Arts & Society

Gary Tischler • January 17, 2014

NOW PLAYING
Miss Saigon—Here’s a way to kick off a 24th-anniversary season: remount and re-imagine a full-blown production of “Miss Saigon,” one of the most iconic big-theme, big-deal Broadway musicals of the “Les Miz,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats” and “Evita” era.

That’s what Signature Theater’s not-shy-of-a-challenge artistic director Eric Schaeffer has done, staging the first production of the Viet War set, but “Madame Butterfly” echo musical in 15 years, running at the MAX Theatre through Sept. 22. Schaeffer, who directs the production, described as “environmental,” says Signature is “pulling out all the stops in this production with a terrific cast, full-size orchestra and a set that engulfs the entire theatre.

It stars Diana Huey as the bar girl Kim, Jason Michael Evans as the American GI Chris and Thom Sesma in the bravura role of The Engineer.

The Beauty Queen of Leelane—Martin McDonagh is back and the Round House Theatre in Bethesda has him, with its production of “The Beauty Queen of Leelane” through Sept. 15, directed by Jerry Skidmore. Irish to the core and contemporary to the core, “Beauty Queen” is about a lonely spinster living with her bigger-than-life, manipulative mother. Featuring Kimberly Gilbert and Sarah Marshall—two of D.C. theater’s finest actresses as daughter and mother.

A Few Good Men—Skidmore also directs the ongoing production of Playwright Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 military courtroom drama “A Few Good Men,” which became the basis for a hit movie, starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. It’s now a Keegan Theatre production through Sept. 7.

Brokeology—Theater Alliance begins its 11th season with playwright Nathan Louis Jackson’s “Brokeology,” a powerful drama about a widower battling his own illness and trying to raise two sons. Now through Sept. 8 at the Anacostia Playhouse.
Shakespeare Free For All—The Shakespeare Theatre Company has been doing Shakespeare Free For All’s for 23 years and continues the tradition with a production of the Bard’s fabulous and popular (the director of “The Avengers” recently filmed it in black and white) comedy “Much Ado About Nothing,” after the original direction of Ethan McSweeny. Jenny Lord directs this comedy which stars Kathryn Meisle as Beatrice and Derek Smith as Benedick, one of the Bard’s most attractive battling couples, right alongside Petruchio and Kate. Now through Sept. 1 at Sidney Harman Hall. Check the STC website for times and how to get free tickets.

SEPTEMBER BRINGS IN THE SHOWS
Donna McKechnie at Olney—Probably not a coincidence, but Donna McKechnie, the sparkling Broadway star who was the original Cassie in “A Chorus Line” appears at the Historic Stage at the Olney Theatre Center in her cabaret show, “Same Place, Another Time,” Sept. 1 at 7 p.m., even as “A Chorus Line” is being performed here.

Wagner and Tristan and Isolde usher in the new Washington Opera Season—Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello celebrates the new WNO season with big works by both Richard Wagner and Guiseppi Verdi, who are having their bicentenaries.

It’s Wagner, with his epic “Tristan and Isolde,” and we do mean epic that starts the season with music Zambello describes as “romantic and hypnotic.” “I chose it,” she said, “as the gateway for us to experience the breadth of Wagner’s styles as we build towards our ‘Ring’ Cycle in the spring of the 2015-2016 season.” (Verdi’s “The Force of Destiny”, with Zambello directing, will follow, beginning Oct. 12.)

The incomparable Deborah Voigt—who starred in “Salome” here returns in the role of Isolde, with Ian Storey as Tristan (Clifton Forbis will perform Tristan Sept. 27.) WNO Conductor Philippe Auguin conducts, Neil Armfield, directs, with sets by Opera Australia, costumes by Jennie Tate. (Sept. 15, 18, 21, 24, 27)

Page-to-Stage New Play Festival—A sure signal that a new performance arts and theatre season is upon us is the arrival of the 12th Annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival, with more than 40 theaters from all over the D.C. area. Performances are in venues throughout the center, in a series of free readings and open rehearsals of plays and musicals developed by local, regional and national playwrights, librettists and composers. It’s happening Aug. 31 through Sept. 2, and it’s a good chance for theater buffs to check the pulse and look into the future of the area theater scene. And to repeat: it’s free. Check the Kennedy Center website for details.

