Performance

Gary Tischler • February 22, 2012

Don Cornelius, 75
——

He was the cool-sounding television host with the mike and the big Afro. He created a show that was the sound of the hippest train ever running.

He was Don Cornelius, the creator of “Soul Train,” which was a lively, eye-opening answer to the long-running “American Bandstand”, but with a difference. Here was a daily dance show that brought black music, entertainers, singers, bands, performers and kids to the forefront.

Cornelius, who died February 1 of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, was hailed as providing a platform for black musicians and music, but he did a lot more than that. “Soul Train,” which ran in syndication for over 30 years, was a venue where black kids not only appeared, but were seen all across the nation on a regular basis, dancing away to Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and James Brown, among many top drawer performers

More than that, the show was a kind of explosion of black popular culture—the dances, the clothes, the looks, the fads and fades and the music that rose out of the grandfather of all black popular music contributions, the blues.

The show wasn’t overtly political—it was a kaleidoscope, a positive, swinging, trend-setting regular event presided over by Cornelius, whose hair changed shape and size frequently over the years, reflecting and sometimes pacing the culture.

But it wasn’t just black kids and black entertainers who were into “Soul Train.” New white rockers like David Bowie and Elton John found a place there, too.

If the audience was primarily African American, a kind of mirror for black young people that was full of positive style and energy, it was also a window for suburban white kids who picked up every soul-flavored trend, move, and look, their hearts bursting with the sound of the streets.

Ben Gazzara, 81
——

“I coulda been a contender,” could have been a trademark line for the gritty actor Ben Gazzara, who died at 81 of cancer on February 3. He originated the iconic role of Biff in Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on Broadway, and easily could have—and maybe should have—gotten the role in the movie version opposite Elizabeth Taylor. (But it went to Paul Newman, instead. That’s showbiz.)

What was more than show biz was Gazzara’s unique talent, style and way of being, and his list of diverse roles, some more memorable than others. Some live on in the theater memory including a stint as the George to Colleen Dewhurst’s Martha in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” (I wish badly that I had seen it, as does anybody reading that credit.)

Gazzara, the son of Italian immigrants, was born Biago Anthony Gazzara, and drifted into acting early on, becoming one of the serious acting students of his generation, studying under Lee Strasberg alongside folks like James Dean and Paul Newman.

He had a mixed career that flared up like fireworks: a Tony on Broadway for “A Hatful of Rain” (Don Murray in the movie version); a starring role in Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie”; and the role of Lee Remick’s mayhap murderous husband in Otto Preminger’s “Anatomy of a Murder,” a hugely entertaining courtroom drama, opposite James Stewart.

He had fine roles in a series of raw films by John Cassavettes, a good friend who cast him in “Husbands,” “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” and others. He also starred in “Run for Your Life,” a successful television series that ran for three years in the 1970s and paid the bill.

He had at one point pitch-black hair, a sharply angled handsome face, and a faintly sinister demeanor, which made him an ideal “Capone.” He worked—worked hard by his own description—and was married three times. His most popular film was probably “Road House,” an implausibly fun Patrick Swayze action flick in which he played the spewing, cussing, maniacal villain.

In his memoir, he alluded to have many affairs, including relationships with Audrey Hepburn, Eva Gabor and Elain Stritch, an eclectic trifecta if there ever was one. He will be missed.

Georgetowner • February 8, 2012

More at Shakespeare Theatre Company
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The Shakespeare Theatre Company continues its Bard’s Broadway series Jan. 27 – 29 at Sidney Harman Hall with a concert version of the Tony Award-winning musical ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ subtitled a rock opera. Created by noted playwright John Guare, along with Galt MacDermot (of ‘Hair’ fame) and Mel Shapiro. Amanda Dehnert is directing with choreography by Terence Archie and a cast that includes Robin de Jesus, Javier Munoz, Danny Rutigliano and DC star Eleasha Gamble.

If that weren’t enough for a busy time, there’s the third installment of the STC’s and artistic director Michael Kahn’s Classic Conversations with noted theater and film actor James Earl Jones this Thursday at Sidney Harman Hall. Classic Conversations with Michael Kahn is a series of discussions with classically trained actors presented as part of the group’s 25th Anniversary Season and has already featured Patrick Stewart and Kevin Kline. Jones became a big star with his starring role in both the theatrical and film version of “The Great White Hope” and has been a powerful presence in the performing arts in America ever since.

For more information visit ShakespeareTheatre.org

‘Red’ and ‘Elephant Room’ at Arena Stage
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One of the more anticipated productions in Washington theatre is the mounting of ‘Red,’ the Tony-Award winning play by John Logan, which focuses on the brilliant, troubled American artist Mark Rothko at the height of his career, engaged in executing a monumental commission of paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York.

The play was a big hit on Broadway, and now features Ed Gero, a four-time Helen Hayes Award winner who keeps getting bigger and better with age, as Rothko, and Patrick Andrews as Ken, a fictional assistant of Rothko’s who challenges the great artist. It is a battle of wills—not just Rothko VS a changing art world, but also the famous bouts of Rothko VS Rothko.

The production, which opens Jan. 20 and runs through March 4 in Arena’s Kreeger Theater, is much anticipated and has already engendered a weeklong extension. It’s directed by Robert Falls, the artistic director of the famed Goodman Theater in Chicago.

