Performance

Gary Tischler • September 9, 2013

The “A Chorus Line” production now at the Olney Theatre Center in Maryland—already extended through Sept. 8—isn’t perfect by any means, nor would you expect it to be, nor, in the end, should it be.

The little glitches—miking, mostly—here and there, a voice off track here, a note not quite reached—all the things that probably won’t repeat themselves next time or further down the line, end up being an almost natural (and poignant) part of this production of a classic show about a group of dance gypsies, vying for a spot on the chorus line of a musical eventually bound for Broadway.

That was the basic material for genius producer-director Michael Bennett’s 1975 record-breaking, Tony-award winning and legendary music which remains more than 35 years later a one-of-a-kind achievement, a gift, really to the lore and legend of Broadway and to audiences, both then, and now. We saw a matinee production which was worth the trip to Olney, among an audience of older folks, dotted with more than a few walkers and wheelchairs, full of people who would be in fact be the current age of most of the performers in the original show.

“A Chorus Line,” then and now, is a stretch in the sense that it runs a little over two hours with no intermission. It’s worth the stretch and the effort, because of Stephen Nachamie’s relentlessly faithful and push-ahead direction, because of the cast, because of the ghost of Bennett, Marvin Hamlich’s music and a tart and touching book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante.

It’s worth it because, in a spotlight here, a moment there, in a spark when the cast in full glitter and voice take over stage, minds and heart is a kind of audience blessing.

The musical-play may seem and feel dated—there are references for instance to the Ed Sullivan Show and the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, and the wannabe dancers give their ages, which puts them in the specific yesterday and yesteryear time. But up close on a mid-week afternoon, they are as fresh as now as are the songs. It’s a fresh and real energy being brought to the show here far from an audition stage, far from show biz and Broadway and bright lights and big city.

Twenty-two melting pot aspirants arrive to vie to be in the chorus line under the sharp, authoritarian and prying voice of a director named Zach (played with straightforward honesty by Carl Randolph), and they know that the end result will be a four-and-four, that only eight of them can make the show. What was revolutionary about the show—it was based on taped interviews with actual dancers—is that it focused on this almost side-show aspect of theatrical show business with pungent language, honest and authentic stories and affecting outcomes, and blessed the characters with moments to strut their stuff in the spotlight and come together in spectacular fashion.

It’s a piece of Americana up there: gay dancers still suffering then, but not so much now, tall and short dancers, busty dancers—the subject comes up in the daffy, the tarty “Dance Ten: Looks: Three“ — lovelorn girls, unhappy boys, but all of them dedicated up to their eyeball to what they do.

Some of the songs have acquired legend status—“What I Did for Love” for instance, and the invitation to dance, “One”, done not once but twice, the last as a kind a kind of wonderful tribute—the hats, the gloss, the gold the glitter, the unison—to the boys and girls of the chorus line.

Even a chorus line isn’t equal, not even in a show about the chorus line—in this cast there are great dancers, great singers and great groups; some are better singers than dancers and vice versa. But Michelle Arvena, petite, dark-haired, restless and eager, who had to take over the lead role of Cassie close to the show’s opening, is the complete package. In her “The Music and the Mirror” number, she demonstrates a range, tactile, go-anywhere voice that matches her dancing moves, a complete set of gifts with the extra add-on of fine acting.

This is a one-of-a-kind show because it has room in the middle of proceedings to hear the heart-breaking, moving story of Paul as a monologue, a tale of struggling and identity that Bryan Knowlton tells haltingly, softly, in a quiet voice that packs tremendous power.

Other standouts include a wonderful tap number: “The Tap Combination,” Kyle Schliefer’s sprite sing and dance “I Can do That” and Colleen Hayes’s dead-on rendition of Sheila, a curvy, knowing blonde with attitude, it’s a smart, funny and touching performance.

This is a heart-felt, enthusiastically staged production, and a reminder of just how gifted the late Bennett was, and a deserved moment of glory for all the boys and girls of the chorus line, which—like newspapers—are rapidly disappearing.

Later, nevertheless, the numbers remain in your head: Five-six-seven eight . . . the call to act for the dancers on the line.

Jordan Hellmuth •

Fresh off his newest album, “All That Echoes,” which debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, Josh Groban has been selling out shows all over the country, from three sold-out nights at the Hollywood Bowl to a special show with the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks. His August 16 show at the Filene Center at Wolf Trap will be no exception; it is sold out.

Known for smooth tenor sound in his 2005 Grammy nominated single, “You Raise Me Up,” Groban released his sixth studio album, “All That Echoes,” in February.

Recently, PBS has begun re-broadcasting Groban’s television special “Josh Groban: All That Echoes,” the taping of his live concert at Lincoln Center in February.

Be on the lookout for tickets to Groban’s show through alternate ticket outlets.

Gary Tischler •

The title and the occasion has déjà vu written all over it.

Here’s Donna McKechnie, a Tony Award winner for playing the star-making role of Cassie in the original Broadway production of Michael Bennett’s “A Chorus Line.” She performs in her one-woman cabaret piece “Same Place, Another Time”, at 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 1 on the historic stage of the Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Md.

Not coincidentally, the Olney Theatre Center’s production of “A Chorus Line” (extended through Sept. 8) was also playing at the center. Same place, another time, indeed.

McKechnie never performed the role of Cassie in the Washington area, but she was at the Kennedy Center for a production of “State Fair” in 1996 and at the National Theatre starring in the dramatic opening of a Broadway bound revival of Bob Fosse’s “Sweet Charity” in 1987.