More Kennedy Center Shows
The boys are back. Yes, it’s Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl and Johnny, Presley, Lewis, Perkins and Cash, aka the “Million Dollar Quartet,” the hugely popular musical in which the four budding stars get together, bicker, play, sing and fight and play a whole lot of shaking rock and roll and country music at Sam Phillips Sun Records Studio in Memphis in 1956. The musical arrives at the Eisenhower Theater Sept. 24 through Oct. 6.

“Four Little Girls”—The Kennedy Center, Project Voice and Howard University, working with Duke Ellington School of the Arts and African Continuum Theater Company, present a free, staged reading of “Four Little Girls, Birmingham, 1963.” Written by Christina Ham, and directed by Tony Award winning actress and television star of “The Cosby Show,” Phylicia Rashad, takes place Sept. 15, 6 p.m., in the Family Theater in the Kennedy Center. The production commemorates the 50th anniversary of the bombing that took the lives of four young girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., only weeks after the 1963 March on Washington.

NSO
With National Symphony Orchestra and Kennedy Center music director maestro Christoph Eschenbach conducting, the NSO begins its 83rd season with the annual Opening Ball Concert Sept. 29 at the Concert Hall. The evening will include legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations,” and Carmen Carpenter, the dynamic young organist playing a finale of Saint-Saen’s “Organ Symphony.”

The NSO Pops Orchestra, directed by Steven Reineke, will kick off with “Cirque de la Symphonie”, Sept. 19 to 22, and then feature superstars Wayne Shorter, Vince Mendoza and the remarkable Esperanza Spalding, Sept. 26 in the Concert Hall.
The Kennedy Center’s dance program will kick off with the highly original company KARAS, which, under founder and choreographer Sburo Teshigawara brings the North American Premiere of “Mirror and Music” Sept. 12 and 13 at the Eisenhower Theater.

FOUR RISING PLAYWRIGHTS
At Arena Stage, Eric Coble’s “The Velocity of Autumn” focuses on 79-year-old Alexandra living with memories and explosives in her Brooklyn townhouse, and getting a visit from a long-lost son. Oscar winner Estelle Parsons and Tony Award winner Stephen Spinella make their Arena debuts, Sept. 6 through Oct. 20, with Molly Smith directing.

At Woolly Mammoth Theater, Lisa D’Amour’s Pulitzer Prize finalist “Detroit” about a collision between neighbors in Motor City gets going Sept. 9 and runs through Oct. 6, directed by John Vreeke for the city’s most consistently cutting-edge theater company.

Critically acclaimed playwright Amy Herzog’s play “After the Revolution,” which focuses on one family’s reaction to the blacklist starts at Theater J Sept. 7 and runs through Oct. 6, directed by Eleanor Holdsridge, and starring Nancy Robinette.
“Agnes Under the Big Top” by Aditi Brennan Kapil, and directed by Michael Dove, starts the Forum Theater’s season Sept.5 to 28, a play in which six lives intersect in what’s described as a “comic adventure about immigrant life in America.” At the Round House in Silver Spring.

The Laramie Project at Ford’s Theatre
Ford’s Theatre kicks off its season with something of a departure, the emotionally powerful “The Laramie Project” by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater project. It’s the play about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man and resident of Laramie, Wyo., and the reaction of the community to what was considered a hate crime. Fifteen years later, the murder and Shepard’s story still echoes not only in Wyoming but across the country. The play is the third offering in the multi-year Lincoln Legacy Project, an effort to “generate dialogue around issues of tolerance, equality and acceptance.” Directed by Matthew Gardiner, Sept. 27-Oct.27.

The Embassy Series at 20
It’s hard to believe that the Embassy Series under founder Jerome Barry has been around for 20 years, building cultural bridges, exercising musical diplomacy and giving Washington audiences a chance to hear world class music from around the world in the city’s embassies, ambassador residences and international cultural centers.

The 20th season kicks off at the residence of the Indian Ambassador, with a unique program from international musical star Rudresh Mahanthappa, a composer and alto saxophone player with a sound that hybridizes progressive jazz and South Indian classical music. Mahanthappa is a second generation Indian-American who leads a quartet named Gamak, which features guitarist David “Fuze” Fiuczynski. The concert is set for Sept. 9 at 6:30 p.m.

The In Series’ “Taking Flight” Season Begins
The In Series’ “Taking Flight” begins with a series tradition, a pocket-opera program at the Source Theater, a new and “edgy” adaptation of Mozart’s light and funny “Abduction from the Seraglio”.

Wolf trap
A Dreamgirl and a dream girl of pop, the always original Lyle, doe-a-deer-a-female-deer, and Hobbits and Elves are among the treats awaiting fans of and visitors to the Wolf Trap outdoor summer series as it winds down.

