Arts & Society

Georgetowner • April 5, 2012

Mayor Vincent Gray recently spoke at a breakfast program of the INFO Public Policy Roundtable series hosted by IFE Diplomatic Steward Jan Matthysen, Ambassador of Belgium. The mayor outlined his plan to bring vitality back to the city and its budget.  Along with full democracy, including voting rights in Congress, housing and education remain central to the mayor’s agenda. Many ambassadors, Judge William Webster and a diverse group of IFE interns and fellows attended. [gallery ids="100725,120786,120781" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

Katy Nelson, Jill Collins and 94.7 Fresh FM’s Tommy McFly hosted a screening of Lady and the Tramp on the afternoon of Mar. 24 at Carmine’s in the Penn Quarter to benefit Washington Humane Society’s Fashion for Paws. Guests enjoyed a spaghetti and meatball buffet as they watched the film on several big screens. Katy and Tommy recreated the iconic romantic moment when the pair share their pasta. Tommy said “take lots of picture, eat lots of food” as he spoke of WHS’s rehabilitating work at Walter Reed in the realization that “animals are a conduit to change.” [gallery ids="102440,121378,121389,121372,121383" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

The Washington Club was transformed into Wonderland on March 23 as guests enjoyed a preview performance from the Washington Ballet’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland. Company dancers Emily Ellis and Corey Landolt enchanted as Alice and the Mad Hatter as did members of the Studio Company and School of Ballet. In his remarks at the four-course dinner with cards urging “eat me” and “drink me,” Artistic Director Septime Webre spoke of Alice’s “outsize sense of imagination,” as he created a ballet about “girl power.” Guests departed with White Rabbit cookies, auguring a happy adventure down the rabbit hole. [gallery ids="100720,120670,120649,120663,120658" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

In theater, as in other endeavors, there are plays and roles that sit like slumbering challenges, just daring for artist to tackle them.

For actors, it’s Lear—but not yet—and the layer-upon-layer Hamlet, or Willie Lohman, or Maggie the cat or Blanche. And what opera director doesn’t some nights of the Ring Cycle, tossing and turning in a sweat.

For directors, especially American directors worth their salt, all they have to do is go to the collected works of Eugene O’Neill. O’Neill wrote all sorts of plays, one-acts, surrealist fare, auto-biographical epics and four-hour sojourns waiting for the iceman to cometh. The O’Neill canon is an ocean full of white whales.

And none may be more elusive than “Strange Interlude,” a major hit in its day when it finally opened in 1928 after years of labor by O’Neill, controversial for its content and its style. It was hugely ambitious in trying to tell a story spanning decades of American life — forward and backward, past, present and future.

For Michael Kahn, in the midst of a 25th anniversary season as the artistic director of the Washington Shakespeare Theatre, “Strange Interlude” is a play, he said, “I’ve always wanted to do, and for a time I thought I would never get the opportunity.”

He had come close once, but the project collapsed for various reasons. “But when this anniversary came up, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to tackle the play,” he said.

When you start thinking about this, you have to admire Kahn for thinking about it at all. His legacy in Washington and his whole career is secure; he would be forgiven for resting on his laurels.

“Strange Interlude” is something of a risk today, maybe even more than when it opened. It’s a legend of size and scope—various stories have the original production running as long as between six and four hours with an intermission break for dinner. Plus, O’Neill told wrote some of the dialogue in stream of consciousness style, in which the characters express their inner thoughts.

“Well, this production is more like three and a half or so.” Kahn said. “I don’t think today’s audiences will have trouble relating to it or the characters. It’s about something everybody has a stake in: the pursuit of happiness and the great difficulty and tragedy that surrounds that pursuit.”

While Kahn is also considered one of the consummate interpreters of the plays of Tennessee Williams, he’s no stranger to O’Neill. “He is the major figure in American theater,” Kahn said, “the father of American theater, with a huge and diverse body of work, a pioneer, a great writer whose work contained some of the finest work not only in theater but in American literature. I learned about him by reading. We had a lot of books in our house when I was young, and I ran across his first play, “Dynamo.”

“Ah, Wilderness!” and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” both at Arena, and “Strange Interlude are part of a unique and ongoing O’Neill festival in Washington right now.

Kahn remembers seeing Frederic March playing the father in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” a production he calls remarkable. “Jason Robards (considered the O’Neill actor by many) was playing one of the sons, and he would later play the father.”

Kahn—in a stellar career that included a vivid production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on Broadway—directed O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra” twice. He got permission to edit “Electra” (as well as “Interlude”).