She had come in with “Same Place, Another Time” from San Francisco, bringing with her ménage of songs, and personal story telling. It was her way of resurrecting the 1970s, when her star shone brightest. For, indeed, “A Chorus Line” was a “singular sensation,” as was she. This was New York, disco, the Hustle, and Broadway was still some leftover part of its own self. It was where you wanted to end up as a dancer, a star, and your name in lights.

Jim Croce’s music is here, a disco version of “Where or When”, a quintessential New York song, and songs from Broadway shows of the time. Which was quite a time.

“It’s an affectionate tribute to that time, the people I worked with—especially someone like Marvin Hamlisch, whom I really miss, because we both started out way back when in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” McKenhnie said. Hamlisch, who was the NSO Symphony Pops Director, passed away last year.

When she was in town for “State Fair” in 1996, playing a glamour queen performer plying her art at state fairs, she remembered exactly what happened. Cassie won her a Tony, got her on the cover of Newsweek, and made her a star. She also ended up marrying Michael Bennett in a whirlwind of change and the bright kiss of fame.

“When I came to New York I wanted to be a ballet dancer,” she said. “I kind of scoffed at musicals until I learned better, that there was this rich history and tradition of music, drama, theater and dancing. It took me a while but then “Chorus Line” came along and it changed everything.”

“That was my life on that stage,” McKechnie said. “That was a unique musical. There had never been anything like it.”

Back then, she admired and wanted to be like the dancing divas Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon. “That’s what you did, you admired them and picked up elements of them, and create your own style, and I was there, right there, and when it finally happened, it was over.”

More or less, Broadway, in the thrall of other genres that had little room for chorus lines or dancers, had stopped doing shows like that.

Irving Berlin will be heard, and stories, and “Time in a Bottle”. “God, I love that song,” McKechnie said.

“Same Place, Another Time” was also performed in 54 Below, a New York Club now in the basement of the building that used to be Studio 54. Talk about the ‘70s.

McKechnie has kept busy with concert work, singing in clubs, choreographing and writing, working in another time. With the proximity of “A Chorus Line” on stage as she preps for her performance Sunday, you can’t help but think of different places.

We both remembered the night of Sept. 23, 1987. “Sweet Charity” was a revival of one of Fosse’s inimically stylized, brash, brassy hits with his signature style. McKechnie was the star as a kind of dime a dance girl. A Broadway wannabe singing and dancing in high style biting songs like “Big Spender”, “If My Friends Could See Me Now. “He spent a lot of time rehearsing us, working with us, we worked like the devil leading up to that night,” she remembered.

Outside, Fosse, the creator of “Chicago” and “Dancin’”, and film director of “Cabaret” and the astounding “All That Jazz”, was on his way to the National Theatre with his ex-wife Gwen Verdon when he collapsed on the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue and died of a heart attack at George Washington University Hospital.

“None of us knew,” she said. “You know, nobody would tell us. It was opening night. Afterwards, I saw people looking upset, and someone came up to me and said ‘Sit Down’. I thought maybe the Broadway opening had been cancelled. I didn’t know. Everybody, me and everybody in the show was just stunned.”

It recalled the Broadway opening of “42nd Street” when producer David Merrick had kept the news of the death of director Gower Champion, who had died of cancer that morning, from the cast and everyone else until the show was over.

Broadway stories and lives, one and all, including the story of the 1970s, the singular sensations of the decade. Another time, different place.

Rachel Scola • August 15, 2013

If William Shakespeare were around today, and after someone had explained to him what movies are, there is no doubt he would be very pleased with Joss Whedon’s interpretation of his comedy “Much Ado About Nothing.”

We have all probably read “Much Ado About Nothing” once, probably in high school. Allow me to refresh your memory. War heroes Claudio and Benedick have just returned home, where Claudio is reminded of his strong love for Hero, the daughter of the governor, and Benedick engages once more in a war of wit with Hero’s cousin Beatrice. Like any Shakespeare comedy, there is confusion and irony and a wedding, but I won’t spoil it all for you.

Whedon’s adaptation puts lovers Claudio, Hero, Beatrice and Benedick in a modern setting, a favored choice for most of today’s Shakespeare adaptations, but that’s where the similarities to most other adaptations ends.

The entire film is in black and white, which in this case only helps the viewer. Without the distraction of color, the audience can focus solely on the story, how the characters are interacting with each other and what the characters discover about themselves. We are able to pay more attention to the actor’s actions, which pays off marvelously in a critical scene of both Benedick and Beatrice (played by Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker, respectively) eavesdropping on separate conversations about their love lives. The easy-on-the-eyes gray scale also lets the dialogue shine through, as Whedon chose not to use modern-day English and instead stuck with the bard’s own words. This isn’t, of course, the first film to keep the same language. But the use of the original language and lack of color, both harkening back to older days of film, somehow give this film a very contemporary air.

There was a slight murmur through the audience when it became apparent the dialogue had not been updated, but it soon died down as everyone adjusted and settled in to enjoy the film.

And enjoy is definitely what you will do when you watch this film. Whedon offers a refreshing retelling of the story, something we have come to expect from this director. For those unfamiliar, Whedon brought us 2012’s Cabin in the Woods and the superhero blockbuster The Avengers, but is also known for television’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Many of his projects reach cult status due to his talent of creating relatable and beloved characters whose storylines raptly involve the viewers.
It is also a common fact that Whedon likes to reuse actors, so to say, and he chose an excellent cast once again for Much Ado. Aside from Denisof and Acker, the film has Clark Gregg (The Avengers) portraying a humble and doting father to Hero, Sean Maher (Firefly) as antagonist Don John, Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods) as lovesick Claudio and Jillian Morgese (The Avengers) as the quiet Hero. Perhaps the best boast Much Ado has though, is Nathan Fillion (Serenity) as Dogberry, the bumbling and asinine watch-guard for the family, who brought a round of applause when he first appeared on the screen and continued to bring the laughs every time the camera panned to him.