There’s Jennifer Holliday in a four-night stint in “Dreamgirls” Aug. 22 to 25, the pop queen Carly Rae Jepsen with Hot Chelle Rae, Aug. 28, the like-no-other folk-country-beyond-category singer Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, Aug. 29, the Sing-A-Long Sound of Music Aug. 31, STS9 and Umphrey’s McGee Sept. 1, and last, but not least a screening of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Fellowship of the Ring” with the City Choir of Washington and the World Children’s Choir.

Gala Hispanic
“Cabaret Barroco: Interludes of Spain’s Golden Age”, kicks off the Gala Hispanic, Sept. 12 through Oct. 6, bringing to the stage an example of the interlude, a form and genre that combined cabaret, street performance and carnival during the golden age of Spanish theater. By Calderon de la Barca, Francisco de Quevedo and Bernardo de Quiros, directed by Jose Louis Areliano.

The Rat Pack at the Strathmore Music Center
Strathmore starts off its season with an unusual offering. “Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show” recreates some of the golden, flashy moments from the original Rat Pack, Las Vegas-style, that includes Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin and Joey Bishop. The pack also included at various times Peter Lawford and comedian Buddy Hackett, whose son Sandy has brought the pack back, Sept. 27.

Michael Kahn Directs Harvey Fierstein’s ‘Torch Song Trilogy’ at Studio Theatre
That headline almost sums it up—Kahn, the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, lending his directing gifts to a play that has become iconic. Beginning first as a series of one-act plays at La MaMa Etc in New York, it became a full-fledged play, written by and starring Fierstein in 1981. Performances start Sept. 4.

Faction of Fools
Faction of Fools, a newish theater company specializing in old styles, especially Commedia d’ la arte, starts its new season with Moliere’s “Don Juan,” a play which should be right up the company’s stylish alley beginning Sept. 12.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company Measures Up
“Measure for Measure,” a difficult Shakespeare play about love and power, vice and virtue opens the Shakespeare Theatre Company season under the direction of Jonathan Munby, who sets the play in a 1930s fascist state under the evocative hue of a cabaret culture, opens the season, Sept. 12 through Oct. 27. Miriam Silverman stars as Isabella, Scott Parkinson is Angelo and Kurt Rhoads is the powerful Duke. [gallery ids="101432,154573,154579,154556,154561,154565,154568,154577" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Even under normal conditions, the opening of the Washington National Opera season qualifies as an event—it’s an occasion highly anticipated by opera aficionados and music lovers. It’s loaded with anticipation for the season as a whole, a major part of the city’s cultural and social scene.

But by any standard, the opening performance of the WNO’s season-opening production of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” Sunday afternoon, directed by Neil Arnfield, with WNO Musical Director Philippe Auguin, conducting the WNO orchestra with impassioned fervor, was almost an uber-event.

Consider that this was artistic director Francesca Zambello’s beginning of a first full season in a world, like many others, where first impressions and efforts count for a lot.

Consider that this was after all Wagner, German and European 19th-century romanticism in high dudgeon in one of the most original—and difficult to stage, sing and perform operas ever composed.

For audience and artists alike, this is a night or day at the opera that requires full commitment. If you arrived at the opening a half an hour before curtain time at 1:30 p.m., taken in three acts and two 20-minute or so intermissions and left right at the end before all the applause and cheers commenced in earnest, you will have taken out pretty much a full afternoon of your life, four-and-a-half hours all told — or the length of close to two Sunday afternoon football games, including another dismal Redskins defeat, an afternoon of brunch and two movies, or a good chunk of season three of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

Oh, we almost forgot to mention that just a week before “Tristan and Isolde” was scheduled to open, star soprano Deborah Voigt, after consulting with Zambello, withdrew from the role, generally considering an exhausting, punishing role for body, soul and voice. Swedish soprano Irene Theorin, a Wagnerian veteran who had performed Brunnhilde in “Siegfried” at the WNO in 2009 was brought in to take on the role.

Now, that’s an opera opening that’s — well — downright operatic, creating a stir of expectation, and perhaps not a little dread, such feelings often present at openings for Wagner works. The sheer length and size of the production, the effort in time and attention on the part of the audience was daunting. It was, in the end, also entirely worth it, exceeding any expectations one might have held, and demolishing whatever fears might have existed.