Not so famous, and quite a change of pace is ‘Elephant Room,’ which features magicians and semi-pro conjurers Dennis Diamond, Daryl Hannah and Louie Magic. (A magician named Magic, which should bode well). It’s coming to Arena’s Kogod Cradle Theater Jan. 20 – Feb. 26.

Billed as an absurdist magic show, ‘Elephant Room’ comes from the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. What’s it all about? The press description goes like this:

“Combine the glory of a Styx reunion tour with the transcendental power of a 200-year-old Zuni shaman and add a dash of trailer park ennui, and you come close to describing the mystical pull of ‘Elephant Room.’”

I can get down with that.

For more information visit ArenaStage.org

Holly Twyford and Donald Margulies’ ‘Time Stands Still’ at Studio
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Holly Twyford, one of Washington’s most gifted actresses, stars as a globetrotting photojournalist who returns home from the wars in Iraq after being injured. At home the journalist, still missing the heat and thrill of covering a war, must choose between a real life and a professional one. Also featured are Laura C. Harris, Dan Illian and Greg McFadden. Susan Fenichell directs.

‘Time Stands Still’ is written by Donald Margulies and will run at the Studio Theatre.

For more information visit StudioTheatre.org

Scena, Carrie Waters, Brian Frield, Henrik Ibsen and Hedda Gabbler
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That’s the mix as Scena Theatre Artistic Director Robert McNamara directs noted Irish Playwright Brian Friel’s translation of Ibsen’s ‘Hedda Gabbler,’ featuring one of the most challenging roles for an actress ever written.
Carrie Waters, a long-time veteran of Washington, and a mightily underrated talent, is likely to handle the challenge with great power if her track record in such productions as ‘Happy Days’ and ‘The Persians’ are any indication.

Also starring are Eric Lucas (Waters’ husband), Rena Cherry Brown and Danielle Davy.

‘Hedda Gabler’ runs Jan. 12 – Jan. 29 at the H Street Playhouse at 1365 H Street, NE.

For more information visit HStreetPlayhouse.com

Lincoln and Douglass Meet at Ford’s Theatre
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Continuing its successful exploration of theater about Abraham Lincoln, Ford’s Theatre will present ‘Necessary Sacrifices,’ by Richard Hellesen, about the two documented encounters between Lincoln and the great African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the middle years of the Civil War.

‘Necessary Sacrifices,’ in which Douglass challenges Lincoln’s views on slavery and African Americans, will once again feature David Selby as Lincoln, a role he performed with astonishing power in Ford’s production of ‘The Heavens Are Hung in Black,’ a play about Lincoln’s White House years. David Emerson Toney stars as Douglass and Jennifer Nelson directs.

‘Necessary Sacrifices’ coincides with Ford’s opening of its Center for Education and Leadership, which will explore the lasting effect Lincoln’s presidency has had on our country. The show will run Jan. 20 – Feb. 12.

For more information visit FordsTheatre.org

Gary Tischler • January 4, 2012

‘Ann’: An Original Played by an Original

I thought I knew Holland Taylor.

She was a lawyer, a judge, a WASP, somebody who drank martinis and complained if they weren’t done right, an East Coaster, main liner, bossy, Charlie Sheen’s mother in his unreal life, the kind of upper crusty, attractive woman around whom you tried to hide your minuscule repertoire of good manners. She had been all those things in acting roles on Broadway, in movies and big and little hit television series.
Talking to Taylor on the phone, I allowed that I had read her resume and felt like I should be a little scared. She laughed. “Maybe you should,” she said.

Actually, what really impressed me was what she was doing now, the reason we were talking at all. Ann Richards.

If you should ever be in awe of or be intimidated by a woman you’d never met, it would have been Ann Richards, the late and former governor of Texas before it turned into a puddle of Bushes and Perrys. Ann Richards, a liberal icon who once taunted Bush senior for having been born with a “silver foot in his mouth,” a woman with an elongated white hairdo who thrived as a Texan politician, who was famous for her straight talk, compassion, and the kind of sense of humor which let her play with the big boys sometimes with one hand tied behind her back. People I admired — the creators of the “Tuna” plays, the acerbic Texas political writer, the late Molly Ivins, who would always refer to Bush II as “shrub” loved Ann Richards unto death.

And here was Holland Taylor, as far removed from shrubs and bushes, and Amarillo and Armadillos as you can be, starring in “Ann,” in which she was not only the star but the author. “It is very, very different from anything that I’ve ever attempted,” Taylor said. “And it’s strange, you know, I met her exactly once, over lunch in New York, and she was the kind of woman, the kind of person, who haunts you, she’s so impressive.

In 2006, Richards was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and died that same year and that was probably when Taylor first started thinking about a work about Richards. “She was an original, she affected so many people, she was funny, she helped others, and there was nobody, nobody like here,” Taylor said. “So, I spent a lot of time researching, I spent some time in Austin and Texas, and, eventually, it and we came to life and here we are.”