Each of the actor’s talent and Whedon’s directorial choices combine to tell an entertaining romance that engages its audience, never making them bored or annoyed, but instead anticipating and intrigued. There is no doubt that even the most stubborn moviegoer will find one thing he likes in this film, and can convince anyone that Shakespeare can be fresh and loved in any year.

“Much Ado” could make a great family outing, provided everyone in the family is mature enough to understand the language and sit through the few risqué scenes that grant a PG-13 rating. Overall, it is a must-see, while it is in theaters. Its limited release began June 21, and the film is yet another masterpiece from Joss Whedon.

Gary Tischler •

All things considered, it’s tempting to say that director-author-adapter — and, oh, just genial genius — Mary Zimmerman has the Midas Touch when it comes to bringing to the stage our dreams, our oldest stories, our gods, our myths, oldest jokes and sorrows.

Of course, after seeing “Metamorphoses,” Zimmerman’s astonishing and remarkably durable version of the 2,000-year-old “Metamorphoses” by the Roman poet Ovid (based on David Slavitt’s translation) at Arena Stage, set in a raging, slithering, slappy-sloppy giant water- and emotion-filled pool, you might not ever use that phrase again.

The tale of King Midas — and the tragic reality of having his wish fulfilled by a god — is one of the many myths and tales which spring to life in Zimmerman’s production. You could say it’s yet another of her collaborations with the authors—sometimes nameless, sometimes not—of our most essential beliefs, myths, legends and stories. Certainly, “Metamorphoses” is characteristic of her own touch and tools of the trade, she brings us to stories by which in the telling we are awed, shocked, moved, sometimes to tears, reconciled, filled here and there with laughter, both refined and coarse. She does it often with children’s toys, remnants of costumes, cloth, context and storytelling so old that it seems brand new, language that is at once just a step away from chants and intonation, and as vernacular as a an unfettered blogger.

We have seen Zimmerman in action before in Washington: “Argonautika,” “Candide” and at Arena the year before around this time with “Arabian Nights,” so full of magic, jokes and the sadness of a lost civilization.

We know the stories here, and almost immediately accept the setting, this giant pool of volatile, versatile, sweet birthing water, nearly a character in a play where characters splash with abandon. They roust and roil and disappear under the waves, come to grief and forbidden love, and are transformed, metamorphosed into forever. The pool, quite near front row audience members at the in-the-round Fichandler, is rarely still or peaceful. The result is that those audience members are offered towels but still are startled by splashing water — much like the action in this theater and play: you never know exactly what will happen next, where, when or how.

This is a play, first produced at Northwestern University, in which Zimmerman has invited here and there the Greco-Roman gods to mingle—why else is Zeus (aka Jupiter) referenced? Then again, you could say this is part of the theme here after all, which is one of transformation. That theme makes the play about life its own self: we recognize these sons and daughters of gods, but also merchants, fools, drunks, lovers, parents, louts and swains and sailors and actors as ourselves.

So, when in the thick of things, we meet Phaeton, he’s complaining to his shrink about his father, the sun god Apollo. Feeling guilty that his son has been bullied at school, Apollo asks him, “What do you want?” Phaeton smartly answers, “I want the keys to the car,” like any overconfident kid. But the car is the sun, of course, and Phaeton definitely isn’t ready to drive, burns the earth and falls to his death.

This is done with humor, as are the multiple disguises Vertumnus adopts to get the attention of the wood nymph Pomona, whom he loves but who ignores all his guises. It’s one of Zimmerman’s trademarks to get you to laugh at some basic level—there’s the “what’s-in-the-bag” playfulness and the wedding joke in “Arabian Nights.” But in the end, first and foremost, this production is about loss and transformation, about grief and how we manage to endure life and the burdens given to us by the gods.

All manner of stories will stick with you—I suspect it depends on state of mind and station. For me, the transformative tales haunt you into stillness. Thus, the powerful tale of King Ceyx, who is drowned on an ocean voyage his much beloved wife Alcyone begged him not to take. After ghostly visitations and an abundant display of grief and sorrow, the gods take pity and transform the couple into seabirds. (Alcyone’s father, the wind god Aeolus, calms the air and seashore so that she might nest with ease; hence our word, “halcyon.”) The familiar tale of Orpheus and Eurydice—told twice to include the German poet’s Rainer Maria Rilke’s version, who doubles down on the sadness—makes your hold your breath as Orpheus fails to retrieve his bride from the underworld by breaking the rule not to look back.

The most wrenching and shocking tale is that of Myrrha and her father, King Cinyras. Myrrha, a bounding teen uninterested in love and suitors, angers the goddess Aphrodite and is cursed to lust after her father. That lust and its consummation are depicted in a furious interaction in the pool, it’s looks physically dangerous and emotionally disastrous.

The production ends in a kind of vision, a hopeful dream of sheer beauty, light upon the water, a vision that opens up hearts to hope and makes souls transparent. We see them all then, a cast that is singularly and uniformly excellent, overcoming physical challenges—the water, the water, the air itself, the slippery path—to keep it real. I would single out Ashley Lathrop as Myrrha (and Midas’s daughter) who breaks your heart twice, Geoff Packart (he had the lead in “Candide” and “Liberty Jones”), an appealing and romantic heroic figure as King Ceyx, and Louise Lamson as Alcyone and Raymond Fox as Midas.