To get the most open-ended part of the evening out of the way, Theorin didn’t just hold her own with the part of Isolde, which is frightingly large and taxing, especially in the first section of the opera, she took ownership of the part. In contemporary parlance, she nailed it, showing her particular gifts which included a powerful voicer that can and needs to hold its own with the orchestra, because this is, after all, Wagner. The opera is more than Wagner, with a score that, as Aguin, a Frenchman adept and expert with Wagner’s methods, suggests, “has the music act as a character.” Theorin seemed physically and dramatically comfortable with Wagner’s idea of a woman consumed by love, in stages. With Theorin, who cuts in an imposing and moving figure. We didn’t just hear Isolde. We felt her anguish, her girlish delights, her discovery of love. That was some potion, that potion.

This production is—in a way—Theorin’s and Aguin’s show. “Tristan and Isolde” is an opera where you really listen to the orchestral music because it cues you, it takes over. Often, it’s an illustration of thought, story and feeling, every bit as the voices and the libretto, the words, written by Wagner himself.

The story comes out of Arthurian tales by way of German writer Gottfried von Strassburg. It is about lovers ill met and then totally entranced, enhanced and immolated by love. Tristan is one of the noblest knights of the Cornish king Marke and has been sent to bring the Irish princess Isolde as the king’s bride after a war in which the Irish were crushed. In that war, Tristan killed Isolde’s bethrothed, a fact of which he is unaware, and Isolde also saved his life with her special healing gifts. The embittered Isolde swears revenge and plans to poison Tristan with a potion, but her loyal maid instead gives her a love potion instead.

Drinking the potion, the two fall instantly, dangerously, totally in love to a point where ideas of love and death almost merge. It is a love as everything, sex, heaven and earth, and, most significantly, night and day, life and death. This is Wagner by way of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. It dovetails with his ideas about total theater, the opera, in fact, is almost a guileless demonstration of theory as a work of genius-level art. This is the Wagner we know and love, that is, if you do to begin with.

After the lengthy idyll enjoyed by the lovers in the forest, this cannot have good results and portends disaster. Thanks to the treacherous and jealous Melot, they’re discovered by the king. Tristan is severely wounded, and everything goes to hell or somewhere else.

In the end, Tristan lies dying and has to carry the final act, alone with his loyal comrade Kurwenal at his ancestral home, awaiting against hope for Isolde. This is a challenge for tenor Ian Storey as Tristan who has to hold the stage, and be strong enough with his voice to duel with Wagner’s ravishing, challenging music which veers through different styles like a ship battered at sea. Storey does not always succeed. Also at the end, everyone shows up—some to die thankfully like Melot, Isolde too late to heal Tristan, and willing herself to die with him in the famous tear-drawing (lots from many in the audience) “Liebestod” or love death.

There is the certain so-called “Wagnerian” aspect to Wagner’s music—some of loudest, full-orchestra sounds you hear come oddly as no surprise, but the nuanced, quieter parts are delicious and moving in their depth and, surprisingly, in their tenderness.

There’s something else Wagnerian here, too. Opera isn’t known for its “book,” the quality of its librettos as literature. In this case, Wagner also wrote the libretto: after a while, the words, like the chords start to fall down like a sometimes salving, sometimes burning rain. Even in English translation, it’s a very German kind of rain—words and sentences as proclamations, spitting out whole all-embracing ideas, love, death light and darkness, otherness, the sadness of the day. Tristran and Isolde often don’t sing in sentences. It’s all nouns and adjectives: it’s the music that act as verbs, as action, as the heart in total abandon and flight.

Wagner, performed, played, acted and staged this originally. He’s a bully who will not be ignored, chastened, or cut by a minute. And at journey’s end with Tristan and Isolde, even if their boat takes its own sweet time arriving at the shore, it is more than worth it. You don’t have to love opera or like Wagner to be swept up in the waves.
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Mary Bird •

Bob Madigan was saluted by his legion
of media pals and friends wearing sequined
bowties at Carmine’s in the Penn Quarter
for an afternoon reception on Jan. 11 as he
leaves 50 years on the air to head for Maine.
Tommy McFly heralded Madigan’s support of
nonprofits, restaurateurs and his many good
deeds before leading a vocal tribute “with
apologies to Billy Joel,” as “She’s Always A
Woman To Me” was revamped to “Bob, Man
About Town To Me.” Lyrics included “Fifty
years on the air have gone by in a flash. There’s
a hammock that’s calling him and his cat Max.”
It was a well-deserved heartfelt appreciation of
a special friend. [gallery ids="101599,147216,147210,147205,147201,147225,147232,147197,147229,147220" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post •

