

Stagnant—in its own way—was the Middle East where revolution and the Arab spring (although perhaps we should could it summer) were a continuing saga that refused to come to a climax. The turmoil though is now a consistent part of the landscape in the Middle East, sort of like a long overtime soccer match that just goes on forever. The results or lack of are full of dangerous portents.

It also appears that the administration, the military and the nation is now exhausted and tired of Afghanistan and all the turmoil there, where President Karzai, the Taliban, Pakistan and U.S. forces are enmeshed in some long-standing, interminable violent dance without end. But more and more the talk is of withdrawal, less so of some convincing final victory.

You can just see the national malaise creeping on.

Mother nature is no help: floods, fires, tornadoes have wreaked so much havoc here that we’ve almost forgotten how much worse things were in Japan.

Given all this gloom and doom, what are the pundits talking about? There’s Arnold. There’s the aftermath of the John Edwards meltdown. There’s the Palin express and the Palin e-mails. There’s the Newt Gingrich meltdown. There’s Weiner-Twitter (ew) and there’s Beast-Twitter, and no doubt a few twits.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the terminator, the governator, Conan the Barbarian and the Eraser, is about to get a new title: ex-husband. After being discovered not only having a mistress, but a love child for a number of years, Arnold is now considering reviving his movie career. Let’s see, what comic book franchise could he start: Doctor Doom?

The John Edwards sad saga rose up again like a reminder of his hubris-filled, once-promising political career and all the things you can lose in life. The Feds are now going after him on a possible indictment for using funds gifted to him by rich supporters to hide his affair and resulting offspring from the media… This while his wife, who passed away last year, was suffering from terminal cancer.

Larry King, I think got this right on the Bill Maher show, saying it was an American tragedy. But it did not prevent the town from buzzing for at least all of two or three days.

Sara Palin took off on a bus trip across the country to take the pulse of, you know, us. She also managed to mangle the Paul Revere story, and insisted that her version—Revere was warning the British—was right and anyway it was a gotcha question that got her. Meanwhile, thousands of e-mails from her abbreviated days as Alaska governor were made public, and elicited nothing much more than her consistent whines about the media.

Newt Gingrich imploded. This is perhaps the least surprising political news in the land, matching everyone’s expectations. But he outdid himself—almost all of his senior staff bolted the campaign, which has to be some kind of record.

And lets not forget the twitter saga of Anthony Weiner, (pronounced apparently wiener, to the joy of every late night talk show host), who may not be a congressman by the time you read this, who twittered pictures of his boxer briefs containing obviously himself, or at an outline of the part most men think with. Denial, backtrack, more changes of story, admission, apologies, full responsibility, and a blah and a blah, but no wife at his side and seeking treatment and so on. This may have been the first true case of the weird nether world of the internet expressing itself in a real national scandal that goes on and on and on until it too will become stagnant.

The endless chatter about this whole thing is inexplicable. It is a media malaise all of its own.

But speaking of Twitter, thank good for Beast. Dane Cook, a comedian, twittered about his missing Chihuahua named, yup, “Beast,” who was found instantly. And perhaps cast in the next “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” movie.

Now that’s news you can use.

Samantha Hungerford •

NOW OPENED!

Georgetown will see the addition of a familiar newcomer to its home goods retail scene. West Elm, a contemporary furnishings chain, has opened its new location at 3333 M St. NW. It has been more than a year after closing its original branch in the Woodward & Lothrop Building in downtown D.C.

West Elm, a subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc., has opened a “pop-up” store in Georgetown with a seven-month lease to test the success of their new location. It seems that the area’s economic climate is ripe for such an endeavor following the success of nearby stores such as BoConcept, Contemporaria and Georgetown’s newest addition, CB2.

Abigail Jacobs, a company spokeswoman, told the Washington Post that West Elm has been looking into the Georgetown area for some time now because of the high number of Internet and catalogue sales the company has made there.

At 6,500 square feet, the new store will be tiny in comparison with its former location, which was at one time West Elm’s largest branch. “Different concept, different neighborhood,” Jacobs told the Post. “If you look at Georgetown and the size of stores there, this will be a perfect fit.”

Gary Tischler •

BETTY FORD

Most of the time First Ladies don’t get the credit they deserve. They may get the first in the designation, but history tends to judge them as second to their husbands, as if they were footnotes.

Eleanor Roosevelt wasn’t a footnote. Mary Todd Lincoln wasn’t a footnote. Lady Bird Johnson wasn’t a footnote. Jacqueline Kennedy wasn’t footnote.

For sure, Betty Ford wasn’t a footnote.

Her death at 93, widow of Gerald Ford, the country’s only appointed president who died in 1996, reminds us of the idea of legacy, of her vivid personality, of her humane and human qualities. Ford, a high-ranking Republican, was picked by the embattled Richard Nixon, entangled in a Watergate scandal that would lead to his resignation, to become his vice president after Spiro Agnew left in his own scandal.