Because we have always told stories around campfires, in our hearths and homes, in liturgies and celebrations, between the covers of books and sacred texts, in ancient arenas, theater in its present and past forms has always seemed to be the place where we come to believe that what we see before us is both an artifice—artful and powerful—and a mirror through which we can fly, or in the case of this “Metamorphoses,” swim.

“Metamorphoses” runs at Arena Stage through March 17
[gallery ids="102586,119678,119689,119684,119670" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Just when you think you might have a handle on the annual Helen Hayes Awards and the plays, artists and companies which get nominations every year, they throw you for an Oscar-like loop—you know, the one where Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated for a best director award for “Argo.”

This year’s major mysteries for the 29th annual Helen Hayes Awards announced earlier this week would appear to be the omission of veteran and oft-awarded and nominated actor Edward Gero for his bravura performance as the expressionist painter Mark Rothko in the Arena Stage production of “Red,” which was also not on the list of nominations for outstanding resident production, although director Robert Fall did get a nod for the production.

Stranger still was the fact that Synetic Theatre—the Georgian-led (as in the Republic of Georgia) troupe which specializes in highly stylized and totally original plays without dialogue and silent Shakespeare, which annually gets a slew of nominations and usually wins quite a few of them,—did not get a single nomination, an unlikely and odd turn of events strange enough to be called mysterious. It’s not likely that the company experienced a huge dropoff in quality in term of artistic excellence all at once, but there you are.

But, on the other hand, you can’t really complain about results per se—what the nominations almost always reveal is the excellence, the range and the sheer variety and size of the Washington theatre community. It’s a big tent approach. This year, Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, Md., with its production of “The Color Purple” got eight nominations in a category usually dominated by Signature Theater, which was right up there, too, with seven for its production of “Dreamgirls.”

Then there was Imagination Stages, a theatre specializing in plays for young people, which landed two best directors for musicals (as opposed to musical direction) for Janet Stanford and “The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe” (also up for a best ensemble award) and Kathryn Chase Bryer for “Rapunzel.”

Arena Stage itself led with a total of 18 nominations if you’re counting—with a variety of nominations for several plays, including “My Fair Lady,” “The Music Man,” “Pullman Porter Blues,” “Red Hot Patriot” and “One Night With Janis Joplin” among seven productions. Kathleen Turner—star turn—was nominated for best actress in a resident play, and Mary Bridet Davies—star turn—was nominated for outstanding actress in a musical for playing—let’s say channeling—Janis Joplin.

Direction seems to have been a stickler—six were nominated for outstanding director of a resident musical, including Toby Orenstein (founder of Toby’s) and Lawrence Munsey, and eight were nominated for best director of a resident play—Shakespeare Theatre Company’s artistic director Michael Kahn for “The Government Inspector,” and Ethan McSweeny for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Christopher Bayes for “The Servant of Two Masters,” all Shakespeare Theatre Company productions among them, along with Aaron Posner, Robert Falls, Kirsten Kelly and John Vreeke.

Here’s your lineup for top resident musicals: “1776,” a top notch, clear-eyed production from Ford’s Theatre; “The Color Purple” from Toby’s Dinner Theatre; “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” from MetroStage; “Dreamgirls” from Signature and “Spring Awakening” from Keegan Theatre.

And here’s your lineup for top resident play: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Shakespeare Theatre Company; Woolly Mammoth’s scintillatingly staged wrestling drama “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity”; “Invisible Man,” Studio Theatre’s nervy and moving adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s novel; Theater J’s powerful “Our Class” and Folger Theatre’s Wild West set production of “The Taming of the Shrew.”

For a complete listing of the awards, visit theatrewashington.org. The Helen Hayes awards will be presented April 8 at the Warner Theatre.

Gary Tischler •

On Feb. 4, Ford’s Theatre, the city’s singular historical theater, will hold a 75th Anniversary celebration for Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” a play often performed, and often misunderstood, sometimes scorned, but always enduringly loved and unforgettable.

It has always seemed like a peculiarly American play, posited in a vaguely uncertain but specific place, that may, but does not usually, carry a New England accent somewhere in the early years of the 20th century and yet every word in it, every sentence said by every character strives, without seeming to try, for the universal.

Wilder, an ambitious, unique American novelist and playwright always thinks big but within readily identifiable framework: from the Rome of Julius Caesar in “The Ides of March,” to 18th-century Latin America in “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” to the wildly disarrayed, time-spanning family network and dynamics that exist in “The Skin of Our Teeth.”

Yet, it has been “Our Town” that has, in terms of interest, readership vor revivals, outlasted all of his work and his own life by many years. Some critics have delved into it and tasted common (and perhaps uncommon) sentimentality and dismissed it, while directors treat it like a Shakespearean work, expanding the character base in terms of types and ethnic groups, fleshing out Wilder’s specific and specified stage landscape.

It is probably safe to say that somewhere in the United States and in the world, there is a production of “Our Town” being staged, often in the gymnasiums and auditoriums of small towns in America. Perhaps that’s what irritates critics—it’s a play that feels simple on the surface but is hardly simplistic. It charms you, even as it’s telling you hard, difficult truths about life and death and the whole damned thing, and if high school kids can do it and do it well, it cannot possibly be good.

Upon its first debut that the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J. on Jan. 22, 1938, followed by another debut at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston on Jan. 25 and then, officially on Feb. 4 at the Henry Miller Theatre in New York, “Our Town” was something of a revolutionary undertaking. Directed and produced by Jed Harris, the play ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize for Wilder, and anchoring itself in the imaginations of theatergoers everywhere.

With its bare-bones set—lots of places and things are talked about, but only seen by the characters—and its somewhat revolutionary role of the Stage Manager who is the audience’s guide to Grover’s Corners and “Our Town” traces the comings and goings of the residents of a very small town and specifically the fortunes of two particular families—the family of the town doctor, Frank Gibbs and the family of the editor of the Grover’s Corners Sentinel, Charles Webb.