2014 is a promising year for the
fine arts in Washington,
with exhibitions of
European master Edgar Degas and American
master Andrew Wyeth on the horizon, both at
the National Gallery of Art. A show of 16thcentury
Japanese tea jars at the Sackler will open
a unique window of history onto our longtime
adoration of this popular and ritualistic drink.
But while we wait for spring to usher in the first
major exhibitions of the year, there is a great deal
to keep die-hard devotees of museums and galleries
happy through the winter. Here are a few
things to see in the coming months:

**A New Era at the Textile Museum**
The new year marks an exciting chapter for
the Textile Museum, which begins its move to a
new museum space on the George Washington
University campus. Though the old S Street location
is no longer open for regular visiting hours,
as the nearly 20,000-piece collection is being
made travel-ready, programs will continue to be
offered at multiple venues during the transition.
One upcoming event is a curator-led tour of
“Workt by Hand: Hidden Labor and Historical
Quilts” at the National Museum of Women in
the Arts on Friday, Jan. 24. Quilts have long
been burdened by conflicting interpretations
– revered as nostalgic emblems of the past,
dismissed as women’s work, yet hailed as examples
of American ingenuity. This exhibition,
which showcases 35 18th- through 20th-century
quilts from the Brooklyn Museum, examines
quilts through the lens of contemporary feminist
theory, revealing the medium’s shifting cultural
status. Tickets are $20 for members, $25
for nonmembers. To register, call 202-667-0441,
ext. 64.

The first in a series of free Rug and Textile
Appreciation Mornings begins on Saturday, Jan.
25. History professor Katrin Schultheiss will
discuss the complexity of gender roles in textile
production in the 19th century, when certain fabrics
were deemed worthy of male craftsmanship
and others were regarded as “simple” enough
for women to produce. Reservations are not
required.

**New Editions at Adamson Gallery**
Opening with a public reception on Saturday,
Jan. 18, 6-8 p.m., Adamson Gallery will show
new editions of master photographic prints from
a number of internationally acclaimed artists,
including Marc Babej, Chuck Close, Roberto
Longo and Gary Simmons. Close’s portrait series
of Brad Pitt, for example, shows the iconic actor
in a new and uncomfortably close perspective,
exposing every nook, cranny, wrinkle and
pockmark on his face. The result is a fascinating
examination of the nature of exposure,
privacy and identity, particularly for those who
live their lives in the public eye. The exhibition
runs through Mar. 29, by appointment. For more
information, call 202-232-0707 or email [Info@
AdamsonGallery.com](mailto:info@Adamsgallery.com).

**The Shenandoah Comes to Susan
Calloway Fine Arts**
Painter Ed Cooper reflects the subtleties
of early morning and late afternoon light and
color in his plein-air landscapes, capturing the
interplay of sun and shade on trees, water and
grass. With an opening reception on Friday, Jan.
17, 6-8 p.m., “Ed Cooper: New Landscapes,”
on view at Susan Calloway Fine Arts through
Feb. 15, explores the regional Shenandoah
and Chesapeake landscapes through the tip of
Cooper’s reliably breathtaking paintbrush. A
wanderer, Cooper carries as constant companions
a pochade box for quick oil sketches and
an easel for more elaborate paintings. “While
wandering I am constantly looking for scenes
or objects that evoke an emotional response in
me – something I just have to paint,” he says. For
more information, visit [www.CallowayArt.com](http://www.CallowayArt.com).

**Goodbye to Heiner Contemporary**
After three prolific years in Georgetown,
Heiner Contemporary has moved to Farmington,
Conn. While there will be no brick-and-mortar
space for some time, the gallery will maintain
an active online presence and continue to
offer comprehensive art advisory services. In
Connecticut, Heiner Contemporary will showcase
work through pop-up exhibitions, participation
in art fairs and via Artsy.net. Over the past
few years, Heiner has brought an unforgettable
body of contemporary artwork to Washington,
and given Georgetown’s Book Hill neighborhood
a vibrant shot of life. We wish them prosperity
and success in all future endeavors. [gallery ids="118500,118503" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird • January 16, 2014

The Russian Ball reinvented itself this year. Without the presence of Prince Alexis and Princess
Selene Obolensky there were few familiar faces but the princess would be pleased that the hope she
expressed last year that “the young people will continue the ball” was realized. A young attractive
crowd more attuned to social media than presentation at court gathered in the elegant rooms of the
Cosmos Club Jan. 11. Proceeds benefited Russian American Community Services. [gallery ids="101598,147239,147242,147245,147233" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • January 15, 2014

I’m betting that “If/Then,” the new talent-laden musical in a rare pre-Broadway tryout run at the National Theatre through Dec. 8, will be a hit by the time it opens on Broadway in the spring of 2014.