For my money, it takes an original to play an original. Taylor was always a fine actress, especially on stage but also in soaps, television series and films, always, it seemed, playing strong-minded women of one sort or another but never in the same way. When she finally won an Emmy for playing “a rapacious judge” on David Kelley’s hit series “The Practice,” she gave an unforgettable speech in which she thanked Kelley for “giving me a chariot to ride up here on: A woman who puts a flag on the moon for women over 40 — who can think, who can work, who are successes and who can COOK!”

We don’t know about the cooking part, but that could be Ann Richards. That could be Holland Taylor.
“Ann,” written and performed by Holland Taylor, will be performed at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, Dec. 17 through Jan. 15.

. . . And the Music of ‘Billy Elliott’

There’s more than Ann and Holland at the Kennedy Center. There’s a kid named Billy Elliott.

“Billy Elliott the Musical” isn’t about Christmas but may warm up some hearts anyway, and it’s bound to please. This Broadway smash — 10 Tonys — is based on a critically acclaimed film in which one Billy Elliott, a would-be-kid boxer, stumbles into a ballet class and changes his life and that of everyone around him.
The show features music by Elton John, book and lyrics by Lee Hall, choreography by Peter Darling and direction by Stephen Daldry.

“Bill Elliott the Musical” runs Jan.15 at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House.

Romeo, I Can’t Hear You

And of course, there’s the eternal Shakespeare play of “star-crossed lovers,” Romeo and Juliet. “Romeo, Romeo Wherefore Art Thou?”

At the Synetic Theater in Crystal City, Romeo’s not saying. Synetic, as we all know, is the great beyond-category theater company where words — even and especially Shakespearean words — are secondary. In Synetic’s unique acting style —combining movement, dance and mime— it’s not the rest that’s silence but everything. Synetic is in the midst of its Silent Shakespeare Festival, “Speak No More,” and its production of “Romeo and Juliet” had six Helen Hayes nominations and two Helen Hayes awards for outstanding director and ensemble.

This production runs through Dec. 23.

History Being Made and Acted at Arena Stage

At Arena Stage, history plays a big part in both Amy Freed’s “You, Nero” and Bill Cain’s “Equivocation.” The latter concerns Shakespeare, the infamous Gunpowder Plot and the relationship between artists and kings. It comes from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Cain’s play will run through Jan. 1 with the cast of the original Oregon Shakespeare Festival production.

“You, Nero” is part of Arena’s American Voices New Play Institute, with Freed continuing to work on a play which first opened at South Coast Rep and Berkeley Rep in 2009. Making its D.C. debut, it runs through Jan. 1. Danny Scheie stars as Nero, an emperor who may have been the first emperor-as-public-celebrity.

Off the Beaten Track at the Studio

If you’re in the mood for something in a completely non-holiday spirit and different, head over to the Studio Theater where there’s still time to see Lauren Weedman, a correspondent on the Daily Show who brings “Bust” her acidic, tough and funny autobiographical one-woman show about her experience as a volunteer advocate in a Southern California prison for women to Studio’s Stage 4 through Dec. 18.

Spoiler Alert: Second City is Back

For something perhaps a little more fun but still dark, there’s the wonderfully titled “Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies,” whereby Chicago’s famed comedy troupe Second City returns to Woolly Mammoth Theater in a collaboration with D.C. artists, including actors Jessica Frances Dukes, and Aaron Bliden and designer Colin K. Bills. Here’s the way the press release describes the proceedings: “the most gleeful anti-holiday celebration of doom ever”.

God bless us every one.

(Dec. 6 through Jan. 8). [gallery ids="102431,121593,121596" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • December 19, 2011

Near the end of his “Classic Conversations” visit with Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Michael Kahn, actor and sometime movie star Kevin Kline noted that he loved the big parts, the scary parts.

“Why are we here if not to do the hard parts?” he asked.

Why indeed. Kline, who is a gifted Shakespearean actor and a fair-sized movie star, has done his share of the hard parts, done them more than well and risen more often than not to the challenge of being Cyrano, Falstaff, Hamlet, Richard II and Richard III, Henry V and, in his first movie role no less, the quicksilver, charismatic and doomed Nathan opposite Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice” among other roles.

His old Juilliard compatriot introduced him as the actor who has been called “the American Olivier,” high praise in indeed, once issued by New York Times Drama Critic Frank Rich.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I mean, Olivier, good God.”

“And remember, when I was a kid, I hated Shakespeare,” he said.

But then, when he was a kid in a Catholic private school which included corporal punishment, he didn’t like a lot of the things he grew to love. “Actually, I wanted to study music. I had a rock band, if you can believe that.”

He probably didn’t imagine himself to be a movie star, either, or traveling the country with the Acting Company, the creation of John (“We make money the old fashioned way. We earn it”) Houseman, a stern original from film and theater times past. “That was the best experience you could possibly have, doing the different plays in different places, small towns one night, big city the next, a college campus, and so forth. I loved that. And you learn from that.”

Kline has always returned to the stage—it’s his main love, it’s where the biggest tasks, those Moby Dick-size challenges await him.

Kahn and Kline are obvious old friends. “Remember, next year you’re going into, I don’t know what decade in theater and acting. Maybe you could do something special. Maybe we’ll give you another Will Award.”