The story’s protagonists are the young couple of George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whom we see in high school, whom we hear dream about their lives, whom we see fall in love, marry and suffer tragedy. All of it is about life and birth and death and love, and it affects audiences in mysterious and truthful ways.

If you have any doubts that in “Our Town,” Wilder is thinking big, just know how one of the characters writes a return address for a piece of mail, a letter: “Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, United States of America, Continent of North America, Western Hemisphere, the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe, the Mind of God.”

The Stage Manager, who takes on many characters in the play, never blinks in staring at and talking about his characters—it’s clear there is love there, but there is a diamond-hard, clear eye that knows that people often and maybe most of the time, don’t understand the life they’re living or appreciate it, or refuse to accept it. Paraphrasing another now forgotten writer, people sometimes wake up amazed at being in a life at all, but life’s rush of events, of daily duty and doings, erase that amazement, by plying it, not ever in equal doses, with joy and sadness. All of that sort of echo is in “Our Town”—it can take place in any mind’s memory and seem not alien at all.

“Our Town’s” life is extended often—by revivals like the one at Ford’s and ground-breaking efforts in New York and the Village, and there have been many stage managers (including Geraldine Fitzgerald, breaking the gender wall), as well as Spalding Gray and may Gibbs and Webb families and Emily’s and George’s, and trips to the graveyards by high school students playing the young lovers. I wouldn’t be surprised, were it not for the nightly awesome fear, that I dreamt of being the stage manager too.
William Holden, just on the verge of becoming someone special in the movies, played George to young Martha Scott’s Emily. There was a musical version on Producer’s Showcase, one of those network live plays with big stars, which featured Frank Sinatra as the stage manager, singing about “Love and Marriage,” and Paul Newman and the ethereally beautiful Eva Marie Saint play George and Emily. Years later, Newman became the Stage Manager in a television film version, still alive but not much longer.

Arena Stage took “Our Town” (and “Inherit the Wind”) to the Soviet Union, then, years later, restaged it with the perfect Stage Manager, Robert Prosky, who was the kind of actor who could command the stage with wisdom and comforting pity for all of mankind.

You see in “Our Town” newspaper boys, soldiers-to-be, daughters becoming mothers, a town that still had what it called the other side of the tracks, baseball players, an undertaker, the rumored drunk, the milkman, the choir director, the farmer.
The play is specific because of its title—but you could change that: our block, our neighborhood, our wherever we live in a group and as families, where there might as always be nightclubs and churches, clinics and homes.

In many ways, “Our Town” is a play in keeping with Ford’s tradition and image, which is still evolving, as it is the play itself. This production is directed by Stephen Rayne, who has put sharp Americana edges on “The Heavens Hung in Black,” “Sabrina Fair” and the dark musical “Parade.”

“ ‘Our Town’ is a play which transcends differences in culture, class and race, and speaks to the great themes common to all great art: love, death and marriage,” Rayne said. “From its first production in 1938, the play struck a powerful chord with the American psyche, and it is as fresh and relevant today as it was then. I am hoping to bring a fresh perspective to this great classic and present a production that Ford’s and Mr. Wilder will be proud of.”

“Our Town” will be performed at Ford’s Theatre Jan. 25 through Feb. 24.

Gary Tischler •

Goodness gracious, I don’t know how much nostalgia an old body can handle.

These past few months have seen Janis Joplin re-emerged in the person of Mary Bridget Davies at Arena Stage like a furious, fiery storm of blues right out of 1960s San Francisco. I’ve seen and talked with old icon, Rambling Jack Elliott, singing under the shade of a cowboy hat as part of a star-studded tribute and centenary celebration of folk hero and working-man minstrel Woody Guthrie at the Kennedy Center.

And now, this: Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lewis on stage together live, at least in the very live facsimile persons of Cody Slaughter, Robert Britton Lyons, David Elkins and Martin Kaye, respectively, in the touring production of “Million Dollar Quartet,” a musical play by Colin Scott and Floyd Mutrox now at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater through Jan. 6.

The show is based on a historical fact—that on Dec. 4, 1956, Presley, Perkins, Cash and Lewis ended up hanging out at Sam Phillips Sun Records Studio in Memphis and did a number of impromptu songs together and separately which were taped and recorded and became known as the Million Dollar Quartet. It was the only time the four were ever together in each other’s presence at the same time, all of them having been discovered by Phillips before they became rockabilly and rock-n-roll juggernauts whose fame lasted unto death and beyond for Presley, Perkins and Cash, while Lewis, a slower and somewhat chastened version of his “Killer” self is still recording and performing.

What you get in “Million Dollar Quartet” is essentially a live concert, mixed in with less convincing and more contrived dramatic elements. There is the return of Elvis for a visit after he has already gained mega-fame and celebrity. We see Cash wanting to jump to a major record company even as Phillips is planning to extend his contract. Perkins shows smoldering resentment of Elvis and frustration with his own floundering career, while Phillips weighed an offer to join RCA, where Elvis is king. And there is an Elvis girlfriend who seems cooler, smarter and more savvy that the wailing girls usually surrounding the king of rock-n-roll in those days.

If your pop heart was baked in the songs of these four men all of your life, then this musical play is like being at a high school reunion where everybody is still alive and young and where are heard the songs, “Hound Dog,” “Ghost Riders of the Sky,” “Matchbox,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Peace in the Valley” and “Blue Suede Shoes.” You just gotta get up and dance even if you’ve got two left feet.