Which is not to say it’s ready for Broadway yet, or that it’s a perfect show, or that it couldn’t stand some heavy cuts here and there or that it sometimes tries too hard to be clever and cutting-edge cool for its own good.

Still, here’s why I think it will attract a big audience: it’s very much a show about the times in which we live. It’s got a great score. It may be the first big Millennial Generation musical to hit the boards, although its characters run to Gen X age-wise. It is thus is in tune with the changing, renovating, liveable urban scene all over the country, including Washington, D.C., but definitely New York City, where it’s headed and for which it’s a kind of visual and musical love song.

Here are other virtues for this head-spinning show: it has Broadway pedigree written all over it. With this much talent involved in the show, whatever fixes are needed ought to be completed by the time it really matters. You can make your way along a path that runs from “Rent” and “Wicked” through the much acclaimed “Next to Normal” and find most of the people involved on stage and backstage in “If/Then.”

Tom Kitt, who wrote the music, and Brian Yorkey, who wrote the books and lyrics, and Michael Greif, who directed, all worked together on “Next to Normal,” as did producer David Stone. Stone also produced the hugely successful “Wicked,” which made a big Broadway star out of Idina Menzel when she played the role of the green-skinned witch Elphaba. Greif also directed the other big smash “Rent,” which got Menzel her first Tony nomination for her portrayal of Maureen. (Menzel won a Tony for “Wicked.”) Co-star Anthony Rapp was also in “Rent” with Menzel. This may account for a certain comfort zone among the performers and the scene on stage, although that connection needs to be established more with the audience as well.

Menzel is another big asset for “If/Then.” She is a genuine Broadway diva star in the best sense of the word. She’s got acting chops—and a voice that ranges all over the planet and is liqueur smooth, powerful as a train which knows where it’s going, emotionally on target. Without Menzel, you haven’t got much of anything. She convinces the audience that all of this is important and makes perfect sense with every musical note and facial expression. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that she’s enormously appealing and beautiful, green witch aside. She plays a character who has the serious romantic attentions of at least three men in the cast—her boss, an old college sweetheart who’s also gay, and a two-deployment veteran (and a doctor, no less) who drops his duffel bag and falls in love the first time he sees her.

This may be the first musical in recorded history that has an urban planner as its heroine. How cool can that be? This is a show about choices, if you haven’t guessed from the title. Elizabeth in her late thirties has come to New York and is fresh from a broken marriage, trying to start over. She has made an instant friend in kindergarten teacher Kate (the high-flying, terrific LaChanze from “The Color Purple”) and re-united with college flame Lucas, a squatter and housing activist. She meets Josh, the returning vet in uniform who stirs her heart. But Beth is a bit of a data nerd, as well as an idealist. So, her choices are: take the hot, urban planning job from potential (but married) mentor Stephen (Jerry Dixon), take up with best friend Lucas, or take a teaching job and marry the stone-cold tender hunk Josh from Nebraska.

Life, Kate tells her, is all about chance meetings and events that come from them—decisions to do this or do that.

What’s a girl to do? Well, the book has her do it all—she slides in and out of two lives, often awkwardly, so that we get to see and hear the results of both choices, an often clumsy process where you don’t always know who’s there. Clarity is not yet a part of the menu here, and that goes for the songs which aren’t always clearly identifiable. When Menzel sings “Here I Go,” you get in one not the exact, long length of the journey. This structure, though—Liz and Beth, in and out—hasn’t been fully worked out to avoid puzzlement by the audience.

I’m not a prude, but it seems to be almost an established sign of cool to work the f-word into any contemporary theatrical proceedings, in titles and dialogue, but now in songs, too. Mamet could do this well. Here, it’s just a kind of cheap laugh which I hope doesn’t make the song an anthem. I understand the sentiment but not the need for its expression musically.

The show has another plus: Mark Wendland’s crisp, sparkling, almost breezy set design, allowing for the instant incarnation of bedrooms, boardrooms, trains and such, as well as a paradise-type park, aided and abetted by a big floating wall-to-wall mirror used inventively.

A pre-Broadway tryout is a rarity in D.C. these days, and you can tell there’s a lot riding on this. There’s been plenty of talk and buzz on Facebook, and in early peek-a-boo mentions, most of which are excitable and favorable, but not all.