“It has been a long time,” Kline noted. “I like always going back to the stage. But the movie industry—I have to say I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the audience. It’s teenage boys. I mean I have a reputation as being very, very careful in the roles I choose. I have a nickname to uphold. They call me Kevin Decline. Or Doctor No. I’m known for turning down roles. I even turned down Nathan at first, not to mention Dave.”

“Dave” was one of his more popular movie roles, in which he played a man who is forced to impersonate a president. He worked with director Lawrence Kasdan on “Grand Canyon” and something he thoroughly enjoyed, the star studded improbable western “Silverado” and the iconic “The Big Chill.”

That’s when he was bonafide catnip for the ladies, a movie star as well as a grounded, gifted, talented actor. “I was scared to death on “Sophie’s Choice,” he said. “But Meryl was so generous. She said don’t be intimidated. Improve. Don’t be scared to throw me around.”

Kline got an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the cultish “A Fish Called Wanda.”

Kline these days seems to lead the most normal of lives, married to actress Phoebe Cates for over 20 years with a grown son, Owen Joseph Kline, who had a major role in “The Squid and the Whale.” “Time Magazine called it one the best performances of the year and he was a teenager. But he said he didn’t care to become an actor. Can you believe it?”

He always comes back to Shakespeare, to the parts that are big and scary, including his embrace of Cyrano, which is French, but still big and scary.

When Kline, still boyishly and elegantly handsome, walked into the room, a woman in front of me whispered: “His hair is white.”

Gary Tischler • December 7, 2011

I got a confession to make.

I’m a huge fan of the long-running CBS crime show “CSI” (for “Crime Scene Investigation”), the pioneering (first seen in October 2000) series set in Las Vegas, which spawned “CSI: Miami” and “CSI: New York.” I’ve always watched the original, mainly because I figured anything with Bill Peterson in it couldn’t be all bad, it had a cool theme song by The Who and it was set in Las Vegas.
Turns out that Robert David Hall is a big fan, too. The actor who has played Doctor Al Robbins, the chief medical examiner and king of the morgue on the show talks a little like a fan about the show, not even close to getting tired of the part, or the show, which has undergone numerous cast changes, top to bottom, over the years.

As these things often happen, he looks just like Doc Robbins, casually dressed, in a room at the Marriott in Woodley Park. There’s the doc’s characteristic white beard, the shiny top, compelling blue eyes, making him look younger than the 65 years he carries well. There’s a walking stick lying on the floor by the table we’re sitting at, the only immediate evidence that he’s also an actor with disabilities. In 1978, Hall, at the age of 30, lost both his legs and suffered major burns when his car was struck and crushed by a tractor trailer.

The good — and gruff, dark-humor loving, eccentric and not entirely PC—Doctor Robbins is also disabled and walks with the aid of a crutch and uses prosthetics, like Hall. Sometimes, Robbins has been seen in the show using a crutch like an air guitar and even singing with Bill Peterson, the original star of the show who played Grissom.

All of this, of course, speaks to his presence in Washington, a place he’s pretty familiar with. This time, he’s here as one of the recipients of the 25th Anniversary Victory Awards, given by the National Rehabilitation Hospital to individuals “who best exemplify exceptional strength and courage in the face of physical adversity.” He was among five honorees that include country singer Mickey Gilley, U.S. snowboarding champion Kevin Pearce, opera star Marqita Lister and NRH founder Edward Eckenhoff.
Hall has been a tireless advocate for job equality and his fellow actors with disability. As he says, “If you support diversity and thinks shows should give a portrayal of what America truly looks like, then performers with disabilities must be included in the equation. People have been very good at being politically correct. But there has been an assumption that disabled actors could slow down production, can’t do this or that, or that people won’t want to see them on screen.”

Hall, of course, goes beyond that. He’s visited Walter Reed Hospital many times and talked with veterans of America’s Middle Eastern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who have suffered disproportionately with loss of limb wounds.

“I don’t try to preach or tell them what to do,” he said. “What you’re there for as far as I’m concerned is to listen. And I think that’s what they want more than anything. They can see I know what it’s like. They’re not moping. And all I can say is that they will get over it, working every day, if they don’t give in to despair, if they have hope.”

Honored by the award, he’s also a little uncomfortable with the nation of “being some kind of brave and courageous hero.”

“I don’t see myself that way,” he said. “It’s a process. I like to think in all that time I’ve moved on quite a bit. Not entirely. Nobody does.”

“But what I am is Irish and that makes me stubborn. So, I’d say I’m stubborn and tough — not in a tough-guy sense, but hard and persistent, yeah, that’s okay. I got from my father and his father, Naval Academy guys.

He’s not a dweller on the past. What he is — and you sense this just walking into the room — is a guy looking for the next thing, the next word, the challenge. His eyes, a hypnotic blue, are alert-looking, interested and curious. He’s a talker, a story-teller. “Do something you’re afraid to do,” he said. “Accept challenges. Do something new, risky.”

“You know, you go to certain places from where you’re at, you know going to your job or the store, that kind of thing,” he says. “It drives my wife nuts. I don’t like routines, so I go a different way every time.”

Hall wanted to be a musician—“I played in bands, rock and roll folk.” He just cut an album. He has a voice made for acting, and for radio, and certainly music. If you don’t believe it, check out the YouTube clip from a “CSI” show in which Grissom and Robbins are cutting up a body and singing, and Hall sings the cause of death. It’s funny, but the voice carries and is grand, and could maybe wake the dead.