Everybody in this audience did get up, as some of them managed to do it very slowly. They clapped, and some shook their fragile booties, while others just slapped their program on their knees.

What’s remarkable about this show is just how good the young musicians are—they’re more musicians than actors at this stage. This realization leads you to see just how great that million dollar quartet really was, and why the music is laid so deeply in our veins—just as you recognize, beneath all the trivial contrivances in the show, what a great songwriter Irving Berlin was seeing “White Christmas” next door at the Opera House.

All of these guys—the real ones—ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and all of them influenced a host of musicians and singers and legends that came later. From Eric Clapton to Bob Dylan and beyond, all of them shone the light on the source of their particular appeal, where they heard the music and who played it—Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Jimmy Reed. They came from the sharecropper fields of Mississippi and Alabama, from New Orleans and the segregated south where all of them grew up poor. All of them heard the blues, rhythm and blues, gospel and country, and drunk with that music they invented something new. Phillips’s genius was to recognize their music as something new and overwhelming. After that, pop music was never the same.

What Lyons, Elkins, Slaughter and Kaye do isn’t exactly acting. It’s inter-acting with each other. It’s performing the music and hitting it out of the park. It’s a presence that’s convincing for the real-life characters they’re inhabiting.

Watch Kaye when he sits down at the piano as a young, completely irreverent and raw Jerry Lee Lewis—the kid doesn’t have a bone or inhibition in his body. He crawls over the piano and thumps and runs with it. It’s like a wrestling match where everybody wins and out comes “Real Wild Child,” making the Phillips character stand up and take notice. Watch Elkins as Cash, the epitome of the man in black cool. He’s kind of languorous and dangerous. He sings “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues” (with that cold line “I shot a man just to watch him die”), as if they were as fresh as a cold beer on a hot day.

Then, there’s Slaughter, who’s got the job of catching Elvis as a meteor rising, flush with success and a longing for simpler times. He tells Phillips of how the colonel got him to do a gig in Vegas where the older audiences booed him. “One thing I can tell you,” he says, “you’ll never catch me playing Vegas again.” He’s got a chunk of the Elvis sound and all of his moves. And there’s Kelly Lamont, as the girlfriend, coming home to meet his momma, who’s as slinky as the recently invented slinky in a pink-purple 1950s dress where women seemed to move around inside the dress, in case you weren’t paying attention. She sings the Peggy Lee standard “Fever” as if she has one.

Most interesting of all in this show where the glory tends to be shared and nurtured except when Jerry Lee Lewis is in the area is Robert Britton Lyon as Perkins, who looks like a walking, dark-haired short fuse, but who plays an electric guitar like he came out with it on day one. He is the master musician, if not the great singer among the four. Still burned up over Elvis gaining fame with “Blue Suede Shoes,” a song that Perkins rode to number one status until a car wreck sidetracked his career, Perkins lets the anger get into his playing which makes it zing with danger.

It doesn’t take long to talk yourself into feeling, if not knowing, that you’re present at the creation. Your feet twitch, your elbows get restless, you shake your head. It’s 1956 when you were . . . well, no you’re not.

But, still, it feels like a million bucks up there and out there, too.

Gary Tischler •

Jean-Louis Wolzfeld, the new Ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to the United States, was still getting acclimated.

Over coffee and cookies, which had an appropriately holiday feel to it, in a small room dominated by portraits of the imposing and courageous Grand Duchess Charlotte, an inspirational figure in exile during the World War II Nazi occupation and annexation of her state, we talked with Wolzfeld about Luxembourg’s cherished Christmas traditions, about Luxembourg’s role in the European Union, about U.S.-Luxembourg relations (very good), and other matters historic and cultural.

Wolzfeld became ambassador a month ago, just in time to preside over what has become practically a tradition, the annual Christmas event, musicale, concert followed by champagne and dinner presented by the Embassy Series at the Embassy of Luxembourg at 2200 Massachusetts Avenue, held Dec. 6, 7 and 8.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Wolzfeld said. “I’ve heard a lot about it already from many people including my predecessor Jean-Paul Senninger.”

“It started in 2010,” said Jerome Barry, director and founder of the Embassy Series. “When Ambassador Senninger and I were standing at the buffet table at an event at the Embassy of Turkey. He suggested we have some series events at his embassy, and we thought of it in terms of Christmas. That first year involved ‘Call Me Madam’ and was a kind of festive, three-concert holiday event centered around ‘Call Me Madam,’ Irving Berlin and his music—he wrote ‘White Christmas’ after all. Berlin’s daughter was there. We did it again last year, again with music, carolers, and a theme of Luxembourg Christmas traditions—the embassy had gifts laid outside at the door per Luxembourg custom. It’s become something really special.”

This year’s event—“Luxembourg at Holiday Time—A Celebration of Mostly Baroque Music” will include a the German School’s children’s choir singing carols of the season and performances by baroque trumpeter Marc Weydert, pianist Maurice Clement, pianist George Peachey — and on Saturday, the Thomas Circle Singers.

Barry himself will add his baritone voice to the proceedings. The evening will also include champagne, wine, hors-d’ouvres and a buffet dinner.

“Thursday is a special day when it comes to Christmas in Luxembourg,” Ambassador Wolzfeld told us. “We don’t have a Santa Claus per se, but we have St. Nicholas Day, which is celebrated December 6. The custom is that children put out their slippers in front of their doors with the hope that St. Nicholas will bring a gift.”