Still, the idea of “Interlude” is daunting. In the 1920s, the play was shocking for its Freudian content, for a plot that included abortion, sex and an intelligent, strong woman dealing with the lasting wounds suffered after her fiancée is killed in World War I without the opportunity for consummation of their love.

“The pursuit of happiness,” Kahn said, “that’s the American dream, that’s what we’re about as a country. There’s no society that places such a stress on the theme of happiness.”

Francesca Faridany will perform the role of Nina in this production. “Strange Interlude” is rarely performed, but that may be part of its appeal to audiences and certainly for Kahn, who presented the rarely performed “Camino Royal,” by Tennessee Williams and the equally rarely staged “Timor of Athens.”

Kahn is excited about “Strange Interlude” and thinks audiences will be, too. “It is one of the great works by our greatest playwright. It has a compelling story that resonates for today’s audiences. It’s about America and us, and we can see ourselves in those creations. It’s a great achievement on the part of O’Neill—the play spans 30 years and was written in the 1920s. So, he had to imagine what this country would be like in the ’30s and ’40s, and I think he did a good job of it.”

Listening to Kahn talk about the play, you feel he relished the work, like opening up a lost, true book and bringing it to life.

(“Strange Interlude” will be at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall through April 29). [gallery ids="100718,120641" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post • April 4, 2012

Canal Square and Beyond

Nestled in a brick courtyard at M and 31st Streets, walking into Canal Square on the evening of a “First Friday” feels like stumbling into the best social club you never knew existed. The four galleries clustered in the space are teeming with admirers, friends, patrons and chance roamers, peering about the galleries or lounging in the benches just outside, smiling and chatting. And what’s more—they’re chatting about art! The galleries are also local institutions—Parish Gallery, Moca DC and Alla Rogers Gallery have all recently celebrated their twenty-year anniversaries. Just north of Canal Square, The Old Print Gallery and the Ralls Collection have also made their mark on the city’s artistic community (the Ralls Collection even used to reside in Canal Square). Among the most longstanding and respected galleries in the city, this cluster of art venues embodies what’s best about Georgetown: history, community, style and beauty, with an eye for the contemporary.

Parish Gallery

Internationally recognized African painter, Bethel Aniaku, will be at Parish Gallery through April 17, in an exhibit titled “Instinct of Desire.” The cultural explored in these paintings include a blend of historical, literal, and artistic elements, which aim to reunite the viewer with their own culture and origins. Aniaku, by comparison, honors the trade of his own carpenter ancestors by using wood as the base for his paintings. His compositions play with color, light, space and mixed media, relying on instinct more than any direct intention, as if the painting was not being made but found as an artifact that has always existed.

Opening April 20, Parish Gallery will open its next exhibit, showcasing the artworks of husband and wife Christine and Richmond Jones, in a show titled “Two Views/One Vision.” Starting out as an illustrator and designer, Christine’s oil paint and pastel works represent the textures and colors, people and places in which she finds inspiration. Richmond, who also began his career as a graphic designer, found a new creative direction as a “transparent watercolor painter.” Since then, both artists have been exhibited in numerous juried exhibitions around the country and received many awards for their individual and collective work.

www.ParishGallery.com

The Ralls Collection

The Ralls Collection is in the midst of a powerful group exhibition of gallery artists, which runs through June 15. It is difficult to encapsulate the significance of The Ralls Collection to Washington’s artistic community, much in the same way it is hard to grasp the broad archive of substantial artwork that has passed through the gallery since its opening over 20 years ago. The work present in the gallery’s current exhibit showcases a remarkable collection of beautiful contemporary artwork with a clear vision and impeccable taste. Many of the artists Ralls chose for the exhibition have been with the gallery since it’s beginning, and some are welcome additions. David Richardson, a personal favorite of this author whose show at Ralls last year garnered tremendous national attention (including a feature in the New York Times), uses planes of bold colors and textures, recalling landscape both foreign and familiar, contained yet effusive.

www.RallsCollection.com

Moca DC

Moca DC stands up for the little guy, in more ways than one. A nonprofit, part of the gallery’s mission is to be “Open to all artists all the time,” offering opportunities to artists at every stage of their careers. Moca gives more exhibits to emerging, first-time and beginning artists than almost any in the city. The gallery is also devoted to the tradition of figurative art, including three annual exhibits dedicated to the nude human form (this July, keep an eye out for the exhibit, “A Celebration of the Figure”). This April, the gallery will mark its twenty-year anniversary by expanding its scope to include three juried exhibits of figurative works a year, the first of which will focus on the interpretation of the figure within contemporary art practice. Moca’s 20th Anniversary Show, which will hold an opening reception on April 6, is also on display.