A good gauge were comments I heard from two youngish, 30-something women: “We thought it was a little long and ought to be cut, but I think it spoke to our demographics.”

It didn’t speak to my demographics (baby boomer). Nevertheless, I have to admit that the show moved me, almost in spite of myself and itself. That, I think, is due to the really splendid cast—and, for sure, the voice and heart of Idina Menzel, a true Broadway star, still defying gravity.
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Mary Bird • January 9, 2014

The Holiday Concert and Gala of the Choral Arts Society of Washington was held at the Kennedy Center Dec. 16. Olwen Pongrace was gala chair, and the Ambassador of Italy and Mrs. Bisogniero served as honorary patrons, as 2013 is the Year of Italian Culture in the United States. The program in the Concert Hall fittingly highlighted music from Italy, including traditional Christmas carols as well as music of Andrea Gabrieli and Salmone Rossi, who wrote scared Hebrew texts in the Baroque style. The Children’s Chorus of Washington, under the baton of Joan Gregoryk, performed selections from Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols,” composed during a perilous Atlantic crossing during World War II. Guests rose to acknowledge the many invited military families. Artistic director Scott Tucker led the audience in several carols, including an Italian verse to “White Christmas.” Post-performance festivities included a silent auction and reception followed by dinner and dancing at the Roof Terrace level. [gallery ids="101582,147895,147869,147873,147879,147883,147888,147893" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • January 6, 2014

Even back in 1967,  “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a hit movie and social comedy about white liberal parents facing their principles as their beloved daughter comes home with an African-American doctor she plans to marry, seemed a  little retro, out of touch and tune with the turbulent times where anything seemed possible.
              

While entertaining, the movie tackled the subject of race in America with so many layers of kid gloves that you’d think it was morally snowing. Who could get mad at or even want to stand up to Spencer Tracy, entertaining serious doubts about such a marriage? What mother would not want her daughter to marry a black doctor with a United Nations portfolio, especially when he came into the house in the spitting image of Sidney Poitier? Certainly not the mother played by Katharine Hepburn, who after an initial attack of dizziness supported her daughter  As a topical dose of medicine about race and interracial marriage, the movie went down pretty easy and was, in fact, a highly entertaining hit, the kind of movie Hollywood liberals like to pat themselves on the back for (see “In The Heat of the Night”) come Oscar night.

              
Well, it’s almost 2014, and “miscegenation” is a word nobody utters any more at least not in public, nor can interracial couples be prevented from marriage. Himself a product of an interracial marriage, today’s President of the United States is an African-American man, named Barrack Obama, a startling shock to the political culture which has not been fully absorbed, but which the characters in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” could hardly imagine.  “A secretary of state, maybe,” one of them says in Arena Stage’s deft, powerful, funny and affecting production of Todd Kreidler’s stage version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

You’d think this play—hewing tightly to the plot line and talk and setting and time of the original film—would be a little old-fashioned, a little uncomfortably creaky around the edges, a period piece that has little to say to us, except perhaps we’ve come a long way, folks. 

Actually, the production is a total winner. Better still, it seems, in terms of the periodic grand debate about race, almost fresh and authentic, in ways that our increasingly economically and culturally separating society rarely manages today. For many reasons, it seems to speak to just about every part of the audience, at least in the performance I saw, which, as somebody pointed out, was a Washington audience. I went to a weekday matinee and sat in the middle of an audience which was full, responsive, diverse,  loud and as much a part of the play as the actors on stage, which is one of those rare and self-evident moments in the theater that you can cherish.  There are fairly obvious reasons for this: this was an audience full of groups of people who  had arrived by bus, many of them older, baby-boomer generation members, black and white, as part of groups, including a group of Washington members of a teachers union. There was also pumped-up high school kids who dove into the material with apparent relish.

There were several occasions—when the doctor’s mother scolded him and men in general and when you could tell exactly who was laughing— you just knew all the black moms in the audiences were laughing while their husbands and/or sons squirmed.  

There was a tremendous amount of energy at this matinee performance. Part of it had a lot to do with the fact that the play—despite the presence of a sackful of cliché moments and characters—struck a chord because the characters were indeed talking about race, haltingly, uncomfortably and at last straight-forwardly,  Today, such discourse only happens, when sensational events rouse the torpid, sometimes angry differences in our society.   Often, it seems to us—in the here and now and who were there back in the day—that we’ve come a long way and brought all our keepsakes and baggage with us.