“CSI,” you can tell, has been a gift for him. He’s worked with everyone, those who starred and left, and those who stayed. No bad words here from him, not even about the other “CSI” shows. “You can say that, I won’t stop you,” he said. “I can’t. But we’re very competitive about status.”

“I got to be a regular halfway through the first season,” Hall said. “You know you’re doing good there when your face is on the opening credits.”

His character is kind of crotchety, off the wall, authoritative and funny. “I modeled him after my dad a little and a track coach in high school,” he said. “My dad was, well, okay, tough. Sometimes, I thought he was even mean. But I always knew he loved us, all of us. He just didn’t know how to do that touchy feely stuff.”

“You know, I’ve always got sort of back story in mind for the doctor,” he says. “It doesn’t matter to anybody. But on the Dec. 14 episode, just so you know, he’s going to take center stage. You’re going to meet the wife Judy (Wendy Drewson), and there’s a body at his house and a CSI investigation.”
It’s not hard to imagine Hall at the center of one or many of “CSI” episodes; what’s hard to imagine is this CSI without Hall.

“You know I look at days in terms of percentages, starting with 100 percent,” he said. “Today, it started out 100 percent because our plane landed safely and my wife is scared of flying. I got some aches and pains during the day, so it dipped a little but that’s all right. I like talking to people. It goes up.” [gallery ids="100416,113417" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • November 29, 2011

Twenty five years ago, an unlikely phenomenon and juggernaut burst on the Broadway musical scene. It had a huge set including a giant barricade from which young revolutionaries battled the powers that be in a sort of Occupy Paris spectacle. It was based on a classic novel by Victor Hugo, it had enough death scenes to make Dickens weep, it had a brave and saintly hero named Jean Valjean and a relentless pursuer named Javert and it ran just about forever, unstoppable in spite of some critics who sniffed sentimentality in the air.

It was called “Les Miserables,” a big three-hour-plus musical and spectacle with an operatic score and plot, a Cameron MacIntosh production with music by Claude-Michel Schonberg and a book by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel.

Complete with a logo of a revolutionary waif, the show actually made its American and pre-Broadway debut at the Kennedy Center and it was a huge smash for all concerned, sparking perpetual U.S. and world tours and an amazing Broadway run.

And now it’s back in a 25th-Anniversary production that’s revved up, half an hour shorter, kinetic, energetic and replete with a youngish cast, some of whose members were likely not born when “Les Mis” first exploded on the scene.

For the younger members of the cast who play the parts of the dashing revolutionary leader Enjolras, the tragic Fantine, the student Marius, Cosette and Eponine, “Les Mis” may be a legend, but it will also be as fresh as “Spiderman” in terms of size and impact.

But for Richard Vida, a born-to-be-on-Broadway performer if there ever was one, “Les Mis” is a dream come true—again.

Vida, who started dancing and performing when he was still a kid, always wanted to be on Broadway and in musicals. And he’s got one of the juiciest parts in “Les Miserables,” that of Thenardier, the disreputably opportunistic, shameless landlord, gang leader and party crasher of the show.

“God yes, he’s vile, he’s disgusting, he’s a terrible human being,” Vida said in a phone interview. “That of course is what makes him a wonderful character to play, and I’ve played him before, but he never gets old. He’s a survivor—master of the house indeed, and when he’s on he tends to steal the show. You can’t help but be fascinated by him.”

“Les Miserables” arrives just in time to add a little musical flavor to the current goings-on in Washington and all over the city. Revolution is once again in the air as tent cities full of people with grievances sprout up everywhere, modern-day barricades as rebukes to the contemporary power structures.

“I think it’s all very fresh,” Vida said. “The digitalized backgrounds make for a very electric set, much different than before. It all moves a lot faster.”

“I do think I provide a little bridge for some of the younger people in the cast,” Vida, who is in his forties, said. “They don’t haves the context of the show’s history and why it had such an impact at the time. But we’re all family in this production—everybody helps everybody out. I really am enjoying this. You had that feeling at the curtain call that we had done it once again.”

Vida played Thenardier in the 1990s both as an understudy and in performance for a time on Broadway so he’s thoroughly familiar and steeped in “Les Mis” lore. “I was also very much aware of it when it first came to Broadway, it was a show everyone was talking about,” he said.

“I’m back at the Kennedy Center,” he said. “I was here with a revival of “Forty Second Street,” the one that had Dolores Gray in it.”

“I never wanted to be anything else except to be performing on Broadway, in theater, in musicals,” Vida said. “

Vida is used to the vagaries of the business—“I’ve always been performing, and you do all kinds of things—the perennial ‘Law and Order’ parts, which all actors in New York miss tremendously, voiceovers, shows that succeed, and shows that don’t.”

One of those that didn’t was a fairly recent mounting of “The Best Little Whore House Goes Public,” a sequel to “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” It didn’t go very public. “It ran for 11 performances,” he said. A very original and interesting show called “The Drowsy Chaperone,” which has not been seen in the Washington area, was very successful. “It was very unique; a kind of musical-within-a-play and it did very well.”