www.MocaDC.org

The Old Print Gallery

“Blossom DC,” the latest exhibit at The Old Print Gallery, is inspired by the 100 year anniversary of the gift of the cherry blossoms from Japan to Washington. The exhibit celebrates the beauty and youthful energy of spring’s blossoms, featuring a large number of prints by local D.C. artists coupled with a selection of works by contemporary New York City artists and several early 20th century printmakers. Established in 1971, The Old Print Gallery has long been known for its wide selection of antique prints and maps, and has expanded recently into the world of contemporary printmaking. The gallery also hosts printmaking workshops and demonstrations, establishing itself as a source of inspiration and information for print artists, enthusiasts and new admirers alike.

www.OldPrintGallery.com

Alla Rogers Gallery

The Alla Rogers Gallery, founded in 1990, focuses on the accessible contemporary art from Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union. The Gallery has curated hundreds of exhibitions and led artist exchanges between American and Eastern European artists. Currently on display is the artwork of Alla Rogers herself, who recently exhibited 42 of her own paintings in Kiev at the National Fine Art Museum of Ukraine. Her works on canvas plays out like the geography of memories, folding and falling into one another. These are not works you want to miss. [gallery ids="100714,120510,120468,120502,120496,120477,120490,120484" nav="thumbs"]

Jeff Malet • March 22, 2012

Flamenco is a unique art form that combines dancing, guitar playing, singing, and a stocatto handclapping. It is native to the Andalusian region of southern Spain and may have been influenced by the Gypsies, and in part from Spain’s early Morrish culture. Seville’s Rafaela Carrasco is a breathtaking dancer and one of the most important flamenco choreographers of the younger generation. She and her troupe performed at GWU’s Lisner Auditorium in Washinton DC on March 7 during Flemenco Festival 2012. View our photos of her classic performance by clicking on the photo icons below. (Photography by Jeff Malet) [gallery ids="100534,120037,120029,120021,120013,120006,119997,119989,120053,119980,120060,120067,119970,120073,120045" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

1776. How 236 years ago.

“1776,” the musical. How 42 years ago.

The latest production of “1776,” now at Ford’s Theatre, is playing right during the longest-running reality show in the nation, the Republican Party race for the presidential nomination. How 36 seconds ago.

It is a familiar musical — about how a group of divided, discordant and discomfited bunch of men representing the 13 colonies would eventually come up with the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia and thus declare themselves a nation of free peoples. It always resonates mightily when performed in the Washington area, even as a high school or dinner theatre production. (We were mindful that it is being staged in the theater where President Abraham Lincoln was shot and performed on the night we attended that the Prime Minister of Britain was being cheered at the White House.)

What’s amazing about “1776,” with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone, is that it works at all. The music and songs are to be sure witty, but they’re not in the exalted Broadway musical stratosphere that includes Rodgers and Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim. It does not strive for anything resembling contemporary pop music styles. The score, songs and lyrics are what they are: they fit perfectly to the needs of the book, a soaring ballad here, a sarcastic, rousing number there, a funny one around the corner, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And maybe that’s what makes things work, because this has always been a show about the characters in it — by the people, for the people and about the people.

The main purpose of “1776” has always been to give audiences a human look at the men who ended up producing and signing the Declaration of Independence, the visionary heart and soul of American democracy as created then and living through the years and today. Here are the defiant, grimly determined John Adams (“They find me annoying, nobody likes me”), the stolid John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson missing his wife to the point of total distraction (“It’s been six months”), the icily charismatic John Dickinson, defender of property and loyal to the British Crown, the scathing and charming Edward Rutledge, cynical defender of slavery, elderly rock star of the American Revolution Benjamin Franklin and the rum-addled Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, to name a few.

In 1776, the Continental Army was short on almost everything — morale, men, organization, weapons and salt peter, awaiting a British assault in New York. The Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia where it was a choice between flies and oppressive heat and separation from or reconciliation with Great Britain. That something as historically astounding and resounding as the Declaration emerged from the band of hardly brothers seems in the very least remarkable and in the end inspiring.

Edwards and Stone won Tonys for “1776” but never again matched anything remotely in the way of success of this oddly old-fashioned but also revolutionary show. It’s not a debunking of the legendary names on the declaration, but it surely humanizes the process. We always knew that Adams was an indispensable man here, that Jefferson was young then, in love with his wife, and an all-around genius and that Benjamin Franklin was a genial lech, disliked his royalist son and embraced fame with fervor.