It’s also customary to leave out plates in the kitchen or dining room area which are filled by St. Nicholas with sweets and cookies. On Christmas Eve, Luxembourgers attend midnight mass and gather for suppers the dishes of which include black pudding and mashed potatoes and apple sauce. “I remember this from childhood very well,” said Wolzfeld, who is a 61-year-old bachelor and career diplomat. “We, too, had a good and a dark Santa, who was very strict and made sure that children receiving gifts had actually been good. It was a different time, of course, slower and more traditional. The state, the duchy and Europe has changed.”

Luxembourg is a small nation wedged among its neighbors of Germany, France and Belgium, and the cultural evidence is everywhere. “Some of the Christmas traditions come from Germany, some from France,” Wolzfeld said. “Our population is part German, French, Luxembourgers, and now, increasingly, we are getting many immigrants from Portugal.”

Wolfzeld speaks French, English, German, Italian and Luxembourgish, which he says “is more like a dialect.” But he and his capacity for languages and his record as a diplomat, speak to a state that appears very much in the European tradition, but is also, although primarily Catholic, ecumenical in its culture, welcoming in its diversity and pragmatic in its outlook toward the rest of the world. “Our economy is very good right now,” he said. “So, our immigration policy is very welcoming. Our people and our traditions come from many different cultures and traditions, and that in and of itself is a quality we can take a lot of pride in. We look outward, not just inward, and, of course, that is also what the European Union is all about, also.”

That attitude was strained during World War II when Nazi Germany sent its forces through the Ardennes and invaded France and its neighbors, resulting in the annexation of the Duchy of Luxembourg. “I think it took a long time to get over that in terms of our relations with Germany, no question,” Wolzfeld said. “One of the reasons we have such a good relationship with the United States—and we do—is that people have not forgotten that it was the United States Army which liberated us. Patton’s forces came here, and there are 7,000 graves of American soldiers here, including General Patton himself, who requested to be buried with his troops.”

“I have been a diplomat all my life,” Wolzfeld said. “It has allowed me to see the world with a practical eye, to see our similarities not just our differences.” He a permanent representative to the United Nations in the mid-1990s, as well as an ambassador to the Court of St. James and to Japan. For Wolzfeld, Japan was “a most interesting appointment. Japan was in a boom at the time, but it was a view of a very different culture and very rewarding.”

Wolzfeld remembers Washington from his time at the United Nations. “I think it was still changing at the time as a city, and there was much more crime as I recall. But it is so different now, much more cosmopolitan, if you will. There’s so many cultural opportunities now, and the cityscape has changed also. There’s an energy here.”

Gary Tischler •

Every year the holiday season seems to stretch a little further and longer. In these pages, we will celebrate the season with celebrations of performance over the holidays.

Usually, that means trumpets, nutcrackers, Scrooges, elves, Santa Claus, and Christmas or seasonal music, concerts that celebrate the holidays, and concerts that occur during the holidays, plays that are about the holidays and plays that are not, but seem to indicate a celebrate a celebratory or musical spirit.

We give not all, but some, of the traditional, best and most eclectic choices folks can have on Washington stages and venues. Dancing and singing and the playing of music will be involved, and familiar characters—and some not—will be heard from and familiar music will be played, as well as some music less familiar but by familiar stars in the music world.

So here we go:

Pick a Nutcracker, Any Nutcracker
There are numerous performances of “The Nutcracker” to be seen in the Washington area over the holidays: at the Puppet Theatre, in Glen Echo, for instance, or at the Kennedy Center, or the Moscow Balles’s Great Russian Nutcracker version at the Music Center at Strathmore or George Mason University, or Nutcracker in a Shell at Broad Run High School, or at the Thomas Jefferson Community Theatre in Arlington, or the Ernest Community Cultural Center Theater in Annandale, the Franklin Park Performing Arts Center in Purcelville, Battlefield High School in Haymarket, George Mason High School in Falls Church, the Maryland Youth Ballet in Rockville, and at the Northern Virginia Community College and many, many more, but . . .

There will always be the Washington Ballet’s now an annual D.C. holiday presen- tation with George Washington, as the hero and George III as the Rat King. Every year, Tchaikovsky’s music seems to fit perfectly with the Revolutionary War. The ballet, beautiful and intact, is at the historic Warner Theatre Nov. 30 through Dec. 23 and at THEARC Theatre Nov. 24 to 28. Maki Onuki, a Washington Ballet star and favorite stars as the sugar plum fairy.

‘Hansel and Gretel’ for the Washington Opera
Engelbert Humperdinck’s classic chil- dren’s opera “Hansel and Gretel” begins a new tradition for the very busy Washington Opera Company Dec. 21 to 23 in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. The family opera stars current stars and alumni of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program and is directed by David Grately, with the WNO Orchestra conducted by Michael Rossi. Sarah Mesko and Julia Mintzer star as Hansel and Emily Albrink and Shantelle Przybylo star as Gretel.

More Holiday Alleluias At the Kennedy Center
One of many Messiah’s being performed over the holidays will be the National Symphony’s in the Concert Hall Dec. 20 to 23 with guest con- ductor Rolf Beck conducting soprano Katherine Whyte, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, tenor Sunnyboy Vincent Dladla, and bass-baritone Panajotis Iconomou. There will also be a Messiah Sing-Along in the Concert Hall Dec. 23.

Ballet West will bring its version of “The Nutcracker” Dec. 5-9 at the Opera House.

The traditional “Merry Tuba Christmas!” will be at the Millennium Stage Dec. 13, while the NSO Pops will perform its “Happy Holiday” concert in the Concert Hall Dec. 13 to 16.

In a Millennium Stage (Free) Christmas tradition, there’s the All-Star Christmas Day Jazz Jam Dec. 25.

But that’s not all:

The NSO Pops Orchestra will feature Megan Hilty, Broadway star and star of the hit show “Smash” on television in “Luck Be A Lady: Megan Hilty Sings Sinatra and More” Nov. 23 and 24, while Linda Lavin is in the “Barbara Cook’s Spotlight” series Nov. 16.