More than likely, the 25th anniversary production of “Les Miserables” did and will do very well. For Vida, he’ll remain the master of the house, the beggar at the feast and what a feast it is.

(You still have through this weekend to try and catch the 25th anniversary production at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House.)
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Gary Tischler • November 28, 2011

There’s a whole bunch of reasons why “Jersey Boys,” the show biz bio-musical of one of the most successful pop-rock groups ever, is still running strong on the road after opening on Broadway in 2005.

For one thing, as non-stop entertainment, the show just plain delivers, unless you listen to nothing but chamber music and prefer your drama to be flavored by Ionesco. You have to have a heart of stone not to be affected by the tale of the Four Seasons, a pop-rock group fronted by rangy singer Frankie Valli who churned out hit after memorable hit in the 1960s and beyond. Give a listen to “Sherri,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Oh What a Night,” “Walk like a Man” and two incomparable love songs “My Eyes Adore You” and “Can’t Take My Eyes off You,” among dozens of other hits.

If the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys were the dominant groups of the period of the mid-sixties through early seventies, Frankie and the boys were right behind them if not right up there with them. And they had their own special flavor, and their own story to tell, and it was a story about the boys from the neighborhood, specifically urban and suburban New Jersey, where the mob and the church held sway as role figures.

New Jersey and the mob, wise guys, priests and lounge singers, are of course strong in the imagination of the American public from the films of Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppolla, to “The Sopranos,” to the current “Boardwalk Empire” and, God help us, to the annals of Snookie and The Situation.

“Jersey Boys” is almost a classic rags-jail-time-to-riches story of the kind Hollywood used to deliver routinely, starting off with the founder and eventual destroyer of the group Tommy DiVito (a sharp turn by John Gardiner), who, between jail stints, stubbornly kept trying to put together a group that would take him and his friends out of the neighborhood.

That didn’t happen until he found the angel-voiced Frankie Castelluccio, soon to become Frankie Valli (not with a y), and then later, Bob Gaudio, a teenaged one-hit wonder composer (“Who Wears Short Shorts?”), who would provide the group with all of its string of hits.

Those hits were not generic rock and roll songs in the strictest sense of the word: they were pop songs created at a very high level, which is probably why you can see so many mouths lip-synching, whispering the lyrics in the audience. The songs have staying power every bit as strong as pop ballads from the Great American Songbook.

The music and the storybook merge together in this show which has a snazzy but sparse set, authentic clothes and tough talk from the era(s) it covers. You hear doo-wop music from the early sixties of the kind practiced by rock-star-wannabes, you hear a girl’s group called the Angels sing the thoroughly familiar “My Boyfriend’s Back,” but mostly you hear the playbook of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

And this group, the guys on stage at the National Theater, give off a vivid illusion of at least sounding maybe better than the originals, at least if all you know of the originals in performance mode are the scratchy offerings on YouTube. As rock and rollers, the Seasons are no Stones or even Beatles, although the guitar playing every now and then breaks off into some wild riffs. What Valli and Guido, the true creative forces behind the group, created was a unique sound, pitched by Valli’s high, high and higher notes, and then pulled together into harmonies that sweep over the audience like the kind of surf the Beach Boys rode in on.

Valli, in this show as well as in previous visits to D.C., is performed by Joseph Leo Bwarie – diminutive, with big, pitch-dark eyes and a voice to match Valli’s as well as a tangible stage presence as an actor. He doesn’t have Valli’s harder, masculine, handsome look but you could see why girls might swoon and want to mother and smother him. Those high notes, sweeping out of nowhere, put the soprano in “The Sopranos.”

The group’s story was of course full of strife, drama, hysterics, betrayals and jealousy, like any normal marriage of four guys with egos and talent. DiVito, never far from the wise guys, runs up a huge gambling debt (not to mention a tax lien), which Valli and the group decides to cover. Marriages fail, and Valli loses his talented daughter to drug addiction and overdose at 22. Things happen, and the fact that these guys are from Jersey, which is not quite heartland America but full of tough guys, tough love and heart, makes the show as affecting as the music alone.

At one point, one wise guy asks the guy holding the gambling debt, “Why aren’t these guys dead yet?” He says, “Well, we really like their music.”

Me too. And so will you.

(“Jersey Boys” runs at the National Theater through Jan. 7, 2012.)

Gary Tischler • November 21, 2011

Culturally speaking, Robert Aubry Davis is big.

If this city ever appointed a minister of culture, someone who represents what it is to be a Washingtonian to the world, Davis would be perfect for the job. He’s already been doing it, unofficially but regularly, for decades.

Generous to a fault with his voluminous knowledge about all things cultural, be it medieval lutes, lines from the poetry of John Keats, or folk music both modern and anonymous, Davis is the cultural promoter par excellence. The longer he lives, the more he knows and does, and the Washington cultural scene is all the better for it. Of course, there are some people, having just been exposed to a flood of Davis erudition, that walk away exhausted.