Songs range from show opener “For God’s Sake, John, Sit Down!” to the rousing and funny “The Lees of Old Virginia,” sung with flood-like gusto by Stephen S. Schmidt as Richard Henry Lee, and “He Plays the Violin,” a hymn of praise and prowess in which Erin Kruse, as Martha Jefferson, suggests something more than musical gifts for her husband. “Cool, Cool Considerate Men,” John Dickinson’s praise of pragmatism (“always to the right, never to the left”) presages our battling political parties of 2012, and “Molasses to Rum,” in which Gregory Maheu as Edward Rutledge blasts out an angry, chilling defense of slavery by way of hypocrisy, bring us to the present in one way or another. Everyone gets a say, or a song as it were.

Top acting kudos: Brooks Ashmankis as John Adams, singing with confidence, a man who acts with no limitations but knows his own very well; D.C.’s Shakespearean comic great Floyd King as the semi-sober Stephen Hopkins; Kruse and Kates Fisher as Abigail Adams on the ladies’ side. In particular, one should single out Robert Cuccioli as Dickerson — dressed in dandified black, grey and white, an actor who commands the stages and the audience in every scene. With charisma to spare as well is Maheu, the even more dandified but also shark-like representative from South Carolina, whose embrace of slavery sound like the whispers of the snake in the garden. “They are property,” he sneers, as if that were that.

This great debate in Philadelphia echoes loudly among us, all across the land, by ways of communication these founding signers had never anticipated. When the group agonizes over its deadlock and inability to do anything (“Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve”), they sound like nothing less than today’s Republican and Democratic members of Congress. And with so many presidential candidates, Supreme Court justices and politicians of today claiming intimate personal knowledge of our Founding Fathers, they might be well off checking out this show.

“1776” runs a solid three hours with intermission, but the time and the show passes swiftly. It’s an engrossing production, hugely entertaining and engaging. It plays like a big echo from 236 years ago and from 36 seconds ago.

(“1776” plays through May 19 at Ford’s Theatre.)
[gallery ids="100535,120098,120062,120091,120070,120084,120078" nav="thumbs"]

Jeff Malet •

The circus was in town. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus presents “Fully Charged” at the Verizon Center in Washington DC with shows on March 15-18. After the DC run, the show moves on to Baltimore, Md., and then Fairfax, Va., in April. View our photos of “The Greatest Show on Earth” by clicking on the icons below. (Photography by Jeff Malet)

View additional photos of this performance plus additional dances by the company by clicking here. [gallery ids="100538,100551,100552,100553,100554,100555,100556,100557,100558,100559,100560,100550,100549,100539,100540,100541,100542,100543,100544,100545,100546,100547,100548,100561" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney • March 15, 2012

“Civic Pride: Dutch Group Portraits from Amsterdam” is now on view at the National Gallery of Art. The special installation involves two large-scale group portraits, rarely seen outside the Netherlands.

Two of Amsterdam’s most important portraitists from the mid-17th century, Govert Flinck (1615–1660) and Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613–1670), captured the confidence of the men who governed the Kloveniersdoelen, the building where one of Amsterdam’s three militia companies held its meetings. The painting were created during the years the Dutch controlled New Amsterdam, which was to become New York City.

“These group portraits offer a remarkable visual record of the inner workings of the Dutch Republic at the height of its presence on the global stage in the 17th century,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “It was through the efforts of the citizens depicted, and the civic organizations they represented, that the young republic achieved its economic, political and artistic golden age. We are not only grateful to the Rijksmuseum and Amsterdam Museum for lending these masterpieces to the Gallery for a period of five years, but also to the city of Amsterdam, which owns the works, for agreeing to this generous loan.”

Also, at the March 9 reception for the exhibit was Renee Jones-Bos, Ambassador of the Netherlands to the United States. Arthur Wheelock, Jr., is the curator for Northern Baroque paintings at the National Gallery of Art. One of the paintings depicts an ancestor of the exhibit’s research assistant Henriette de Bruyn Kops.

The two works, both titled “Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen,” were painted 13 years apart. Flinck (in 1642) and Van der Helst (in 1655) created comparable yet distinct interpretations of the shared sense of duty and personal interactions of two different generations of governors. The attire and demeanor of the governors varies from painting to painting, reflecting the different decades in which the men were portrayed. The two canvases are on long-term loan from the Rijksmuseum and the Amsterdam Museum, respectively. A new type of portraiture appeared in the northern Netherlands in the 17th century: large group portraits depicting the leadership of professional and civic organizations. Guild administrators, government officials, board members of charitable institutions and officers of militia companies commissioned distinguished artists to create these large-scale group portraits, destined for the walls of the organizations’ headquarters. The portraits often depict the sitters in the midst of a meeting or a meal, emphasizing the members’ shared responsibilities, personal interactions and civic-mindedness.