After all the Watergate turmoil, the Fords were like a breath of fresh air, real people, and solid as breakfast. Gerald Ford exuded normalcy and strength, Betty Ford seemed like a down-to-earth wife. Along with their son and daughter, they exuded a spirited confidence and a recognizable sort of family and mother who happened to now live in the White House, as opposed to a suburb, a town, a place like Alexandria where they had lived before.

Betty Ford had style, and she had substance, and she had her views and stances, and she talked about them, and she had her troubles, and she talked about those, too. She talked about her breast cancer, and later, after Ford lost the narrowest of elections to Jimmy Carter in 1976, she had a rough bout with alcohol, which she later opened about. Her honesty, her championing of treatment for alcoholism and addictions would result in the Betty Ford Center, one of the pioneering rehabilitation centers which are now so commonplace that the word rehab, sometimes linked to her name, often not, are a part of daily conversation.

She was no Jackie—although she had plenty of dazzle and style of her own as a point in fact. She had other things on her mind, since after all, she was quite a political asset to her husband who had a lengthy career in the House of Representatives going back to the 1940s. They complimented each other is what they did, and her obvious affection and enduring love for him added some allure to his persona. Ford, when he became vice president and then president, became something of an object of fun-making on the emergent Saturday Night Live where comedian Chevy Chase regularly lampooned his supposed clumsiness and his football days. He was the object of two failed and bungled assassination attempts by female would-be killers no less, one of them a former member of the Manson family.

Yet, the Fords persisted in the White House, allowed the nation to take a deep breath after the long nightmare of Watergate, and even survived Ford’s controversial pardon of Nixon. And here’s something that Betty Ford accomplished because when she talked people listened. She raised breast cancer awareness but more than that she spoke frankly, with grace and honesty about her family, about sex, about abortion and other rising issues of the time in a way that had not been heard from previous first ladies.

She did something else: the obvious bond between Ford and her husband made him larger. It made the jibes nothing more than they were – jokes which he laughed at himself – even though he might not have appreciated them that much. She had, after all, picked him, a classy, smart, elegant woman of intelligence and humor. All these qualities became her and were transferred to him and gave him grace so that in the end, after their bitter and narrow defeat, they endured as a presidential couple who shared a lasting love, and left the presidency better than the way they found it.

CY TWOMBLY

Cy Twombly, who died at the age of 82 recently, was what you could honestly call an important American artist, the kind of figure that the American art world periodically produces and certainly needs. He was also controversial in that if you entered a museum showing of his works you could get an argument started about the value and merit of his work without too much effort.

He wasn’t beyond category since people, writers, admirers and non-fans often tried to bag him into an ism: neo-expressionism, abstract expressionism, even pop-ism, if you will, and he was often compared to others: De Koonig, Pollock, etc., etc. etc. One critic who was not a fan lumped him into the dada camp. He was perhaps too much written and talked about in his times, not so much over-rated as rated over and over again to the point of distraction.

I’d say he was one of a kind, mysterious, paintings full of sharp, swirly lines, and in later days after he moved to Rome, full of words, too, scribbles that seemed to require some explanation, as if they were captions written not in this century but some other times.

To many he was a titan, to others in today’s parlance, not so much. The nice thing when it comes to Twombly was that he didn’t give a hoot what they were saying in New York. He was never a fad, but his work could be maddening and moving all at once.

A major retrospective at the National Gallery of Art a number of years ago proved to this writer to be alternatingly light and sometimes, quite often in fact, haunting. I think it’s as if the lines, the mind and Twombly’s vision turned way backward, the painter getting a whiff of thousand-year-old dust and grains of sand, dried blood, and ancient stories. I could have done without the words, and because of the haunting aspects, the lightness was sometimes unbearable.

Titan? Not for me to say. We can always look again, and then again, and that’s where we’ll find him, like a fragment from “The Iliad.”

Robert Devaney •

Before her official welcome to Washington today, President Barack Obama took German Chancellor Angela Merkel to 1789 Restaurant, where they dined alone, having salad and beef tenderloin but no dessert, at the second-floor Wickets Room, June 6.

Dan Harding, general manager of 1789 and the Tombs, said that the White House gave them short notice of the special visit, calling at 4 p.m. for a reservation. Dinners for the two leaders were prepared by sous chef Erwin Rhodas, not executive chef Daniel Giusti, who was off for the day, filming a Food Network show in New York, Harding said.

The presidential motorcade rocketed along Prospect Street just after 7 p.m., as neighbors found nearby intersections closed by the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department. Countersniper team moved atop Georgetown University’s Walsh Building across the street from 1789 and the Tombs, and police dogs checked the sidewalks. A crowd gathered at 36th & Prospect with phones and cameras and waited for the president to depart.

Meanwhile, patrons continued to enter 1789 and the Tombs and were wanded by the Secret Service. Georgetown University students Saum Ayria and Chris Scribner, dining at the Tombs at the same time as the president, enjoyed the surprise. “What a Washington, D.C., experience — the president just upstairs.” Scribner said. As Obama and Merkel left around 9:15 p.m., Jennyfer Sellem, a lawyer from Paris interning at the French Embassy, snapped a shot of the leaders inside the limo as it raced back to the White House. “What happened yesterday evening has added to my amazing experience here,” she said.

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