Somewhere, sometime, if you’ve been around long enough, you’ve heard the name Robert Aubry Davis. Maybe you’ve heard him on “Symphony Hall “and “Pops,” the classical channels on Sirius XM. He’s also program director for the folk channel “The Village.” He produces and hosts “Millennium of Music,” now in its 33rd year on public radio. For the past 26 years, he has been the erudite and personable host of “Around Town,” a forum of Washington area critics discussing all manners of local art on WETA. You can also find him cajoling, guilt tripping, and congenially prodding for donations at WETA’s pledge drives.

His manner is at once imperious but outgoing, partly because he is a large man who speaks English with an unquiet voice that elongates vowels and nails consonants with precision. What you’re really getting is his enthusiasms, his expertise, and his ravenous hunger to explain and learn at the same time. At some point, he just bowls you over.

As an arts writer, I do a little cultural stuff myself, and one thing I know is that wherever I go, more often than not Davis is there too. Whether it’s an exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Art, opening night at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the opera or a 12th century lute performance, David is there.

He’s also a very brave man, by my way of thinking. Drop by Shirlington sometime during the run of Signature Theater’s holiday production of the musical version of John Waters’ “Hairspray” (Nov. 21 – Jan. 29), and Davis will be there. But you might have trouble recognizing him.

Davis is playing Edna Turnblad, the large, nervous, overly protective mother of the hit Broadway musical, which won eight Tony’s in 2003.

“I thought Robert would be perfect for the part,” said Signature Artistic Director and founder Eric Schaeffer. “He has a personality, he has charisma, everybody knows him, it’s a great part—I think that would appeal to him.”

In an interview with BroadwayWorld.com announcing the casting, Davis said, in true form, “Eric Schaeffer, has, like a tomb raider of old, decided to wake the sleeping thespian long buried in my breast.”

“To tell you the truth, I thought, No,” he said. “I haven’t been on stage since, I don’t know, college—which was a long time ago. I thought this was crazy. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could do this. But still, starting with rehearsal, waiting to go on, doing the day-to-day work, it’s a little frightening.

“It confirms what I already knew but not so viscerally,” he said. “Something like this, a theater piece itself, is hard, hard work. It’s unbelievably hard. It reconfirms my respect for everyone involved in theater and for the group of people who are doing this with me and helping me. They’ve been incredible. And I am enjoying myself.”

“Hairspray,” for the uninitiated, is a story that originated from the eccentric mind of world renowned filmmaker John Waters, a Baltimore native, who made a movie version that served as the source material for the ensuing musical. It’s about a spunky, plus-size Baltimore teenager named Tracy Turnblad who wins a spot on “The Corny Collins Show,” a local teen dance show a la American Bandstand. But as the promo suggests: “Can a plus-size trendsetter in dance and fashion vanquish the program’s reigning princess, win the heart of heartthrob Link Larkin and integrate a television show without denting her ‘do’?”

And can Tracy’s mother Edna overcome her own shyness and insecurity—she hardly ever goes outside—and join her daughter in the spotlight?

And there’s one more thing. Edna is written to be played by a man. And in this case, Davis is that man.

Davis will be walking in the high heeled footsteps of some formidable men: the late, acclaimed drag queen Divine from Waters’ original cult film, the gravelly-voiced Harvey Fierstein, and superstar John Travolta, who played Edna in the film version of the musical.

“But I didn’t just want to go up there and pretend to be a woman in big clothes,” Davis said. “I think Edna is a wonderfully maternal person who’s always had trouble with being comfortable in her own skin, with her size, in ways that her daughter doesn’t. I can relate to that. I’m a big person—tall, extra weight—and everybody who’s extra-large or heavy always has to find a way to deal with that… It’s not as difficult for men, but our culture has thin as a kind of ideal for women. So I looked at the maternal side for one thing. My wife and I have two children, and that lets me get a little into my maternal side, which is pretty strong. My son says that he sometimes thinks he has two mothers.”

Of course, this being Robert Aubry Davis, it won’t be Edna 24-7. He will still provide the narration for “A Celtic Christmas” at Dumbarton Methodist Church in Georgetown, (Dec. 3, 4, 10 and 11) as he has for several decades. As music goes, it’s not quite so rarefied as the Gregorian chants that he plays on his radio program, but it’s another display of his passion for old music.

Edna, on the other hand, is a display of something else entirely: a willingness to take on a challenge with gusto and a boundless curiosity for the human heart on display. If experience is knowledge, than Robert Aubry Davis is learning something new under Edna’s makeup, and as is his wont, he’s sharing it with us.

For more information visit Signature-Theatre.org.
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Gary Tischler •

In Washington, we already have a year-round treasure trove of performance venues and offerings.

But you ain’t seen nothing yet. The Christmas holidays prove it, as the D.C. area performance atmosphere becomes downright intense, it’s a true trove of riches.

The holidays are a time for Washington performing arts venues—from the large-scale Kennedy Center or Music Center at Strathmore, to theaters, to smaller arts centers like the Atlas and H Street Playhouse, as well as cultural centers, embassies and churches – to concentrate on serving up Christmas-themed music, plays, songs and dances. We will be up to our mistletoes in Nutcrackers, Scrooges, sugarplum fairies, Christmas carols, Christmas music, Santas and reindeers.

But the holidays are also a time for many area arts venues to serve up something festive and family oriented, big and splashy and entertaining, which may have very little to do with Christmas per se, except for the simple fact that during the holidays, people like to be entertained, lavishly and simply, with heart and feeling.