Flinck and Van der Helst were two of the most renowned portraitists of their time. Flinck had trained under Rembrandt, and like his famous teacher, specialized in both history paintings and fashionable portraiture. Van der Helst was famous for the elegant realism of his portraits and was a favorite artist of the Amsterdam militia companies. His version of “Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen” (1655) has just undergone a complete restoration for the occasion of the exhibition. The results are dramatic, as the painting now has a brilliance of color that was obscured by old varnish for many years. Although hundreds of group portraits were painted during the 17th century, they are rarely seen outside the Netherlands; many still remain with the organizations that originally commissioned them.

The exhibit runs through March 11, 2017.
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Gary Tischler •

Packs a wallop. Packs a punch. A one-round, one-act knockout. Like a punch in the mouth.

The temptation is to slide and jab and slip right into a whole bunch of boxing metaphors when describing “Sucker Punch,” the new play from Britain by Roy Williams at the Studio Theater. But while it squarely puts itself into the realm of cinematic — “Rocky,” “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” “Raging Bull” and even theatrical (Clifford Odet’s “Golden Boy” which was also a film) — ring sagas, “Sucker Punch” is a little more complicated than that.

It’s an odd mish-mash of a play. While it hews to some of the clichés and metaphors of boxing as a way out of poverty and rough upbringing, it’s also a kinetic production with imaginatively and powerfully potent staged fights, so vivid that you might expect to hear a bell starting the next round to wake you up in the morning.

It’s also English, set during the prime ministership of Meryl Streep — that is, Margaret Thatcher — a time in which the law-and-order prone leader and her police force frequently clashed with the poorer immigrant and working-class population of the country. This was a backdrop to “Billy Elliott,” the musical in which a working class youngster took up ballet instead of boxing as a way out in a setting of the rough nation-wide miner’s strike. Thatcher had a lot in common with her great admirer and co-leader of the Free World, President Ronald Reagan, and today’s union-busting American governors.

In the time of “Sucker Punch,” there were riots and demonstrations in the streets of South London with police clashing with younger denizens of the ghettos, many of them immigrants from the British Empire’s old colonies, such as Jamaica.

Leon and Troy, who have odd-job jobs at a local gymn where a tough, retired white boxer named Charlie is running the place into the ground, while trying to train boxers up to the national level of competition, including an embittered, racist punk named Tommy. One day, Charlie spies Leon in a clash with Tommy and notices his speed and power, and the rest is, if not history, the rest of the play.

Leon and his closest friend, the angry, suspicious, belligerent and charismatic Troy, clash over Leon’s budding friendship with Charlie, who has offered to train him, and over his budding romance with Becky, Charlie’s daughter. The friends part with Leon getting (and mostly winning) fights under the backing and tutelage of Charlie.

The 1980s were times when Britain had not seen its own black professional champions at almost any weight class Leon is the target of racist taunts during each of his fights. An agile, powerful Leon — who seems a bit like Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard — prevails. Everyone’s past catches up with them, as they rise to the top. The success story becomes a kind of Greek tragedy.

Regardless, the most immediate appeal of “Sucker Punch” is its astonishingly spectacular fight scenes, including a violent, virulent brawl with Tommy and a climactic super-battle with Troy who has become a title contender after going to the U.S.

These scenes — staged by fight coordinator Rick Sordelet with help from consultant Gary “Kid” Stark, Jr. — are thrilling and engrossing. They are so cinematically convincing and vivid that you are tricked to believe all those punches are landing.

That’s entertainment — but the acting of Sheldon Best as the sweet-hearted, constantly conflicted Leon and Emmanuel Brown as the electric, tortured and swift Troy, well, that’s high art, as far as I’m concerned. They give the play its real punch, its emotional punch, sporting-movie star charisma and energy.

Director Leah C. Gardner keeps the hour-and-a-half production moving at a speed that allows you to overlook the fact that this isn’t particularly cutting-edge stuff but high dudgeon drama and, given its 30-year-old historical setting, drama with immediacy.

Go see “Sucker Punch.” You’ll be — one more time — floored.

It’s at the Studio’s Theatre’s Mead Theatre through April 8.