So, in this case, the audience is a critical part of the production, but the cast and the pacing by director David Esbjornson should get huge dollops of credit.  The situation is rife with cliches, of course: the maid, as a character but not in the timing-perfect performance Lynda Gravatt  is one; the brogue-touched, whiskey-drinking Irish priest and family is another; one of those well-bred social bigots who manages to thrive even in 1967 San Francisco is still another.  But the humanity of all the characters shines through, because—at least partly—they’re not being played by the likes of Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn or Sidney Poitier.

In its mechanics, the play is as old fashioned as a Shaw play, in which George Bernard managed to touch on political, cultural and societal issues, while not forgetting to douse his plots with family secret and surprises. There are several family tragedies and two big surprises:the first when Joanna or the beloved Joey, daughter of the well-off Matt and Christina Drayton, arrives unexpectedly with the man she announces she’ll marry, the highly respectable, gifted, quite a bit older and obviously black Doctor John Prentice.  At first, daddy Matt, a prominent liberal editor, doesn’t get it. “What’s wrong with my daughter, doctor?” he asks, the first of many mistakes he makes.  Mom, played beautifully with great, silky grace by Tess Malis Kincaid, swoons a bit, but adjusts rapidly—love is, after all, the domain of mother and daughter.

But Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who is easily remembered as the son, Theo Huxtable, in “The Cosby Show” gives Prentice down-to-earth rough edges that Poitier never even tried for. He is strong, ardent, patient, a man who knows his worth, and what he wants and intends to get it, and is perfectly aware of what he and Joey are in for.  But he’s also imposed an artificial, even theatrical condition—the parents—hers—must approve, or there’s  no marriage.

Meanwhile, Joey—the delightful Bethany Ann Lind—does whatever she will for her cause, which is her love for John Prentice, to the point where she’s invited his parents for dinner without telling him. “I want it to be a surprise,” she said, surprising everyone.  The parents—a furious, pent-up Eugene Lee as John Prentice, Sr., and a stoic, frustrated Andrea Frye as Mary Prentice—are excellently played so much so that we begin to realize this play isn’t just about race but also about gender and memory.  This cast—because the audience can see themselves in them in ways that you just couldn’t do with, say, Spence,  Sidney and Kate—is so good that you can forgive Matt Drayton’s obtuse panic which challenges his own principles and his love. He can only turn his lips down when his wife reminds him: “We raised her to be exactly what she is.” You forgive because Tom Key is so recognizable as any father, and as any liberal hoisted on his own petard because he knows he’s been hoisted, he knows he’s torn and in pain.

This is a great evening—or better, yet, afternoon—at the theater.  “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”—quite a few people already have.  It’s playing at Arena Stage’s Mead Center for American Theater’s on the Fichandler Stage through Jan. 5.

Mary Bird •

The sixth-annual Georgetown Jingle was held at the Four Seasons Hotel on Dec. 11. The event, which benefits Georgetown University Hospital’s Pediatric Oncology Programs, highlighted 13 young cancer “Patient Ambassadors” currently receiving care. JDS Designs, Inc., Four Seasons Hotel and the Washington Design Center sponsor the Jingle which has raised $1.7 million for Georgetown Pediatrics. Event chairs Cynthia Bruno and Tamara Darvish with design chair Michael Roberson headed the family fundraiser, featuring the CVS/pharmacy children’s workshop, DC Magazine Sports Lounge, an ice palace, tastings from D.C. metro restaurants as well as entertainment by Ski Johnson and Pamala Stanley. Themed holiday trees and vignettes created by the area’s top designers were on display at the hotel, Nov. 30 through Dec. 12. They were offered for sale in advance at a fixed price or were auctioned to the highest bidder during the event’s silent auction. [gallery ids="100435,114348,114287,114339,114331,114297,114323,114315,114307" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

The Georgetown Jingle, held at the Four Seasons Hotel on Dec. 15, confirms that there is a Santa Claus, or in this many headed by Event Co-Chairs David Herchik, Richard Looman, Tim Ragan, Joe and Cynthia Bruno. Rehoboth-based Blue Moon provided entertainment, food and beverage. The event benefits Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. In the words of Aziza Shad, MD, “The new state-of-the-art Pediatric Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit will forever be a tribute to your years of hard work and support.” The hotel was resplendent with 18 holiday-themed trees and vignettes plus designer Alexa Hampton’s mantel in the hotel lobby with proceeds from sale donated to the Cancer Center to which the Georgetown Jingle has raised more than $1.5 million.