And even in the holidays, there will always be performances for the cerebral, the agnostic, and perhaps a simmering Scrooge or two among us. Those also will be served by our theaters, as they do the year round.

Herewith, an eclectic preview of what to watch for, relish, anticipate and take a chance on during these holiday days and nights.

IT’S SHOWTIME

‘The Nutcracker’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’

This year, the American Ballet Theater and Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie bring their own version of “The Nutcracker” to the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, with new choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, with sets by Richard Hudson of “The Lion King” fame, a cast of 100 dancers and a live orchestra. Dec. 8 through 11.

Septime Webre will stage his and the Washington Ballet’s version of “The Nutcracker” at the Warner Theater. This production will also have the Washington Ballet’s Nutcracker Orchestra. Dec. 1 through 24. Previews at the THEARC Theater in Southeast D.C. Nov. 25 through 27.

There’s no cast of hundreds in the Puppet Company Playhouse production of “The Nutcracker” but there’s plenty of imagination. Nov. 25 through Dec. 31. Check the Puppet Company’s website for more information at ThePuppetcop.org.

The Ford Theater’s production of “A Christmas Carol” is an adaptation by Michael Wilson and is directed by Michael Baron. Edward Gero, one of the great mainstays in the firmament of Washington stage stars returns as Scrooge. For more information, go to Fordstheatre.org/event/2011-christmas-carol. Nov. 18 through Dec. 13.

‘Black Nativity’

A most welcome event is the Theater Alliance’s production of Stephawn Stephens and Langston Hughes’ “Black Nativity,” a re-telling of the Nativity from an African American perspective, which features gospel music, griot-style storytelling and dance at the H Street Playhouse. Dec. 3 through 31.

‘’Twas the Night before Christmas’

Adventure Theater, on its 60th anniversary, is presenting the world premiere of Ken Ludwig’s “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” “Night” is directed by former Round House Artistic Director Jerry Whiddon and stars Gary Sloan. The artistic director of Adventure Theater is Michal Bobbitt. Located at Glen Echo Park. Nov. 18 through Jan. 2.

‘The Santaland Diaries’

The Shop at Fort Fringe, headquarters for the Fringe Festival turns very Christmasy with the staging of “The Santaland Diaries” by David Sedaris, adapted by Joe Mantello, performed by Joe Brack and directed by Matty Griffiths. It’s the tale of Christmas that’s elf-centered and it’s considered a cult classic. Dec. 1 through 24.

FA LA LA LA LA: THE BEST OF THE HOLIDAY MUSIC EVENTS

The Kennedy Center

The National Symphony Orchestra enters the holiday with a classic classical program under the baton of NSO conductor Christoph Eschenbach, with Midori on violin playing Britten’s Violin Concerto at the Concert Hall. Dec. 1 through 3. There’s also the traditional NSO’s performance of Handel’s Messiah. Dec. 15. The annual Messiah Sing Along, which is free and held in front of the Concert Hall takes place Dec. 23. The line begins at 6 p.m. Singing begins at 8 p.m.

Performances at the Millennium Stage include the 36th Annual Merry Tuba Christmas Dec. 7; a performance of Christmas music by local stars Last Train Home Dec. 20; Holiday Vaudeville Dec. 29 and 30; and the All-Star Christmas Day Jazz Jam.

The NSO Pops Orchestra accompanied by the Canadian Tenors in “A Perfect Gift.” Dec. 8 through 11.

CHRISTMAS ALL OVER THE D.C.

The Music Center at Strathmore features a number of Christmas musical events. Skaggs Family Christmas on Dec. 1 features country and bluegrass performer Ricky Skaggs and his extended family. The 5 Browns Holiday Show featuring the renowned piano group will be featured Dec. 2.

The Embassy Series gets a Christmas feel for its second “A Luxembourg Christmas” at the Embassy of Luxembourg in a gala night of music performed by the Quattro Corde String Quartet. Call 202-625-2361 for information or tickets. Dec. 1 through 3.

The Dumbarton Concerts series celebrates the season with “A Celtic Christmas” with The Linn Barnes and Allison Hampton Celtic Consort. Readings by Robert Aubry Davis Dec. 3 and 4 at 4 pm, Dec. 10 at 4 and 8 p.m. and Dec. 11 at 4 p.m. at Dumbarton Church.

The Folger Consort celebrates the holidays at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre with performances of “O Magnum Mysterium,” which features Christmas music from 16th Century Spain. Dec. 9 through 18.

The Christmas Revels, one of Washington’s most popular annual holiday events, will present “Andalusion Treasures,” a brave performance celebration of the fountainhead of tolerance that existed in Andalusia in Spain 1,000 years ago. Guest artists Trio Sefardi and Layali El Andalus will celebrate Arab-Andalusian and Sephardic music. “Andalusian Treasures” will be performed with a cast of 75 Dec. 3 through 4 and 9 through 11 at the George Washington University Auditorium.

The Washington Bach Consort will perform “Christmas in Leipzig” at the National Presbyterian Church Dec. 4 at 3 p.m. Included is a Bach Orchestral Suite and Cantata, and works by Kuhnau and Telemann.
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