There’s also lots of music in theater at the Kennedy Center:

“Jekyll & Hyde,” a musical, will hit the Opera House Nov. 20 through 25, starring Constantine Maroulis and Deborah Cox.

The much anticipated “Million Dollar Quartet,” the Tony Award-winning musical features characters called Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lew Lewis in the Eisenhower Theatre, Dec. 18 through Jan. 6

But the most essential Christmas show of all is “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” based on the classic holiday movie that featured the likes of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, Dec. 11 through Jan. 6 in the Opera House

Music Center at Strathmore
Mark O’Connor: An Appalachian Christmas, Dec. 13 American folk, classic Christmas.

Cathedral Choral Society: A Dickens Christmas—a staging of Scrooge with chorus, brass and madrigal ensemble, Dec. 17.

The Washington Chorus: A Candlelight Christmas, Dec. 21

The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Christmas Rocks Extravaganza. Rocking around the Xmas tree, Dec. 4.

Dave Koz and Friends: Christmas Tour, Dec. 3, with David Benoit, Javier Colon, Sheila E and others.

National Philharmonic: Handel’s “Messiah,” Dec. 8.

Holiday Music by the Stocking-full
Family Christmas Concert Series— The Georgetown Concert Series presents the American Boychoir in a family Christmas concert at St. John’s Episcopal Church Dec. 2 at 5 p.m. American Boychoir is considered America’s premier concert boys’ choir.

Tudor Nights—The annual holiday celebration will be held at historic Tudor Place, Dec. 6, between 6 and 8 p.m. Spiced ginger cocktail on hand.

A Celtic Christmas—The Barnes and Hampton Celtic Concert will be featured in the Dumbarton Concert Sesaon Concerts by Candlelight Series, Dec. 1, 2, 8 and 9.

The Embassy Series—Luxembourg at Holiday—A highlight of the series, this annual holiday event at the Embassy of Luxembourg has been expanded to three evenings, Dec. 6, 7 and 8, and will feature the Thomas Circle Singers, Marc Weydert on Baroque trumpet, Maurice Clemont on piano, baritone Jerome Barry, and George Peachy on piano in a celebration of mostly baroque music. Deluxe buffet dinner, refreshments, champagne and elegance.

Washington National Cathedral—The WNC will have its Christmas Pageant on Dec. 22, Carols By Candlelight Dec. 23 and 24, the Festival of the Holy Eucharist Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, its annual Creche Exhibit, performances of Handel’s “Messiah” Dec. 7, 8 and 9, a “Joy of Christmas” concert Dec. 15.

The Christmas Revels—The 30th annual production and community celebration of the Winter Solstice will be performed at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, Dec. 8, 9, 14, 15 and 16.

Children’s music superstars the Laurie Berner Band will perform a special holiday concert at Lisner Auditorium Nov. 18.

Gay Men’s Chorus—The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington will presenst its “Winter Nights” holiday concert Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 with the Virginia Bronze handbell ensemble at Lisner Auditorium.

Washington Performing Arts Society— Yo-Yo Ma performs solo cello pieces by Bach, Turkish composer Ahmet Adnan Saygun, with bluegrass violinist Mark O’Connor and George Crumb at the Kennedy Center, Dec. 3, Concert Hall.

The Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela is at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Dec. 4, and will play Mexican compose Carlos Chavez’s “Sinfonia India” with conduc tor Gustavo Dudamel.

Theater
Shakespeare Theatre Company— It’s hard to think of a play not about Christmas more festive than
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” This production of magic, mistaken lovers, groundlings and kings and queens and a donkey’s head, is directed by the ever-surprising Ethan McSweeny, Nov. 15 through Dec. 30, in the Sidney Harman Hall.

Arena Stage—Almost as festive is “My Fair Lady”, the Lerner and Lowe music based on Shaw’s “Pygmalion”, staged and imagined anew by Molly Smith, and starring Manna Nichols, Benedict Campbell and Nicholas Rodriguez. Through Jan. 6.

Signature Theater—The big Michael Bennett hit “Dreamgirls” gets the Signature Theatre Treatment through Jan. 6.

Les Miserables—Just in time for the movie version is the 25th new anniversary production of Cameron McIntosh musical version of Victor Hugo’s classic novel of revenge justice, revolution, and romance. At the National Theatre Dec. 12 to 30.

Cinderella at Olney—Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “Cinderella” is being staged at the Olney Theatre through Dec. 30.

Round House Theatre—“Young Robin Hood”, a world premiere production by Jon Klein will run Nov. 28 through Dec. 30, a rousing, swashbuckling new adventure version of the old Hollywood-and-Nottingham legend

Adventure Theatre—“A Little House Christmas” Nov. 16 through Dec. 31, based on the popular Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books, directed by Serge Seiden.

Imagination Stage—“Seussical,” the smash Broadway hit about Dr. Seuss and his many characters will be staged at the Lerner Family Theatre in Bethesda through Jan. 6.

Scrooges Galore
At Ford’s Theater, its production of “A Christmas Carol” is a popular tradition, and this year once again features D.C. acting great Ed Gero as Scrooge, with Michael Baron directing, Nov. 16 through Dec. 30.

Olney Theatre will do “A Christmas Carol” (A Ghost Story of Christmas) adapted and performed by Paul Morella, Nov. 30 through Dec. 30.

The Keegan Theatre on Church Street in Dupont Circle will feature “An Irish Carol” beginning Dec. 15. [gallery ids="101059,137045,137024,137039,137030,137036" nav="thumbs"]